Chinglish...

Lost in pronunciation

For the past few days it's been getting slightly (but not uncomfortably) colder, and today the skies were really gray and it was drizzling a bit. It's fine with me, as long as it means there are no mosquitoes!

But besides that, I went to my Chinese class today. I had a small oral test, which I think I did really well on (only a few mistakes in pronouncing the tones!)

No, but really, I think my Chinese is improving. The problem with most foreigners, or should I say Westerners, for learning Chinese is the tones. Because we don't have any. So we either end up speaking a kind of pidgin Chinese which uses the sounds of Chinese with the tonalities of our language or we end up making up tones for the words we don't understand (very dangerous because you may be swearing at the person without even knowing it) or, most often, we just spit out a bunch of monotonous sounds that we think mean something but sound like gibberish to a Chinese speaker.

In that respect, I'm kind of envious of the Vietnamese kid in my class. I mean, he doesn't pronounce perfectly, but his tones are spot on (coming from a country where they have seven tones, they better be). When tones are pronounced correctly, the Chinese language seems to come to life, and you can add real feeling to your voice.

I've been working on relearning some basic words because, frankly, in France I didn't really learn to pronounce Chinese correctly. Mispronunciation (or lack of pronunciation) leads to the above mentioned gibberish, which leads to a situation where you are not understood, which leads to a plateau in learning.

I guess I went through the phase where I would make up tones when I didn't know which tone to use. And I'm still at that stage. Despite the risk of inadvertently insulting your neighbor (the most common one is if you say "I have a cold" incorrectly you could say "I have sex with cats"), I think it's actually better to say the wrong tone then use no tone at all. Because if you mention to someone that you smell see a movie, they can probably figure out that what you actually mean is that you want to see a movie (smell and want are similar sounds with different tones).

To get slightly (but not too) philosophical, Goethe said that when you learn a new language, you acquire a new personality (I know, I'm paraphrasing). And I think it's true. When I learned Japanese, I would say stuff that I wouldn't say in English or French. Now, hopefully I will give birth to a new, Chinese speaking Adrien.

OK. That sounded weird. Goodnight.

Christmas?

1:30am I have just turned off the lights and am about to go to sleep. A small but ever-increasing buzzing sound prevents me. I think it will disappear but it continues. When I realize the sound is not a scooter passing by, I turn on the table light, fumble for my glasses and scan the off-white walls for any telltale signs of... Mosquitoes.

They have been in my room all night. I squashed a few before going to sleep, while doing my homework, but there seem to be more. I had put some citronella-scented oil on my body but apparently that does not faze this one.

Now, I can't find it anywhere. I lie back in my bed and try to sit still, using my face as bait to entice it to come closer. When I hear it, I sit up and look around. No sign.

The pattern repeats itself a few times, until I really start to fall asleep waiting for it to come back. I look at my clock. 1:50. I have the option of either a) lighting the citronella incense and smelling up my clothes and room or b) waking up tomorrow morning covered in bites. I choose to light the incense.

When I wake up the next morning, I don't want to get up. Today is Christmas after all. But for all the Christmas lights and brightly colored storefronts, for all the Christmas jingles playing at convenience stores for the past few weeks, there is no vacation called Christmas here.

Culture shock hits hardest on days like these. I try to just forget that it's a holiday but I can't.

I did go to a Christmas party after my class. A party for the campus reporters. They made me sing jingle bells and play secret Santa, and took photos of me eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. I made a mental note to no longer attend school Christmas parties.

The day was grey, and colder than yesterday. After the Christmas party I came home and tried to catch up on sleep, until I heard the buzzing sound of a mosquito which woke me up. So I got up, ate some leftovers and watched a Simpsons rerun on cable TV. Then I did my homework. As day turned to night, it started to get cold.

At least the mosquitoes are gone.

PS The photo shows a racket to kill mosquitoes which my landlord lent me. It uses a small electric shock (he has since taken it back).

Shorter days, longer nights...

Ok, after this short hiatus, I'm back. I think I have crossed another threshold here, though I'm not sure exactly what it is or when I crossed it. Or maybe the days just started getting shorter and colder. Not that they were that long to begin with. Not that they are that cold now. But something feels...different.

You know the feeling, when you start a new life somewhere and at first you have no obligations and it's like a walk in the park. You go to school and then come home, take a nap, and have the rest of the day off. Then you decide to do tai chi, to start writing for the school newspaper, to start working out and getting in shape. Then school gets harder, the newspaper asks you to correct some extra English articles, people want to do language exchanges and you don't want to be unfriendly so you say sure, why not? Stuff starts piling up. And then you say to yourself, you were here to study Chinese, remember?

OK, maybe you don't know the feeling. Maybe the life I just described is none other than yours truly's. The point is, I need to do some ménage, as they say in French. I have to clean up all the non-essential things in my life so I can focus on what I came here for- to learn Chinese.

Speaking of which, the new quarter just started, and I chose the three-hour intensive class (yeah, now I'm really going to be busy). There is a lot of homework (more than 3 hours a day). There is a lot of talking. Though it's three hours long, the class seems to go by quickly, as we cover more ground than the regular class. At the same time as being hard, it's challenging and fun.

Good night.