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december 23, 1999
Hi Jet,
First off, I would like to say that this is one excellent website. Second, it is an honor to watch your films.
My question involves learning English. When you got the role for Lethal Weapon 4, how difficult was it for you to learn English? How much time do you spend learning English? And how long ago did you learn it? Was it before you got the role in Lethal Weapon 4, or after?
Thanks again for your influence on fans of martial arts films.
Sincerely
Albert Valentin
Jet's Response
I started learning English around the time Lethal Weapon 4 began production -- that's about two years ago.
Is learning English difficult for me? I should say so! The syntax, the vocabulary, the underlying meanings -- they're all so different from Mandarin. For example, in Mandarin, the spoken pronoun for "he/she" is the same word. This is not the case in English, where you have different pronouns for men and women. Making the transition in such a way is challenging for me, because I'm accustomed to using one pronoun for everything. One never thinks about these subtle differences in linguistics until one begins learning a new language.
When I learn English, I always think of it in terms of Mandarin. For example, how does the placement of verbs and nouns in English correspond to the placement of verbs and nouns in Mandarin? Of course, the sentence structures of these two languages are so different, it would not be helpful to make comparisons. Yet, because Mandarin is the only language I am familiar with, I have no choice but to draw these parallels.
How much time do I spend learning English? I study whenever I can. I have a teacher who teaches me English two hours a day. I watch television and movies to learn how Americans speak to one another. When I'm on the set doing a film, there is a dialogue coach to correct my pronunciation.
I find that sometimes the best way to learn a new language is through social interaction. You meet people. You listen to how they speak. You try to speak to them in their own language. Back in China, I had very little schooling in speech and writing because I was busy training in wushu most of the time. Hence, most of my Mandarin schooling came from daily interaction with my peers, my coach, and with society at large.
