Ever since S Shirazi and H Saussy wrote about their experiences learning languages I have been thinking I should write something about studying Chinese, but I felt a certain reluctance to talk about it. There's the jinx factor, of course. But more than that, I think, as the daughter of Chinese immigrants I felt guilty and false for not already being able to speak the language. Part of me is still angry — at my parents and myself — for not having learned when I was young. Being able to speak Chinese with anything but perfect confidence feels like a failure, and if I openly study the language my audience is not only anonymous Chinese people, fellow students, and my teachers, but the dozens of relatives who have been making fun of me for butchering cuss words and mah jhong terms for the past few decades, and who speak, for the most part, at least two dialects. So I've been studying surreptitiously.

I needed to study Korean first. Getting to know my husband's culture and language was safer; not being Korean I felt free to stumble and fail and claim impunity. I needed to take the step of learning Korea and Korean before feeling confident enough to take on China and Chinese. Learning Chinese here in Korea is harder in the sense that I get all mixed up going from one foreign language to another, but it is a constant reminder that I have done this before and I can do it again. I enjoy sitting in that class, not as another Asian American finally getting around to learning her parents' language, but just as a crazy foreigner who keeps mixing up characters. I like being the underdog. I'd rather have the expectations set low.

Learning Chinese here has particular disadvantages and advantages. The textbook is in Korean, of course, so I need to review a chapter in advance to read through the grammar points and look up vocabulary if I don't know or feel uncertain of the nuance of the Korean translation. I cannot multi-task in two languages so I can't read the Korean text while listening to the teacher explain it in Chinese. My first teacher was Chinese but learning Korean and liked to throw in a Korean word or two every once in a while, which, because of her terrible Korean accent, I found really confusing. It would take me a while to figure out which language she was speaking.

She also made good use of common cultural references — good for the others in the class, I mean. She was addicted to Korean dramas and liked to explain words by using situations from popular dramas, which worked for the rest of the female, college-age students, but left me lost since I don't watch TV. She also liked to use examples from the Three Kingdoms and other old stories. My son has these in comic book form and I've been meaning to read them but since I haven't I was also lost there too.

On the other hand, Korean borrows a lot of words from Chinese, so I've learned a great deal of vocabulary very easily thanks to all the work I did on Korean. zhǔn bèi, wù huì wéi yī and mù de dì are all words that are easy for Koreans. I knew immediately what the first one was, the next two I didn't actually know in Korean (I could express similar concepts with different vocabulary) but learned both the Chinese and Korean at once, and the third I had known but didn't realize it was from Chinese. Having some sense of the Korean words that come from Chinese gives me a small sense of intuition about roots and their meanings that I wouldn't have had otherwise.

But aside from the nitty-gritty of vocabulary and grammar, learning Chinese as I go through my daily life speaking Korean gives me a chance to observe myself at two different stages of language learning and to think about the relationships between the languages I speak and the way I perform “being me.” In my conversation class, the teacher asks me a question and I ransack the corners of my brain, trying to find the words I need, throwing them together in a mess of mild panic, fits of grammar, and wild tone guesses. Calmer, on the bus ride back, I'm free to put the conversation back together and know what I should have said. I wish I could talk like I write, making a first draft and then editing it into comprehensibility. On the second try, in my head in the anonymous space of the bus, I can usually come up with something that sounds decently comprehensible, at least to me. I rehearse it in my head, thinking I could probably do it right the next time around. And then I kick myself for not being able to come up with that on the spot. But simultaneous thinking and talking has never been my strong suit.

But this, I realize, is how I have become proficient in my Korea life: I've built up a stock of stories that I reuse endlessly. I have my modest, “Oh, I don't speak that well” spiel. I have a short “I'm American but my husband is Korean” speech that I use every day. Being a native English speaker with two bilingual kids I have become the default neighborhood expert on English language acquisition, so I have stock rants on the education system in Korea and on the way I think English should be taught to small children. I can rattle off directions to a taxi driver and explain ailments to a doctor and order a pizza on the telephone — things that make me nervous in English, probably because I haven't hardened those conversations into stories that I can pull out without thinking. Speaking Korean transforms me, to some extent — I am brave, I am not shy, I become a persona of myself. I was having coffee with a girl from Chinese class one day and she mentioned she was also studying English, so I spoke some English to her. She drew back in surprise. “You're like a completely different person when you speak English!” That is probably true. My mannerisms, the tone of my voice, my facial expressions, and the way I phrase things in English are completely different.

I'm learning both languages with the expectation that I will use them socially, not for scholarly research or employment. Perhaps because my main use of language is practical, I have become aware and grateful for the social network that supports my learning. Every person and situation teaches me something. I've been through five Chinese teachers now (they change every few months), each one favoring different phrases and teaching me something different. My Korean is still easily destabilized by new situations, background noise, or people who speak with idiosyncratic pacing, dialect, or tone of voice. (I write this with an ear infection that has affected my hearing and thus also my comprehension.) I cannot appreciate the extremely witty or clever ones among us. I'm really thankful, though, for anyone who has put up with talking to me and who has patiently waited for my brain to access the right word or the closest equivalent.

I wasn't, I admit, the most diligent learner of Korean. The first class I took, back in college, was paced for a class full of Korean-Americans and I grew discouraged with my poor progress and dropped the class before the final. I followed the same kind of cycle for years afterwards — safe in the grandiose, vain spaces of my mind I felt confident I could learn the language and would take it up again only to quit in frustration. Making it this far is less a product of tenaciousness than a kind of chronically reoccurring delusion. But now I'm not just learning for myself, I'm learning for my kids. Having not grown up with my parents' language, I am determined to give my kids Chinese and Korean (and English). This is my gift to them, and so I must, this time, set a good example. They say if you want your kids to be good readers you should read in front of them. By that logic, I study in front of them almost every day. I make my flashcards; I ask my son to test me. I tell him, through words and example, that learning a language is difficult, but you can do it if you make it a habit and practice every day. Now I hope I haven't jinxed myself by declaring this publicly.