Many times in taxis I have heard Australia praised on the radio as a travel destination. These days when someone discovers I’m from Australia, the instant reaction is not kangaroos or our Prime Minister, but how beautiful my country is.
The best moment came later, after we’d talked for a while. She said to me, “You speak great Chinese. Actually, your Mandarin is better than our boss’s. He’s been here in Beijing more than 10 years but he still doesn’t speak as well as you.”
I took a job in Langfang, a small city between Beijing and Tianjin, and my Chinese rose to a new level. I was often the only English speaker in the open office area where my desk was. Eavesdropping became a great language learning tool.
I studied Chinese in school for over ten years, the final year being at a Chinese university in Beijing. All this did NOT make me fluent. It didn’t make me sound Chinese. So what did? Talking to lots of people – especially taxi drivers.
I am often asked how I learned Mandarin Chinese. The short answer is good fortune and hard work. When I arrived in Beijing I could already read and write Chinese pretty well. Listening comprehension, however, took me a long time.
Lots of people were interested in the bird flu pamphlet I translated, so here is the full translation. “…When going out, try to avoid contact with wild birds or going to the habitat of wild birds…”
Bird flu was confirmed in my neighbourhood. I translated an illustrated pamphlet we received with information in Chinese, to see what the “Shunyi District Health Board” and “Shunyi District Center for Disease Control” are telling the public.
China’s system of terms of address is complex and much more utilised in common speech than in English. While in English most people are addressed by their given name, very few people will address you by your given name in Chinese.
In English, there are recognised names – words that have no meaning on their own, but are simply names. Chinese does not have a set of names like this. There is a set inventory of Chinese surnames, but given names are chosen from existing words.
The toffee fruit vendor chatted to the jian bing vendor, saying “Wow! She speaks pu tong hua [standard Mandarin Chinese]. Like my grandson. He can’t speak our dialect. We speak our dialect to him but he doesn’t pick up much.”
May is a crazy time of year for me. There are graduations and farewells and end-of-year events and all sorts of related stuff. This May I’ve had a bunch of extra stuff too. CRAZY! But all wonderful stuff I’d never want to miss. Instead of talking about all that, though, I want to tell you…
Hi everyone! I know it’s been AGES since I sent an update email… sorry about that. I was in southern China for a week over Chinese New Year – I wrote four LONG storytime entries about it and a gallery of photos is on the magix site. We were very close to Thailand and I…
Stories From Tanya 