Get Your Motivation Right

Let's talk about the different motivations behind learning Mandarin

People learn Chinese for a variety of reasons, but you'll only persist with it if you have a strong reason for it. It takes a long time to get fluent, and you'll go through struggle and pain to get there. With no motivation, you'll be mown down in the early stages. Only the passionate and inspired ones make it through.

Psychologists distinguish between two types of motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic:

• extrinisic motivation is when we're inspired to do something because it will get us something else,
• intrinsic motivation is when we're inspired to do something for its own sake

Let's talk about what these look like in the realm of Mandarin learning and which I'd encourage you to cultivate if you want to stick with Chinese for long enough to get good. 

If you're learning Mandarin with extrinsic motivation, it means the language is only a means to a separate end, like a better CV, higher salary, or recognition from others.

Apparently, having Mandarin on your CV doesn't carry the clout it used to. If you were a professional who had a good grasp of Chinese, it put you head and shoulders above others. It also opened up lucrative opportunities overseas.

Not so anymore. Mandarin is less valuable as a professional skill because of declining political and business relations and improved English level among educated Chinese people. 

Whether or not this is true, it's a perfect example of extrinsic motivation. Learn Mandarin to advance your career, and you're not learning it for its own sake. I've seen people on internet forums questioning why anyone would learn to speak Mandarin at a time when it's useless in the business world.

In fact, people often ask me why I'm learning Mandarin, and it's only after I answer that I realise they had assumed I'm learning it not for its own sake, but to improve my CV, or get work with Mandarin-speaking clients, or some other extrinsic reward. They find it hard to understand why I would learn it without such a reward.

On the other hand, intrinsic motivation is when we want to learn Mandarin because we're interested in the language itself. Perhaps we like the sound, or we love Chinese culture, or we've already mastered another Asian language.

In my case, I was (am still am) fascinated by the characters. And I relish intellectual challenges, so once I heard Mandarin was really difficult to learn, it made me doubly keen to take it on. 

Here's the thing: extrinisic motivation is much less reliable than intrinsic motivation. Once your carrot disappears, you'll have nothing left to chase, and you'll swiftly drop Mandarin. Five years later, you'll probably remember very little.

With intrinsic motivation, you continue learning as long as you remain inspired. It comes from within. Nobody can take it from you. It's a fuel that will keep you moving for months and years.

There are some grey areas here, but don't worry about the minutiae: ask yourself if you really enjoy the language for its own sake, or if you're just using it to achieve something else.