If you are an adult living in the Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. area, are studying Mandarin Chinese, or are a native speaker interested in offering support, you are invited to attend this gathering.

What? Mandarin Chinese Meetup: Let’s Play Go Fish, a popular American card game. (Here are the rules.)
Why? To engage in an activity where we speak only Mandarin Chinese in order to foster speaking the language on a meaningful level. For our purposes, “meaningful” is defined as “the ability to speak, listen, write, think, feel, work, present, relate, collaborate, and connect in Mandarin Chinese.”
Why else？To win prizes! The winner of each round will receive a 紅包 hóng bāo red envelope with a gift card inside.
How? For an hour, we enter the Chinese-speaking world and live Mandarin Chinese!
Where? Lobby of 102 Hubbard Street, Blacksburg, Virginia
When? Friday, March 23, 2023, April 7, 2023, 5:15 – 6:15 PM EDT
Cost? None. Attending the meetup is free.
For whom? Adults who are learning Mandarin Chinese and native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. Learners who know a minimum of 200 words can help keep the conversation flowing. Please note: This event is for adults only. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate children.
How do I sign up? Walk-ins are welcome.
How can I track my progress? You are invited to take the HSKlevel before you attend each meetup. You can take the assessment at any time and track your progress over time.
Questions? Please contact Anne Giles.

Participants are asked to make this pledge:

“To optimize the learning of all, I agree to willingly use Mandarin Chinese only for the entirety of the meeting. I understand that interjecting English into the conversation may interfere with the learning of others. I understand that, if I use English once, I will be expected to correct myself immediately. If I persist, I will have broken my agreement.”

(For other examples of language speaking agreements, please see the language pledges from Middlebury College, Princeton, Georgetown and Auburn. Brandeis’s All Language Lunch requires a language pledge. Here is a 2010 presentation on language pledges.)

To prepare for the meetup on Friday, April 7, 2023:

1. Please read these rules in English on how to play Go Fish. A translation of that page in Simplified Characters by italki instructor Frank is provided below.

2. Learn or review the pronunciation of the numbers from 2 to 10 in Mandarin Chinese, plus these words for the names of cards:

尖 jiān ace
K pronounced “K”
圈 quān queen
勾 gōu jack

3. Learn or review the pronunciation of these Go Fish terms.

给我你的_____.
Gěi wǒ nǐ de_____.
Give me your (name of the card).
Example: 给我你的K。
Gěi wǒ nǐ de K.
Give me your kings.

去钓鱼!
Qù diàoyú!
Go fish!

炸弹 zhàdàn
four-of-a-kind; a book of cards

In English, four-of-a-kind is called a “book” of cards. In Chinese, four-of-a-kind is called a “bomb” or “boom,” for example, 4 kings, 4 aces, and so on. Therefore, when playing Go Fish (Qù diàoyú 去钓鱼), four-of-a-kind is termed “炸弹 zhàdàn.” When playing Dòu dìzhǔ 斗地主, four-of-a-kind is also termed “炸弹 zhàdàn.”*

用英语，“book”就是任何4张一样的牌。用中文，”炸弹”就是任何四张一样的牌，比如 4张王，4张A等等。所以，玩去钓鱼的时候，”炸弹”是四张一样的牌。玩斗地主的时候，四张一样的牌也叫“炸弹”。*

4. Imagine yourself playing Go Fish, anticipate words and sentences you might need, look them up, and start practicing!

A tip sheet with other card-related words and terms will be provided at the meeting.

Card decks will also be provided.

What is the format of the meeting?

1. At the start of the meeting, instructions will be given in English.

2. We engage in Mandarin Chinese-only conversation activities in large and small groups.

3. We return to English. To close the meeting, participants are asked to take turns sharing what they observed about their own process and the insights they gained.

*If you are interested in playing, or learning to play, Dòu dìzhǔ 斗地主, and live in the Blacksburg, Virginia area, please contact me. Here is a Wikipedia description of Dòu dìzhǔ, here are the rules, here is a video with three players explaining Dòu dìzhǔ in English , and here is a video with the game explained by a Mandarin Chinese teacher.

Questions? Please contact Anne Giles.

. . . . .

This gathering is part of a larger effort to create synergy and community among local Mandarin Chinese learners and speakers. In particular, this is an attempt to find or create daily, in-person opportunities for adults learning Mandarin Chinese in the Blacksburg, Virginia area to practice speaking, listening, and interacting on a meaningful level.

