In Malaysia, language is often politicised, and among the Chinese diaspora, it is no different. Malaysian Chinese folks are divided into “English-educated*” and “Chinese-educated” groups.

(* English-educated can also mean that you went to a Malaysian national school, where the main language medium is Bahasa Malaysia. Many urban schools, however, have some classes in English. It’s confusing, I know, and it confuses us Malaysians too because they keep changing which subjects will be taught in English. Yes, this is why many Malaysians, especially if they are lucky enough to be in a multicultural school that has both English and Malay classes end up being multilingual. However, this is not always the case anymore, with some graduates getting into the workplace only knowing how to speak Malay or Mandarin only. I can write an essay about this lol.)

My parents were English-educated, meaning they went to English medium schools, so they learned everything in English. As a result, they only spoke English and Hokkien with me.

I’m an outlier in my family; I’m the only one who can speak and understand Mandarin and Hokkien (Penang, Northern version). My siblings can’t speak a jot of Mandarin and only a little bit of Hokkien.

Two reasons for this:

One, I’m highly motivated to learn Mandarin due to my interest in Chinese dramas and literature.

Two, an accident of geography: I was raised for a year in Penang with my grandma speaking to me exclusively in Hokkien. Then, my dad had to move to Johor Baru for work, and I spent my primary school years learning Mandarin from my friends. (The most prevalent Chinese dialect in the south of Malaysia.)

When I was 12, my family moved to Kuala Lumpur where the primary Chinese dialect was Cantonese. I gave up learning Cantonese because I was already struggling with Mandarin and Hokkien and adding another language felt overwhelming! Also, I saw no need to as we lived in an area where most people were speaking Penang Hokkien.

Still, as a “heritage” Mandarin speaker, I have some advantages.

One, I got the tones mostly down – so much so that my Shanghainese Chinese teacher remarked that I must’ve learned Mandarin when I was a kid (correct!). On top of that, I speak another tonal language – Hokkien, which has eight tones compared to Mandarin’s four tones. So, unlike English native speakers trying to learn Mandarin, the challenges of mastering a tonal language is lower for me.

However, my Mandarin skills are uneven:
Reading – HSK* 0.5 😅
Listening – Between HSK 4 and 5
Speaking – HSK 2

*HSK stands for Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, the Chinese proficiency test. I don’t plan to take the exam as I don’t plan to work in China, but it’s a good barometer to see where your proficiency is at.

My uneven and under-developed Mandarin fluency been a decades-long frustration for me. I know I can improve my Mandarin, but I didn’t have the right strategy or motivation to do so. Life does get in the way.

Why I’m motivated to learn now

In 2023, my motivation to learn Mandarin increased ten fold as I started to actively watch Chinese dramas again after a long break.

I quit Chinese dramas around the 2005 or so because it was difficult to access Chinese dramas in Mandarin. Due to Hong Kong’s TVB’s popularity then, most Chinese dramas were in Cantonese with Chinese subtitles. As I can’t read Chinese nor understand Cantonese, it became nigh impossible for me to follow the shows. So, I sadly quit, eventhough I longed to watch my wuxia dramas so much.

I returned to watching CDramas around 2015 or so when more Chinese dramas (especially those with English subs) became available on streaming platforms.

The more I watched, the more frustrated I became. If I watched Chinese dramas set in modern times, I could understand up to 70% of what was said, but it’s often the gist of what was said rather than word for word.

On top of that, I badly wanted to read the webnovels that many of these shows were based on and my reading level is zilch. As much as I want to read them, I know I’m years away from fluently reading even the most basic one, so I’m going to give myself a break.

Once upon a time, I took proper HSK classes. However, I soon became bored because HSK 1 was too basic for me and on top of that, I was learning to pass the exam rather than improve my fluency. I realised as a person with some basic foundation in Mandarin, I needed a different approach.

I tend to also be too ambitious with my goals, so I’m trying to take a more methodical and kinder approach to learning Mandarin this time around. So, I won’t try improve everything at once but improve on the area I want to improve the most.

As my aim is to watch Chinese dramas without subtitles, 2024’s goal is to focus on improving my vocabulary and listening skills and to bump it solidly to HSK 5. (Secretly, I hope to achieve HSK 6 level, but I’m trying to be realistic with myself.)

Bonus: Improve reading skills up to HSK 1.

My strategy to improve my listening skills

1. Go through HSK 1-5 vocabulary and commonly Mandarin used words lists. There are currently gaps in my vocabulary, and I want to plug the gaps by looking through the HSK 1 to 5 vocabulary list and the 1000 most common Mandarin words.
2. Identify words I’m not familiar with and enter them into my flashcards. I currently use Brainscape, though Anki appears to be far more popular. May explore that later.
3. Review and revise every day for at least 10 minutes at a time.
4. Continue to watch Chinese dramas to “soak in” the language and record words I am curious about into flashcards.
5. Watch China Chinese dramas set in modern times with Chinese subtitles only. Why modern dramas? Unlike historical, wuxia or xianxia genres, modern dramas use everyday Mandarin, so they’re often “easier”. Historical dramas have more “Shakespearean” versions.
6. Watch or listen to Malaysian/Singaporean Youtube or podcasts to “soak it in”. This is because Malaysian and Singaporean Mandarin is different than China’s. Our tones and word usage can be different. I don’t want to end up not understanding Malaysian Mandarin!
7. Listen to Chinesepod and enter unfamiliar words into flashcards to remember them.

Photo by 五玄土 ORIENTO on Unsplash

Next: The tools and courses I’m using to learn Mandarin