"About three to four years," says Patrick Brown, Canadian Broadcasting Commission's Beijing correspondent, referring to when the pain stopped for him.

The veteran journalist began Chinese at age 42 and has been covering China for the past two decades. He says speaking and listening became easier after three years, but insists the learning process never stops because the language is so rich, compact and detailed. Watching Chinese TV soap dramas is one of the best ways to learn.

"One of the biggest difficulties is actually training the ear, and this takes a lot of time," he says.

I've been watching Chinese television every day for two years and it's still a blur because everybody speaks so fast. I can pick up a few new words, but by the time I process the meaning the speaker has rattled off another sentence.

When I'm learning new words, it always feels like I'm pushing a heavily loaded wheelbarrow up a slippery mud-mountain and I'm forever sliding backwards.

The wheelbarrow is filled with shengci (new words), which I'm using to build a pathway. I load the wheelbarrow with a couple of hundred new words and push up that slippery slope laying down words where I can.

But I sometimes overload the barrow and it slips back and slams into my shins. Or it completely falls over and some days I feel like I've lost everything.

All Chinese learners know that sinking feeling. I need to be tougher and follow the advice of Tom Berenger's tough army sergeant character in Platoon. "Take the pain," he screamed to a wounded soldier writhing in agony in the Vietnam jungle.

Or maybe I should heed the words of that other great action man, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who would say in that Austrian accent: "No pain, no gain." One thing is certain, like Arnie's indestructible terminator, I'll never give up on my mission.

After every Chinese lesson, I pick myself off the floor, rub my aching head and tell my teacher.

"I'll be back."