Learning Chinese

Meet Vickey :)

Vickey is my Zhongwen Laoshi (Chinese Teacher).  Out of everyone I've met in China, she is the person I spend the most time with!  She's awesome!

 

 

When we learned we were moving to China, I immediately wanted to learn Mandarin.  It was never a question for me.  I've always wanted to learn another language and this would be such a great opportunity (I can't really count my two years of French in high school).  And while I never imagined I would ever learn Chinese -- I've always loved French, and Spanish would be very useful having lived in Arizona and Texas -- I was excited for the challenge!  I also felt strongly that because I had chosen to live in China, I should learn to speak the language.  So I signed up for lessons right away!

Jake was still at home with me so I opted to have a private tutor come to my home instead of going to a class setting.  I also liked the idea of being able to go at my own pace!  It does take up a lot of time.  But I jumped in hard and fast, I feel like I'm in school again :/  She comes 3 days a week for 2 hours each day and let me tell you - my brain hurts by the time she leaves each day!!  This is tough!  So I comfort myself by eating a lot of chocolate and doing Internet searches of the most difficult languages to learn, and Chinese is always in the top 5 :)  Vickey also makes me feel like I'm progressing well.  She tells me out of all the Americans she has taught I'm learning faster, and that my pronunciation is very "standard."  Maybe she's just trying to be nice and keep me interested?  But it's working, so I'll take the compliments ;)

After 6 months of lessons I feel like I'm finally "getting" it.  I still mostly look like a deer in the headlights whenever someone is talking to me (they talk so fast!), but I can pick out a few words here and there and get the general gist of what they are saying.  I can also say enough that they understand what I'm trying to say.  I decided to just work on speaking and listening so I haven't started to learn the characters (writing) yet.  So I can't read signs around town, but Rob is pretty good with the characters and the kids are learning them in school so I'm starting to pick out a few here and there.

The other day I took Jake to the playground and I sat and listened to the children play.  I almost got emotional because I could understand what they were saying!  It was awesome!  Baby steps, right?

Zai Jian!