Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont internship, for Shelburne News
SHELBURNE — On a recent day at the Pierson Library, Connor Lin Frost taught an introduction to Mandarin as a screen displayed the bright red Chinese characters “欢迎光临,” meaning “welcome.”
The class draws students of all ages, from children to adults, who learn the basics of a language spoken by an estimated 1.3 billion people globally. Frost, a resident of Shelburne, is a native speaker who grew up speaking the language at home and later went on to pursue East Asian Studies and studied abroad in Beijing. A musician by trade, Frost believes teaching Mandarin and making music share a common theme: Both help people understand themselves and the world.
He also finds that his music background helps inform his teaching of Mandarin.
“Mandarin is a very musical language,” Frost said. “It’s a tonal language, and a lot of times when I’m describing the rhythm of sentences or the tones, I think I naturally and intentionally pull from musical elements.”
When a student struggles with pronunciation, Frost connects the language to the rhythm and sound, emphasizing how different pitches can change a word entirely in Mandarin.
“I call it the singing tongue,” Frost said.
Frost guides his Mandarin students through characters, numbers and pronunciation with the energy of a bandleader. The rhythm of counting numbers becomes especially clear as Frost walks students through one to 10, pairing each number with hand motions. Soon, the group builds to larger numbers, discovering patterns that make Mandarin feel surprisingly systematic, much like knowing one note can allow you to play a whole song.
“Once you’ve really memorized from one to 10, you’ve effectively memorized one to 99,” Frost said.
For student Isaac Murphy, age 7, understanding the patterns behind Mandarin’s number structure was a big help. “That’s why Chinese is easy,” he said.
Frost’s teaching philosophy is to take something complex and break it down into more understandable chunks.
Chinese is a “simple yet complex piece of puzzle,” Frost said. “Everything is just a puzzle.”
That balance becomes clear in learning characters like “下” (down) and “雨” (rain), explaining not just their meanings but their visual logic where one resembles the falling motion and the other is like the water droplets on a window.
For students such as Karen Chatfield, the class is a way to connect with others along with learning a new language.
“I have some Chinese family members,” Chatfield said. “I wanted to learn more about the language so I could interact more fully with them.”
Frost teaches the basics in an engaging way, Chatfield added. And learning how Mandarin is structured has made the language more approachable than she initially thought.
“That draws into learning more about how the language is constructed because I’ve always had an interest in linguistics,” Chatfield said. “ To me, that in itself makes it very interesting.”
Murphy, the youngest student in the class, said he didn’t initially choose to attend but has found something to enjoy and reason to stay.
“I didn’t want to. My parents just signed me up,” he said. He added that Frost is what makes him keep coming back. “He’s fun.”
The free, six-session “Survival Chinese” class met Wednesdays at the Pierson Library, with the last class on May 13. For more information about other classes and events, check out piersonlibrary.org.
Editor’s note: Reporter Jinxi Lin is not related to Connor Lin Frost.