Word

So, I’ve drafted the first part to the epic story of my bestfriend and I getting lost. Interestingly enough, I had wanted to get in touch with him to have him look it over, fill in the cracks in my memory and such. We’ve been out of touch for quite a while. I had emailed my mom to have her get his email, when the next day he emails me. Now, I haven’t confirmed whether or not she contacted him, but at any rate, the epic story will be delayed, but quite possibly even MORE epic as it will be co-authored by my former partner in crime.

I know you wait with eager anticipation.

Anyway, today was the first day of Chinese 2. We have a new teacher and only 5 of us in it. Class started and my brain crashed. Of course, I didn’t know what to expect, but when all I heard was Chinese, which they NEVER EVER SPEAK SLOWLY, I had to shift several gears. Now, I know there are five hundred of you out there who are already clicking the comment button to tell me how YOU learned a language and all THEY spoke was said language.

Seriously. I don’t care.

If you tried to learn Chinese, or have learned it, please, tell me. But here’s the problem: we have here a monosyllabic, tonal language. And they speak very quickly and often slur their words together. None of us could even tell you how many words were in the sentence, let alone tell you what words they said.

It definitely makes things difficult, but after a while, we settled in and strained to hear anything we could understand.

This is a problem.

It’s a monosyllabic language. Similar to English, they combine words to make new words. This means we know enough words to NOT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING. For instance, I will understand the WHO, and sometimes the WHAT… but let’s take this example. Suppose someone says “I like flowers” in Chinese. Now, this is hypothetical, because I know all those words. Track with me though. Let’s say I don’t know the word for “flower.” So all I understand is, “I like…” what?

Now you begin to see the possible problems and frustrations.

It’s all good. We came out of the class energized and excited. We’d learned a ton already. She really focuses on characters and works hard on making sure our listening and pronunciation is good.

We told some of the other people in later classes about it, and most of them got wide eyed and said, “I think I’d freak out if that happened.” Many had problems with Chinese 1. No one came here to exclusively study language, as say other foreigners here do, or as my sister is doing in France. Ergo, the first teacher speaking in English was a blessing.

But now it’s time to get serious.

Ok, I’ve got to work on memorizing a famous Chinese poem. Peace.