Learning Chinese by IM using QQ

People at home constantly ask me, "Is it hard to learn Chinese"? Well, there's one thing that makes Mandarin Chinese particularly easy to learn: there are so many people to talk to. You've probably heard that it's the most spoken language. Today it's also one of the most written languages online. And with so many Chinese people interested in learning English, it couldn't be easier to find a partner for language exchange. You just have to know where to look.

The real place to look is QQ. QQ has the same status in China as AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) does in the US. At any given moment, up to 9,000,000 people are signed onto QQ, according to the directory. They're at work, or in a 网吧 (web café), or at home, and can search user profiles. If you sign on with your location set to "abroad", you'll soon find that many thousands of them are interested in speaking to you! This is a great way for you to learn Chinese, and for them to learn English. I think that it's a very interesting type of cultural contact too, for ordinary people from around the world to be able to have one-on-one casual conversations.

Here's how to do it. This is the hard part for most non-Chinese, signing up for an account on QQ's site. First of all, the site is all in Chinese. To make it even harder, they use one of those scrambled letter thingies (called a "captcha") to verify you're not a bot, but it's in Chinese characters! And finally, once you've filled in all your information, the server only accepts your request about 1/20 of the time because of high load, and will block your IP for 24 hours if you try too many times. I recommend waiting until late night, Chinese time (1-6PM EST), when the servers are much less busy.

Don't worry though, once you have an account, you're set. If you're lucky, you might get someone on the (English-speaking) forums at http://qq.bur.st to set up an account for you. Also, check the comments at the bottom of this post, many Chinese people have kindly volunteered to help people get an account. That site is dedicated to learning Chinese with QQ, and has some great detailed information on setting up your computer to use Chinese and installing QQ, if you don't know how. If you're using a Mac or Linux, don't fear: QQ support was recently added to Gaim, the multi-platform IM client. The latest beta version of Adium (for Mac OSX), which is based on Gaim, will even let you sign on and chat.

So, what do you do once you're signed on? Well, if you put "abroad" as your location, you'll be seeing about 100 messages per minute, as Chinese people search foreigners like you who might wander online. So be sure you know how to remove your screenname from the search, it's in the preferences.

What should you say? Try starting with a simple "Hi! 你好啊!". Even if your Chinese doesn't go much beyond that, you'll find plenty of people who know some simple English. Remember that alot of people really want to learn English, so if you plan to do a "language exchange" I've found that it's important to try to use both languages equally, at least at first, so that one person doesn't feel left out. Plenty of people are just there to chat, too. Good luck, and once you're online, 想聊天就QQ我! My QQ: 646468786