This week saw the birth of #MandarinMonday on Twitter. There are no rules to #MandarinMonday as the idea behind it was to encourage people learning Chinese to use their Mandarin. Just turn up, tweet in Mandarin and use the #MandarinMonday hashtag.
I think it was a success, with 16 people using the #MandarinMonday hashtag. There is an obvious question though and that is to do with accuracy or grammatical correctness. With so many non-native speakers practising together, isn’t there a chance that we will learn bad habits, and not have our mistakes corrected? Undoubtedly this is a possibility but for me there is great benefit in just getting out there and trying to use Mandarin, practice reading and typing Hanzi and just generally having a go. Mistakes can be corrected later.
That said, I must offer a big thankyou to @yanghuawawa (a.k.a @pinyin) for helping us out, correcting our mistakes and offering genuine encouragement.
So, if you are learning Mandarin, jump on Twitter and join us for the next #MandarinMonday. No matter what level you are, you are more than welcome to chime in with the odd 你好 or 谢谢. I for one am looking forward to it.
A big thank you to all those who took part:
@yanghuawawa, @haiyo, @8a22a, @puerhan, @mynameistan, @pinyin, @Joerup, @chopapi, @RavinDave, @hippoman, @excuter, @cdrum, @inzania, @mad_alchemist, @MissXu, and @pdenlinger
Follow the event on Twitter: #MandarinMonday
Cool! I missed it this Monday (still in the midst of my Twitter rejection haze), but I’ll be there next week.
Nice little round up there Bill. Hopefully it will grow next week!
Hi Bill,
In the academic field of second language learning/teaching (applied linguistics), research has looked at the issue that whether fluency or accuracy is more important at any given stage of learning a foreign language. In general, for beginners and intermediate learners (of Mandarin, in this case), finding any opportunity to practice/use Mandarin should be a primary concern even the people you practice with are also non-native speakers. In other words, fluency first. So I would say you guys are doing just great!
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Living in China, do you not have the urge to start #NoMandarinMonady?
Haha, that’s an idea, too. Maybe #NoMandarinTuesday to give everyone a day to recuperate.