I am teaching Chinese in a few years. Recently I have a brilliant student. He has merely studied with me in a few weeks, but he has already had an incredible progress. I cannot image that I can learn a foreign language such quickly. I have instructed him to listen and practice speaking Chinese whenever and wherever. Last week, he told me he watched a show on CCTV I. he asked me whether he could understand the show based on his current level of Chinese vocabulary. I wrote a response to his email. However, when I had a second look, I decided I would not send it to him. It’s apparent a kind of empty philosophy. Otherwise, I’ll keep it in my blog for this piece cost me more than an hour.     

You are asking a tough question. First, I’d like to express an idea based people’s general understanding of learning Chinese. On your currently level, you may understand some words and sentences, but you still need time to fully comprehend the language. Language is not simply a language; it’s related to many other social phenomena. To learning a language, you have to learn that particular society and the live who are speaking the language. Moreover, as an eastern language, Chinese is well-known very difficult because it shares little similarity with western languages. In short, it requests time to be acquired.

However, we can think this issue from another angle. I, your tutor, really cannot give a right answer of your question. The factors determining the answer are all on you. How effective your way to study, how much efforts you put in, how you actively seek possible assistance, etc. You have already show me an incredible progress in a very short period; thus, I feel I cannot use my previous experience to tell when you can master Chinese. You’ll tell me in the future.