Today I said hello to a Chinese girl. She was at a swimming pool. After a few general remarks about the weather and the pool, I asked if she spoke English as a first language. (To ask if she speaks English as a second language would imply her spoken English was not good.)
She said that English was her first language, but her second language was Chinese. (That means Mandarin. Cantonese and Hokkien and other languages we think of as Chinese are called dialects.)
So I asked her how to say goodbye in Chinese. It sounds like Sigh chen. Maybe I am hearing it spoken in different ways by people speaking different dialects. The important thing is that I recognize it when I hear it. I am waiting for the day when I shall hear somebody nearby saying it as they leave their friends. Then I shall know they are speaking Chinese. I shall know they are leaving. I shall know I have learned a Chinese word.
I have trouble remembering it. Never mind. I'll get there in the end. I didn't learn 12 x 12 = 144 the first time the teacher told us in primary school. After repeating it every day for months I eventually got it. Multiplication tables. Ingrained. Forever. That's how you learn. By repetition.
How can I get to hear the word for goodbye in Chinese every day? Easy. If I don't want to tire out somebody I see every day, I just ask each new person I meet.
I sit next to somebody on a bus or a train. I start a conversation about some topic of common interest. I have a lovely conversation. As a bonus, when I leave I ask them how to say goodbye in Mandarin. It's my final reaching out to them, their final gift to me, a final mutual project. Smiles all around.
The final step will be when I can say it automatically, without having to be reminded.
I can of course say thank you in Mandarin. I am reminded of it whenever I take the train in Singapore and hear the recorded messages. Shay-shay (Chinese),
(After writing this I got out my Earworms disc, a short form of the Berlitz method.)
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker and language teacher.
She said that English was her first language, but her second language was Chinese. (That means Mandarin. Cantonese and Hokkien and other languages we think of as Chinese are called dialects.)
So I asked her how to say goodbye in Chinese. It sounds like Sigh chen. Maybe I am hearing it spoken in different ways by people speaking different dialects. The important thing is that I recognize it when I hear it. I am waiting for the day when I shall hear somebody nearby saying it as they leave their friends. Then I shall know they are speaking Chinese. I shall know they are leaving. I shall know I have learned a Chinese word.
I have trouble remembering it. Never mind. I'll get there in the end. I didn't learn 12 x 12 = 144 the first time the teacher told us in primary school. After repeating it every day for months I eventually got it. Multiplication tables. Ingrained. Forever. That's how you learn. By repetition.
How can I get to hear the word for goodbye in Chinese every day? Easy. If I don't want to tire out somebody I see every day, I just ask each new person I meet.
I sit next to somebody on a bus or a train. I start a conversation about some topic of common interest. I have a lovely conversation. As a bonus, when I leave I ask them how to say goodbye in Mandarin. It's my final reaching out to them, their final gift to me, a final mutual project. Smiles all around.
The final step will be when I can say it automatically, without having to be reminded.
I can of course say thank you in Mandarin. I am reminded of it whenever I take the train in Singapore and hear the recorded messages. Shay-shay (Chinese),
(After writing this I got out my Earworms disc, a short form of the Berlitz method.)
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker and language teacher.
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