For more information and for background on the format of the meeting, please see this first post about our Mandarin Chinese Meetup.

. . . . .

Go Fish rules, translated by italki instructor Frank:

“去钓鱼” 是一个很有趣的扑克牌游戏，小孩也觉得有意思喜欢玩。

需要准备什么？
一副52 张的扑克牌。一些牌发出去以后，剩下的牌还要用。

副 measure word for poker card

怎么玩才可以赢？·
谁拿到的炸弹最多，谁就赢了。 炸弹就是四张一样的牌，比如4张 K、4张 A 等等。

怎么看牌的大小？
A是牌点最大的牌，然后是K、 Q、 J、10、 9、 8、 7、 6、 5、 4、 3、 2。
2 是 牌点最小的牌。

牌大小不用看牌的花色，只看牌号，比如两个 3、两个 10 等等。

怎么发牌？

让一个玩家给每个玩家发一张牌。 让大家看到牌号。
牌点最低的玩家是庄家。 庄家洗牌，庄家右边的玩家切牌。

然后，庄家顺时针给每个人一次发一张牌，牌面朝下，不能让其他人看到牌号。
庄家发牌的时候要从他左边的玩家开始。

如果两个或三个人玩，每个人拿七张牌。 如果四五个人玩，每个人拿五张牌。
庄家发完牌把剩下的牌面朝下放在桌子上。

怎么玩？

先从庄家左边的玩家开始，他就是钓鱼的人。他可以和任何一个人说，比如，“Tom, 把你的10给我”，一般是先叫那个人的名字，然后让他把牌交出来，从 A 到 2随便选一个牌号。 如果正在“钓鱼”的玩家想要10，那么他手里必须有一张牌是10。要不然，他不能问别人有没有10。

如果Tom有10，他必须交出他所有的10。
如果Tom没有10，他要说：“去钓鱼！。
和Tom要牌的玩家必须从桌子上剩下的牌里抽一张，然后放在他手里。
抽牌的时候，只能抽最上面的那一张牌。

如果钓鱼的人拿到了一张或者几张他想要的牌，他可以继续和Tom要牌，也可以和另一个人要牌。钓鱼的人可以继续要同一张牌或不同的牌。 只要钓鱼的人成功拿到牌，他就可以继续要。 钓鱼的人从别人手里拿牌的时候，牌号必须让大家看到。 如果钓鱼的人拿到四张一样的牌的最后一张， 他得让大家看到这四张牌的牌号，然后把这四张牌面朝上放在桌子上，然后再玩一次。

如果玩家去钓鱼的时候，一张牌都没有拿到，那就得从他左边的人开始下一轮。

13个炸弹（四张一样的牌）被赢完后，游戏就结束了。 谁的炸弹最多谁就赢了。

在玩这个游戏的时候，如果玩家手里没有牌了，他们可以在轮到他玩的时候从桌子上剩下的牌里抽牌。比如他抽到了5，然后再和别人要牌点是5的牌。

如果桌子上剩下的牌没有了，那他就出局了。

扑克的四种花色：
黑(hēi)桃(táo)♠ spade
红(hóng)桃(táo)♥heart
梅(méi)花(huā)♣club
方(fāng)块(kuài)♦diamond

All content on this page is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical, professional, and/or legal advice. Consult a qualified professional for personalized medical, professional, and legal advice.

If you are an adult living in the Blacksburg, Virginia area, are studying Mandarin Chinese, or are a native speaker interested in offering support, you are invited to attend this gathering.

We have devised activities that give people the opportunity to use the words they know and, thus, experience success, engage pleasantly with others, and enter a Mandarin Chinese-only world for an hour.

What? Mandarin Chinese Meetup
Why? To practice speaking Mandarin Chinese on a meaningful level. For our purposes, “meaningful” is defined as “the ability to speak, listen, write, think, feel, work, present, relate, collaborate, and connect in Mandarin Chinese.”
How? For an hour, we enter the Chinese-speaking world and live Mandarin Chinese!
Where? Lobby of 102 Hubbard Street, Blacksburg, Virginia
When? Friday, February 10, 2023, 5:15 – 6:15 PM
Cost? None. Attending the meetup is free.
For whom? Adults who are learning Mandarin Chinese and native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. Learners who know a minimum of 200 words can help keep the conversation flowing.
How do I sign up? Walk-ins are welcome.
How can I track my progress? You are invited to take the HSKlevel before you attend your first meetup. You can take it again at any time and track your progress over time.

