By Gilbert Goh Keow Wah

I REFER to the many letters on the difficulty of learning the Chinese language.

I recently completed my work assignment in China and many friends in Singapore have detected that my Mandarin has improved greatly in just six months.

I told them that this is inevitable as I have to use the language daily.

When I first arrived in China last November, my Mandarin was pretty rusty and, when ordering food, I had to point at the menu. It was a piteous situation which I was determined to change.

I used a dictionary regularly, especially when I needed to send text messages to my peers in Chinese.

I can now proudly say that I can SMS in Chinese efficiently. Of course, if it gets too difficult, I would pick up the phone and talk instead.

Reading the newspapers is still a big struggle although I can read about 30 per cent of the content.

As for speaking the language, I started by using simple phrases. Now, all the forgotten bits of the Chinese vocabulary that had been "stored away" due to lack of usage are coming back to me, and I have mastered them with frequent practice.

I can now converse with the people of China with the confidence that they would understand me. Of course, the fact that I was immersed in a Mandarin-speaking environment helped tremendously.

My six-month stay in China made me realised that the Chinese lessons we had in school were not in vain.

For most people, the foundation is already there. What they need is some time for them to warm up and get used to the language again.

So the key to not forgetting the Chinese language is to keep using what you already have, and the rest will fall in place naturally.

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