Adventures in Learning Mandarin a.k.a. You've got to make a fool of Yourself

FOR SRA. BABSON’S STUDENTS:

“Hola - Hola - Hola” or as they say in China “Ni Hao - Ni Hao - Ni Hao!”

I hope you are all well and having fun in COLD, COLD Dover-Sherborn! I am in Shaxi Village in the Yunnan Province of China and it’s about 75 -80 degrees F and sunny. We just finished hiking up a huge mountain to see 1,000 year old carvings of Buddha and the gods of the local “Bai” people who are the original people of this area. I’ll show you pictures of all of my adventures when I get back, but right now I wanted to tell you about how my Mandarin Chinese is progressing.

As I anticipated - I am having fun but making a TON of mistakes!! Most of the time people don’t even seem to realize that I’m trying to speak in Chinese!! (Ja-Ja-Ja) As you know, I’d been attending some classes over at the high school and listening/practicing to a CD as I drove to and from school last Summer and this Fall. I’m really glad I did but, as I’ve told you guys, learning out of a book and listening to people talk is only a small part of learning a language. You’ve GOT TO MAKE A FOOL OF YOURSELF and try to speak to and understand people.

So….that’s what I’ve been doing! (Poor Charlie, Hannah, Jenny and my husband are going crazy with me practicing all of the time and muttering phrases to myself.) Hannah helped me down-load a really great (free) app called “Chinese Lite” which I’ve been using a lot! Basically there are 7 different categories of phrases to choose from: “Greetings” , “General Conversation”, “Numbers” etc. It’s like the first units in Avancemos when you learned how to say hello and goodbye to people as well as words like “please” and “thank you” to be polite. It also includes important phrases like “Where is the bathroom?” (Oh, how I wish Sr. Wooly did songs in Chinese!!!!) and “I like/don’t like this.” and “How much does this cost?” What’s great about the app is you look up what you want to say, click on it and it plays the phrase in Chinese so I can practice before I have to say something to someone. (Of course half of the time I still say it wrong and people either start giggling hysterically or look totally confused and try to call someone who speaks English over to help me. ) 

I’ve been able to get by but only because people are sooooo nice (plus the fact that our guide speaks English and can help me out). Sometimes though - I’ve found myself in a situation in which I had to improvise - like the time Mr. Babson and I decided to take a bus to a village outside of Yangshuo called “Fuli”. What a crazy time! First off, we knew that we’d have trouble explaining where we wanted to go, so our guide, “Bing”, gave us a piece of paper that said “I want to go to Fuli Village.” in Chinese characters. The ladies at the hotel reception desk drew us a little map as to where the bus stop was but we weren’t really sure what they were saying so we just headed off in the direction they pointed. I used the little piece of paper from Bing and the Chinese Lite app to ask people directions.

After walking almost to the edge of town we found the bus station and figured out which bus to get on and “we were off”. :-) Fuli Village is about 20 minutes outside of Yangshuo but there was a lot of traffic because of all of the people traveling to celebrate the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) with their family and friends. Anyway - we finally arrived in Fuli but when we got off the bus it was in the middle of a bustling street and EVERYTHING was written in Chinese!! We didn’t know where to go to find the famous market so we just started walking. There was a sign which said “Ancient Village” and there was a long line of cars and buses lined up so we figured that was the way to go…..but we walked…..and walked….and walked….and the line of cars stretched on and on and on….right to the edge of the village and OUT OF TOWN!! The cars weren’t waiting to get to the market….they were stuck bumper to bumper in a traffic jam due to some car crash further down the highway!! Mr Babson and I looked at each other, laughed and turned around and headed back into town.

It was at that point however that we realized how late it was in the afternoon and we thought we should catch a bus back to Yangshuo. I used the same piece of paper from Bing but said that we wanted to go to “Yangshuo” instead of “Fuli”. We finally found a bus and the bus driver and I had a bizarre conversation with me using the recordings from my “Chinese Lite” app and him using a similar app only it must have been called “English Lite” . The other passengers were cracking up listening to us trying to communicate but finally we worked everything out and the bus headed back to town…..and got stuck in another traffic jam!!

I won’t bore you will all of the details but bottom line was that people started getting off of the bus and walking instead of continuing to sit stalled in traffic. Mr. Babson and I thought we recognized a temple that we’d visited earlier in our stay off in the distance so we decided to take a chance and got off too. As it turned out - it was farther than we thought but we used our extremely limited Chinese and with the assistance from a lot of nice people we finally got back to our hotel! So, we never did see the famous market in Fuli Village but we did have a lot of fun trying to use the little bit of Chinese that we’ve learned.

I’m going to keep at it and learn a little bit more everyday (even if I do make a total fool of myself sometimes) because it’s such fun to interact with people from another culture. I hope you all are willing to make fools of yourselves too!! Taking a risk and, yes, making silly mistakes are all part of learning a language. Have fun with it!!!

Well. that’s all for now! Hasta luego estudiantes!!