Wo shuo Zhong-guo hua! (shuode hen bu hao)

[desperance]

I had occasion to speak Chinese today, I did.

In a very, very small way...

Halfway into town, I was encountered by a Chinese student, who was trying to find the railway station and going in entirely the wrong direction. As the Lit & Phil is right next to the station, and as the route from here is very direct but none the less difficult to describe, I said her easiest way was to come with me.

And then, of course, we tried to have a conversation; and when her English broke too soon I tried my Chinese, which of course broke even sooner; to be honest, I was only flourishing it to impress, and I had my eye on nothing more adventurous than "I speak Chinese very badly; let's speak English again now," where I arrived with an embarrassing rapidity. And then of course we had nowhere else to go, because we'd already broken her English. Sigh.

Still, we smiled a lot and were very scrutable, albeit incomprehensible to each other; and the least nudge of contact is a pleasure to me these days, as well as a bitter reminder that I want to go back to Taiwan again, and that I have almost entirely lost the little grip I had on a slender tentative tendril of the language. I hate that my mind is so sieve-like, that what I studied hard five or six years ago is so nearly gone already. The framework is still there, I understand it, I know how it works; but I'd have to start pretty much from scratch again, to fill that frame with anything worthwhile; and I'd have to do it on my own because my teacher's dead, and I have no impetus to do that. Only the sense of something lost, which I'm far more likely to nurture than tackle.

Comments

[norilanabooks.livejournal.com]

Bu tsuo! Ni shode hua feichang hao! ;-)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're very kind. But see, I'm stuck already; I can't remember how to say "You're very kind" in Chinese. It would probably only take me a minute or two, I have the books right here; but that's no way to hold a conversation.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

You probably made her day.

[wishus.livejournal.com]

I can count to ten in Chinese, that's about it... but hopefully I'll be able to learn a bit more soon from my sister-in-law... who is Chinese.

So far, I haven't been very good at imitating the correct vowel sounds, which is a bit worrying for a linguist... but then probably everything I say in any language is tinged with a Black Country lilt.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

So far, I haven't been very good at imitating the correct vowel sounds, which is a bit worrying for a linguist...

Don't worry about it. I have long maintained that Chinese contains noises that the Western mouth is not designed to make, nor the Western ear to distinguish; the best we can manage is a rude approximation, which they are generous enough to overlook the rudeness and make hopeful guesses at what we're actually trying to say.

[littlebutfierce]

I hate that my mind is so sieve-like, that what I studied hard five or six years ago is so nearly gone already.

Meeeee too. I think this gets worse as I get older--& I'm only 31, but seriously, I feel like I'm nowhere near as clever as I was when I was 21. ;P My brothers & I end up having these ridiculous conversations about which one of us is dumber than the others (we all think it's us, b/c we all feel like we're forgetting stuff we've learned more w/age--it's not like we're saying, "You're dumber than I am!!"). Heh.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. But then I mingle a lot with people who are older than me, and whose brains are clearly not dribbling out between their fingers, damn them...

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I bet it'd come back faster than learning it the first time did. (I said, somewhat incoherently, but trusting you'd get the gist even so.)

Also, this was a quite beautifully-written post, particularly that last sentence.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yeah...languages are like that. Definitely fits the use it or lose it syndrome.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the flea market at Ismailovsky Park in Moscow. There, I encountered a Korean guy I recognized from the Russian-language institute we were both students at. Although he spoke no English and I spoke no Korean, we conversed very well in Russian, a language native to neither one of us.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Zhende tai hao le (buguo ni zai Orbital bu yao shuo Zhongwen le).
Ni zhu zai nali? Xianzai xai Yinguo daochu you henduo Zhongwen ke.
Wo ye yiding dei zhaodao yi ge Zhongwen ke. Wo henduo cihui wang le.

Kaili.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

See? This needed ten minutes with the dictionary, although I have at one stage known every word here (except cihui, I think). Which is of course why I couldn't talk to you at Orbital. I can fake it at a distance, but one thing you can't bluff there-and-then is a language. As I was reminded, this morning.

And I can't find a class in Newcastle that teaches classical Mandarin; they're all let's-do-business-on-the-mainland, with PRC usage and simplified characters. Which is no use to me, because Taiwan of course won't touch anything that's been tainted by the PRC, so they're still strictly classical. (And Wade-Giles! It's fabulous! It's so inconsistent you can find the same road named three different ways!!) (I can adjust from pinyin to W-G and back, but simplified characters defeat me; it's trouble enough learning one form, let alone two...)

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

The emphasis on business use is infuriating -- we get that here, too (and it's infecting the university)> But you might be able to find a one to one tutor through Newcastle Univ., which I think teaches Chinese and may have postgrads who'd be interested in doing this. Or the local Chinese community centre or church?
I had to look up cihui too.
I was taught mostly by people from the PRC, so Pinyin and simplified characters, but having said which I've picked up a fair bit of Wade Giles from books and I prefer it as it's actually closer to the pronunciation (to my ear, anyway)than Pinyin (unless your first language happens to be German). And I pick up the complex characters due to my addiction to Chinese soap operas which are usually subbed for Hong Kong so have the complex forms.
Maybe we need to set up the British fantasy writers classical Chinese study group or something!

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I miss being fluent in French. It was the only language I ever learned besides English, and now it's hopeless.