[LDBoblo]

My native language is English, and I've dabbled, with various levels of obligation, in Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Latin. Always considered myself inept, and always blamed my rather idiosyncratic short-term memory. Japanese and to a lesser extent Spanish were beaten into me the hardest, so my memory for those is probably the best.

When I was in technical college for Computers/Networking, I decided I wanted to challenge myself by overcoming one of my lifelong weaknesses, rather than relying on my strengths. After some serious contemplation, I came to the conclusion that I should endeavor to study either a difficult language or mathematics. It did not take long to say "[censored] mathematics", so I applied to a university to focus on Chinese and Chinese literature (at the time, I thought Chinese would be hard).

I went through most of the same gimmicky phases a lot of people go through when learning Chinese, such as using flash cards or computer programs. I probably spent more time looking for an "easy way" than I spent studying the stupid language itself. I kept trying to address my selective memory as either some learning disorder, or more commonly as a fault of method, rather than a perfectly natural process in adult language acquisition.

I moved to Taiwan to study very seriously (not some half-assed approach like most people do where they study occasionally and illegally teach English on the side for extra cash). Was put at a serious disadvantage from the beginning (some of my classmates had studied for 8-10 years) and had to really make a fool of myself for the first month or so due to my complete ineptitude at anything more complex than "I like play basketball! Eat food! Do you like dance?", while everyone else was discussing early modern Chinese politics.

Studied a lot. More than was healthy. I tried to find "language partners", but quickly discovered that that was just the popular euphemism for casual sex partners. I held out hope and met over a hundred people who had replied to me (103 women and 3 men IIRC), but in the end did not study or sleep with any of them, and just became bitter on a social level. That bitterness (and corresponding suspicion) still lingers with me even today.

Anyways, after 6-7 weeks, I discovered my Chinese was pretty good overall. I never noticed the improvement before, but it had been there. It's like losing or gaining a lot of weight and not noticing it in the mirror, since you are seeing only tiny increments.

I had given up on flashcards and gimmicky methods, in particular since I didn't have time (usually well over 10 hours of homework per day), and because they were based on low-level passive language development. Granted, if I were vocabulary-oriented, I would have probably used them a bit longer as memory aids, but vocabulary does not language ability decide. I had a lot of material in front of me in the form of essays and speeches and discussions, and I would satisfy the passive grammar with reading and listening, and then active performance with speaking and manipulating sentences that I hadn't already mastered (knowing and mastering are very different of course). I took all my notes in Chinese when I could, and did lots of transcriptions. Forced my brain to avoid word-to-word memorization, but structure/purpose relationships instead so I could create something myself when the same purpose enters my thoughts.

Active language usage does not always mean talking to other people. Due to the amount of studying I had to do, I rarely had time for much of a social life (and certainly didn't want one with other foreigners and the Taiwanese who love them), I probably spent more time talking to trees, rocks, microphones, and the mirror than I did to any real person. Did a lot more good for me as well, since I could reflect much better on mistakes and consider circumlocutions that would more easily accomplish what would otherwise be awkward and unwieldy, without the pressure of another sentient being becoming impatient with my experimentation. I'm sure lots of people thought I was schizophrenic, but that's easy enough to handle. Of course, some human engagement is useful, but can be just as useless on the whole.

I later spent most of my time studying classical Chinese poetry and literature, as well as linguistics (adult language acquisition in particular) and translation. Went back to the USA after a year in Taiwan to finish my university program.

Nowadays, I'm living in Taiwan again, and my Chinese is fine. On the phone, I'm frequently mistaken for Chinese/Taiwanese. I don't think in Chinese (nor do I think in English), I don't dream in Chinese, and I don't fart in Chinese. None of those are real tell-tale signs of language competence. It's hard to see improvement at all for most people, which is why it's so easy to become discouraged at the beginner-intermediate levels.