Self-Intro Ziji Jieshao 自己介绍

Having done a blog in Spanish for a class up in New Paltz in July, http://lingopath.blogspot.com/ , I decided, with more than a little trepidation, to do one for Chinese study. Following the Lingopath name (which is also my alter ego name at gmail.com) I've decided to call it Yuyan Kuangren (语言狂人): http://yuyankuangren.blogspot.com/ . Seeing that a blog or wangluo riji 网络日记 is called an internet diary in Chinese, the blog name suggests the title of a Chinese classic, "The Diary of a Madman" (狂人日记) by Lu Xun 鲁迅.

I see that my profile in Spanish written for the other blog comes up here too, which I did not anticipate, but so be it. I hope to share some of the things that I learn along this long journey of trying to learn Chinese, as well as try to make some feeble attempts at writing some things of my own in Chinese.

Although born in the US and raised in a monolingual home, I acquired a strong interest in other languages and cultures from my home environment and from an extensive 11-week international trip taken with other students while still in secondary school. I am currently teaching middle school Spanish and sometimes French, but previously taught German & ESL, as well as Japanese & East Asian studies at the college level, and worked for a dozen years in a Japanese company in Manhattan. I lived in Europe for a half a year and in Japan for five and a half.

Majoring in German as an undergrad, I completed a master's degree at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan in anthropology (mostly linguistics--all classes in Japanese), then another master's degree and all but my dissertation for a Ph. D. at Yale University in cultural and linguistic anthropology (with geographic emphasis on East Asia), and a third master's degree in education at Manhattanville College for NYS certification in ESL and foreign language.

I have had a variety of language learning experiences, but the major portion of my learning a number of languages after German has been on my own. I started my study of Chinese while living in Japan in the 1970s. I listened to a few Japanese TV programs for beginning students of Chinese and acquiring a feeling for the sound system of Chinese. Then, still in Japan, I bought a couple Chinese textbooks put out by the Chinese Foreign Language Press and worked my way through more than the first book on my own.

Although I was able to avoid forgetting everything due to my strong knowledge of the Japanese use of Chinese characters and some study of Korean on my own and at Yale, my study of Chinese went no further than a very infrequent glance at one of my books or a dictionary until about 2 and 1/2 years ago. At that time a few people from an adult ed Chinese class at Westchester Community College began to come once a month to the Westchester Language Club (more at posting for Sept. 18, 2007), in which I had been a member since 1991. Although I was unable to join the actual class until January this year due to my singing in a choral group on the evening of the class, I found that my knowledge was compatible with members of the class, and began to meet with them when I could for some summer study sessions, as well as at language club.

Since beginning to teach foreign language at the middle school level only five years ago, I have had to spend a lot of time preparing lessons and materials, as well as trying to take some classes for more credits, still trying to squeeze in singing with two or three groups, language club, and the on again off again study of Russian on my own. So, I dropped the Russian in favor of Chinese, and more recently dropped a singing group, making it possible to join the class, but I still wish I had more time to study Chinese. The class, which I believe is beginning its 6th year this fall, has been relabled from intermediate to advanced, although as busy adults in a non-credit evening class, I think we need more work to be worthy of the label, despite the herculean efforts of our teacher. As a former teacher of college Japanese, I know only too well the problem of how difficult it can be to help students to move from a basic or intermediate level of knowedge to a more advanced level, particularly when the students have only a limited amount of time to devote to it and are not living in a culture where the language is widely spoken.

After having spent a month this summer at SUNY New Paltz in immersion classes of Spanish, where I started a blog in Spanish, I felt that a blog for Chinese could help me focus more, so I could build up momentum, as well as allow me to share my efforts and things I have learned.