From Dutch Law Student to Mandarin Maven: Kelson’s Journey

Meet Kelson Teo: a Netherlands-born law student trading windmills for skyscrapers at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. But textbooks aren’t his only obsession – he’s fallen hard for Mandarin’s musical tones and ancient characters that look like art.

When Tones Rule

\"It’s like singing while speaking!\" Kelson laughs, describing Mandarin’s four-tone system. Unlike Western languages where sounds create words, Chinese uses pitch variations to distinguish meanings – turning basic syllables into linguistic superpowers.

Characters vs ABCs

While English uses 26 letters, Chinese radicals and strokes form characters that often carry whole stories. \"You’re not just spelling words – you’re decoding 3,000 years of history,\" says Kelson, showing a notebook filled with brush-practice characters.

Dialect Detectives

From Shanghai’s lilting Wu dialect to Cantonese’s nine(!) tones, Kelson’s fascinated by China’s linguistic diversity: \"It’s wild that written characters unite regions where spoken languages sound completely different.\"

The 24-year-old hopes his journey inspires more China-Netherlands cultural exchanges: \"Language isn’t just words – it’s how we share what makes us human.\"

Reference(s):

The beauty of the Chinese language in my eyes

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