Participants are asked to make this pledge:

“To optimize the learning of all, I agree to willingly use Mandarin Chinese only for the entirety of the meeting. I understand that interjecting English into the conversation may harm the learning of others. I understand that, if I use English once, I will be expected to correct myself immediately. If I persist, I will have broken my agreement.”

(For other examples of language speaking agreements, please see the language pledges from Middlebury College, Princeton, Georgetown and Auburn. Brandeis’s All Language Lunch requires a language pledge. Here is a 2010 presentation on language pledges.)

For the next meetup on Friday, February 10, 2023:

1. Please write an open-ended, conversation-fostering question that invites engagement, belonging, and connection. Examples include these, these, these, and these (podcast in Mandarin Chinese with transcript of questions).
2. Translate your question into simple, plain language, Mandarin Chinese.
3. Bring 6 copies of the question in Chinese characters, pinyin, and English.

To begin, this is the first question we will take turns asking and answering:

如果你要临时纹身一个汉字，你会选择哪个汉字？为什么？
Rúguǒ nǐ yào línshí wénshēn yīgè hànzì, nǐ huì xuǎnzé nǎge hànzì? Wèishéme?
If you were to get a temporary tattoo of a Chinese character, what character would you choose? Why?

What is the format of the meeting?

1. At the start of the meeting, instructions will be given in English.

2. We engage in Mandarin Chinese-only conversation activities in large and small groups.

3. We return to English. To close the meeting, participants are asked to take turns sharing what they observed about their own process and the insights they gained.

In case of inclement weather or public health requirements, the Mandarin Chinese meetup will meet via Zoom. The link will be posted on this page on the day of the meetup.

Please note: The intent of this meetup is to enrich, rather than replace, an individual’s study plan. The meetup is not a class and the facilitator is not an instructor.

Why is speaking only in Mandarin Chinese so hard?!

People experience two levels of vulnerability. Any human conversation requires letting down one’s guard a bit. Then to use a language with which one is not confident or expert? Doubly difficult!

At a conversation table, people experience the vulnerability and complexity of conversations. They ask a question and see if anyone thinks it’s interesting enough to answer. They need to experience – and tolerate – the unease that comes from the uncertainty of not knowing what to say, of not knowing if someone understands what they mean, and if they understand what someone else means. Some attempts at starting conversations succeed. Some fail. Some result in lively sharing. Some don’t. These are the normal challenges with human conversations. To the table, participants bring themselves, their conversational skills – such as they are! – and their second language knowledge and just try!

Here is a guide to being a good conversationalist from Indeed.com.

Context

Adults who begin studying Mandarin Chinese are generally enthusiastic, determined and skilled at learning. They are willing to reorder their lives’ priorities – such as work, relationships, and families – to include time to study Mandarin Chinese in their already-full schedules.

However, case study data about adults and research data about primary and secondary school students suggest that the vast majority of students who begin learning Mandarin Chinese quit.

To attempt to address high attrition rates among adults, I am attempting to derive a replicable protocol for adults to learn Mandarin Chinese optimally and efficiently.

This gathering is an attempt to contribute to the learning of Mandarin Chinese by busy adults. We experiment with a variety of activities designed for efficient learning. To optimize learning, the activities are designed to synthesize and apply the latest research on cognitive neuroscience, memory, language learning, and the psychology of language learning.

Highlights include these findings:

1. Gains from interaction exceed those from solo study.
2. In non-beginners, gains from speaking the target language only exceed those from speaking both the native and the target languages.
3. In adults, when intentionally engaging in the target language, thinking and speaking in the native language is a risk factor for impairing acquisition.

Why is no English spoken?

1. ROI. Our return on investment (ROI) will be greater towards our end in mind from an hour spent speaking only Mandarin Chinese than speaking a mix of our native languages and our target language.
2. Do no harm/altruism. We’re trying to help, not hurt, each other.
3. Global citizenry and humanity. At the conversation table, we are not teachers and students, nor natives and non-natives. We are people speaking Mandarin Chinese together – however inaccurately and imperfectly – to try to communicate and connect with each other, person to person.

