Mandarin

Jan 1, 2008: Dan’s New Years Resolution is to learn Chinese

Feb 7, 2008: Dan’s Chinese New Years Resolution is to learn Chinese

Feb 18, 2008: Dan begins Chinese Lessons for the first time

I am exhausted. Last week I began taking Mandarin lessons for the first time and my body, my mind, and my mouth are tired. Beginner class starts at 9am sharp. Every morning I haul myself out of bed and fight through the rush hour traffic to work, not doubting for a second that 1.3 billion people live in this country. After class, which is about 11, I have an hour and a half before I start teaching. The idea is that I visit the gym next to my building that I just joined, but the reality is I’m so tired, I just find a couch hidden by a plant in the corner and nap. Work lets out around 9:30 at night, when I go home to make dinner and read a book for a bit, there isn’t enough time to watch a movie before bedtime. Repeating this process all week, I thought I’d be given a reprieve on Saturday, my weekend, but the gods who control these things are cruel, and I was asked to come in on Saturday to cover for a sick co-worker. Sunday indeed was my day of rest.

The Chinese lessons are fascinating, if not difficult. In the beginner class, we are learning tones, the basis for the entire language. The grammar isn’t difficult, there is no verb tense and you can just combine words together to mix their meanings – breakfast literally means “Morning Rice”. The tricky part is that there are 5 tones, 6 if you count the absence of tone, and if you pick the wrong tone for a word (or just mispronounce it), nobody will have the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Mandarin has no pity. At 10am the introductory class starts, which covers a lot more grammar and vocabulary. I’m learning slowly but surely, and my pronunciation is miles better than it was.

I can’t have a conversation yet, but if I keep this up, I think I’ll be able to communicate on the street at least. I can sort of order food already, knowing the words for ‘beef’, ‘chicken’, ‘rice’, ‘noodles’ and having earned a black-belt in pointing-at-food. However this leaves me with little in terms of variety or specialty dishes, so I’m still hungry to learn more. My goal is to learn enough pronunciation in the next 2 weeks to stop coming to the 9am class, restoring balance to my life (and stop everyone from greeting me with “Dan, you look exhausted!’)