TLDR: I’m american F20, started learning chinese 6 weeks ago, chinese boyfriend’s mother is upset that i’m not fluent by now

Hoping anyone can give advice or just a cultural perspective.

I’m F20 American/white, my boyfriend is M20 from Beijing, we go to the same college in the US (he is an international student). We’ve been dating for 2 years and have a really happy relationship. He’s my best friend.

Ever since we started dating, I was interested in learning Chinese to eventually communicate with his family. As a native English speaker, I had no prior exposure to Chinese. In the past couple years, I’ve learned a few Chinese phrases on Duolingo, but wasn’t able to go in depth due to the commitments of being a college student and several part time jobs.

This fall however, due to changes in my schedule, I decided to take an introductory Chinese class. The class started about 6 weeks ago and I’ve been really proud of my progress. I’ve been able to have basic conversations with my BF, who is also delighted with my progress and says that my accent/vocab/grammar is really good.

Recently his mom visited the US for family weekend and I was able to have a few simple conversations with her as well. I felt like those conversations went pretty well considering that I’m still at a very basic level. This was my first time speaking Chinese with her, but I’ve spent plenty of time talking to her before, and we know each other well.

Today my BF and I were in my dorm together and his mom called him (obviously speaking Chinese). I wasn’t paying attention to the call until I heard my name and ”中文” so I started listening more carefully and used audio google translate to help.

Essentially she was ranting about how terrible my Chinese is and how I should be learning much faster and working harder. (for context, I have Chinese class every day and spend 3-4+ hours per day on 汉字 and other practice) My BF was doing his best to defend me but she was very insistent.

What’s strange is that overall, I would say I have a good relationship with her and my BF has mentioned she speaks highly of me. My BF and I immediately talked things over after the call ended and he assured me that she was being irrational/that I shouldn’t take her words to heart.

I guess I’m just wondering how normal it is for Chinese in-laws to have insane expectations about language learning, and how I should proceed from here.

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Boyfriend’s mom expects my Chinese to go from HSK1 to native level within a month