“I am neither an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”
– attributed to Socrates by Plutarch

Based on the way the adult human brain works, adult learners of Mandarin Chinese need to attempt to directly use Mandarin Chinese – to “think” in Mandarin Chinese – because translating back and forth between languages hurts retention and mastery. Linguists have a ghastly term for this phenomenon – parasitism! In fact, according to Li and Jeong, 2020, thinking in English, then translating into Mandarin Chinese, is a major risk factor for preventing “adults from acquiring a foreign language to native competence.”

Although the use of a learner’s native language – rather than the language they are trying to learn – may be well-intended, the result may be experienced as othering, an indication of not belonging and a form of exclusion. Our primary goal is to connect!

Finally, we are attempting to simulate total, 100% immersion and gain the “native-like brain processing” benefits it can offer to adults.

Why is speaking only Mandarin Chinese difficult?

When adults search for words in a second language, they experience vulnerability and ambiguity, the latter of which Wang, 2021, defines as “uncertainty of meaning, kinds of complexity, novelty, unexpectedness, or a lack of clear-cut solutions.” Ambiguity naturally creates stress and distress. Our activities are designed to help participants use what they know, thus reducing ambiguity and stress, and increasing ambiguity tolerance.

Interaction with open-ended questions

Since, as Li and Jeong put it, “[L]anguage serves a social communicative purpose and is fundamentally a social behavior,” our meetup will be interactive and we will attempt to ask open-ended questions.

Why ask open-ended questions?

Open-ended questions allow participants to use vocabulary they know, in both questions and answers, rather than struggle to answer specific questions using vocabulary they may not know. Further, open-ended questions invite exploration and discovery. Close-ended questions require only a yes-no or single-word answer. Being asked a series of close-ended questions can sometimes feel threatening, like enduring a test or interrogation, rather than engaging in a social interaction. The adult human brain seems to learn and remember best in a modulated state of safety and calm.

open-ended question
kāifàng shì wèntí
开放式问题

close-ended question (yes or no, this or that)
fēngbì shì wèntí (shì huò fǒu, zhè huò nà)
封闭式问题（是或否，这或那）

Mandarin Chinese learners

• To foster conversational flow, if you wish to ask questions about the language, please wait until after the meetup ends.
• Please follow the 4-second rule. Sì miǎo fǎzé. 四秒法则。A typical pause in speech lasts only about a quarter to half a second. If, within about 4 seconds, you can’t quite find what you want to say, please say:
  Qǐng xià yīgè rén.
  请下一个人.
  Next person, please.

Native speakers

• If you wish to talk about the language or teach someone something about the language, please wait until after the meetup ends.
• To foster conversation, please speak at normal volume and at a standard conversational speech rate, between 130-150 words per minute.

The facilitator fosters a structured, supportive, safe, non-judgmental environment.

“Advice, without invitation, can feel like criticism.”
– David Kessler

This meeting is part of a larger effort to create synergy and community among local Mandarin Chinese learners and speakers. In particular, this is an attempt to find or create daily, in-person opportunities for adults learning Mandarin Chinese in the Blacksburg, Virginia area to practice speaking, listening, and interacting on a meaningful level.

If you have a local, in-person, Mandarin Chinese conversation opportunity to recommend, please contact Anne Giles.

If you study Mandarin Chinese using Mandarin Blueprint and are interested in a Blacksburg, Virginia area meetup, please contact Anne Giles.

Local, additional attempts to use the findings of research to help support adults learning Mandarin Chinese have included a 90-day workshop and a 30-day workshop.

This gathering is co-listed on Meetup.

About the facilitator

Anne Giles, M.A., M.S., L.P.C., is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the Commonwealth of Virginia, U.S.A., and a student of Mandarin Chinese. She has passed the HSK 1 and HSK 2 exams. She took the pre-2021 HSK 3, passed the listening portion, but not the full exam because she cannot yet read characters well enough. She holds master’s degrees in curriculum and instruction and mental health counseling, and a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate. As an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, she studied Chinese history. She took one semester of Mandarin Chinese at the University of Connecticut in 1981. She attended the National Chinese Language Conference virtually in 2021 and 2022. She has taught English at the middle school, high school, and college levels.

Last updated 2/2/2023

All content on this page is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical, professional, and/or legal advice. Consult a qualified professional for personalized medical, professional, and legal advice.