I don’t remember being able to speak well and articulately in my school days. Though I am now in the career of speaking professionally, it wasn’t an aptitude I showed when I was a child.
In fact, I remember when I was a 12-year-old Primary 6 student, my form teacher wanted to try me out to see if I could be the emcee for the school’s speech day. She got me to read the opening para of the script, I flunk terribly.
It was only when I started to do my studies in mass communication that i felt I need to be able to speak decently in proper English. I started to listen to English news diligently and read news articles aloud. With effort over time, I started to speak better proper English.
Then I started hosting professionally as an emcee. Hosting in English was a breeze – reading, articulating, responding etc. Only when I had to speak Mandarin on stage did I start to feel inadequate. I felt my mandarin was not fluent, articulate and polished enough for stage.
So I went to a local children speech and drama school for one-to-one Mandarin articulation lesson. My tutor was a young lady from Beijing. She brought me back to basics, learning fundamental pronunciation of hanyi pinyin. After months of lessons, my Mandarin improved a great deal. Thank you Teacher.
I started to host more confidently bilingually in English and Mandarin. By modeling DJs and TV comperes from China, Taiwan and Singapore, I was hosting more competently in Mandarin with better articulation and rhythm. I was pleased to receive compliments from audience, invitation to host mega events like Chingay, and also to co-host on local Chinese radio stations.
Today, I could pretty much hold decent conversations in Mandarin without polluting my sentences with English or Singlish. In fact I enjoy conversing with friends from Taiwan and China. To me, speaking fluently in Mandarin feels good!
But my Mandarin is far from perfect, and certainly not very good yet. I would love to speak very polished and artful Mandarin on and off stage easily, and to read fluently and narrate confidently off any scripts or teleprompters.
My personal aspiration is to read & speak Chinese/Mandarin like a newscaster. I don’t know when will I be able to do that, but I know I will have to put in continuous effort over a long period of time.
This will be a lifelong personal development journey for me. Perhaps if I receive an invite to work and live in Shanghai or Beijing, I will be tempted to take it up for to fulfill this aspiration……
