Vorvayne Learns Chinese, A Ramble

 So I'm learning Chinese. Mandarin if you're getting specific, which people rarely are in Chinese; 汉语/han4yu3 isn't super commonly used. I'm sure speakers of minority Chinese dialects have opinions about that.

Anyway I end up thinking a lot about the question "Can I read Chinese (yet)?" If you're feeling strict and impatient, the answer is "no". No, I couldn't just pick up a newspaper and read it fluently, dictionary-less. But like, what's the standard here? How many times am I allowed to consult pleco and still be able to say I can read? Do I get tested on a random bit of text or something in a subject area I'm familiar with?

Okay, some context: there are are 6 HSK levels*. I've been hovering at ~HSK4 - that is, the one *before* the one that actually gets you a useful  certificate, the HSK5 - for maybe 6 months, ish. Don't quote me on that I'm rubbish at time. I've got most of the HSK6 grammar, though, because grammar is vital for understanding, while you can always look up words. Grammar is the reason you sometimes look up words and still don't have a clue what the sentence means. Not quite HSK4 on the vocab, because much of the HSK4 vocab is the kind of vocab I can only be persuaded to care about if it's in a piece of queer media. There are words about parking and business I barely have any use for in English: I'm a civil servant and I can't drive. 

Meanwhile I know a *bunch* of wuxia related words, a bunch of official titles, and an unexpected amount of 文言文/wen2yan2wen2/classical chinese for a learner. Look, learning languages takes years, and you gotta follow your bliss. *Eventually* you come back around to caring about the words for, like, 'window' and 'stack (of books)', which I know entirely thanks to a modern AU mdzs fanfic in Chinese. The writer has lxc call university student lwj "A-Zhan" which makes my heart do a soft thing. 

I had to look up a bunch of words, though, so did I read it or did I study it? Sometimes I think, anyone can look up a bunch of words, it isn't hard. Other times I think: No, but just because you can look up the words doesn't mean you can parse the sentences. Can I read SVSSS? Chapter 1: absolutely not. The succubus extra: actually, yes? I understand now why it's common practise for bilingual-but-better-at-English-reading folks often seem to pick up a novel in English then switch to the original 5 chapters in. It gets easier when they've finished the exposition.

Just something I'm thinking about when I should be doing my flashcards. Or was, when I originally wrote this post: I'm caught up on my flashcards now, and feeling better about the whole thing, and also going to make a few bilingual documents for myself. So I can slide gently into reading novels in Chinese.