A Pregnant Pause

Ni hao! Yes, we’re hoping to join one-fifth of the global population who can speak chongwen or hanyu. Since we’re living in China now, it seems a good opportunity to learn Chinese, right? Moreoever, I found a Chinese teacher living nearby!

We’ve only started two classes because we’ve been cancelling either because someone fell sick or both of us are too busy

Learning Chinese gives me a new perspective into the challenges of language learning. One, I better understand the difficulties my Chinese, Japanese or Korean speaking students have with learning English.

Chinese and Japanese languages use logograms (derived from hieroglyphics i.e. a picture morphing into a character to represent a syllable or a sound) while English combines letters to form words, which then form sentences etc.

Now, I’m starting to understand what my Chinese-speaking friends mean when they tell me that some combination of Chinese characaters are, “just sounds, they don’t mean anything!”

Two, I am seeing the world through Chinese eyes since we are learning basic vocabulary, which is fascinating when you compare them with English (and mind-boggling when they don’t connect or sound anything like the original!)…

For example, Spain is as Xibanya, Australia is Aodaliya, England is Ying-guo (sounds almost similar) but American is Mei-guo and Portugal is Pu-tao-ya! And South America is Nan Mei *_* which makes sense really because “nan” is South and “mei” is a shortform of America.

Interestingly, Mei-guo means “beautiful country”. Must be due to the famous Land of Milk and Honey???

I was also amazed by the rules behind “wu” and “u” and “yi” and “i”!

Third, it’s agony and torture learning how to make new sounds in a language completely different from your own!

Chinese has 4 tones and we have trouble with the third tone (ma=horse) because it sounds like the second tone (ma=hemp)…

Also, I can’t tell the difference between “zh” from “z” or “chi” from “ci”! Other than that, I’m alright because my Cantonese helps me translate most words easily and basic German makes the “u” sound (the one with the umlaut) easy-peasy

Thankfully, our Chinese teacher is not that strict with pronouncing it the Bejing way i.e. with “dianr” although she insists we enunciate each syllable precisely – no swallowing allowed!!!

As with any new language I learn, I attack it with gusto, which means with books! Other than the course book and the travel phrase books, I also bought a bilingual dictionary, a 300 key character book I found in Walmart and of course, preschool picture books, nursery rhymes and story books LOL

Despite all the challenges (and embarrassingly horrible pronunciation), we enjoy our Chinese lessons especially since my classmate is Hubby.

We’re wary of starting World War 3 but I’m glad to report that we’ve been having laughs in class so far!

Now that we’re given homework, we really need to revise what we have learned in class. Our Chinese teacher is nice but she may think we’re not serious if we slack :S Zaijian!

P/S Sorry I’ve not been able to reply to comments or bloghop lately – life has just been REALLY busy! With preschool chores (yes!), cooking, grocery shopping, @#$%^&* house repairs, winter clothes, shoes and Christmas shopping, a bit of work and packing for home, blogging has taken a back seat…