Oh and for the record I am not learning to write the Hanzi.
Hate to say it I completely fall off the wagon, so to speak. First day of the trip I went over lesson 38 of Assimil and that was it. The following two weeks I really didn’t do much, maybe a few Anki revisions here and there. I was just too tired. But…
If you want to include non-formal practice, well I’m in China so there was a lot of it. Part of my travel involved a visit to the rough countryside of Western China where I was forced to listen to our tour guide all day (under much duress too because the PA system was so damn loud). Anyway she spoke like a school teacher – meaning she spoke slowly and repeated words a lot. Once I faced the fact I wouldn’t be able to sleep on the tour bus I did my best to listen, and even shadow her. A strangely rewarding experience in retrospect.
Since I was out of my lush Tier 1 city, I encountered a different side of China. People were curious about me and I was stopped everywhere to chat. What was great is that I got to use some of those basic things you learn as a beginner (“My name is…”, “I am from…” etc). I never get to practice those introductory phrases with my friends because… well as friends I hope they know my name! With all the people I met on my trip I did my best to carry the conversation as far as I could before reverting to English. It felt good. In addition to that, because I was traveling with friends I got to listen to them speak Chinese and even participate a little. I didn’t understand the full conversation but I could pick up words and follow along from time to time. Actually just by being able to infer meaning from a few expressions or words I know really fooled everyone into believing I speak Chinese. Of course when they start speaking to me in Chinese the thin veneer fades.
I have lots of great travel stories but I’ll just share one because it’s related to speaking Chinese. Well kind of. Allow me to boast
I saw a big crowd of people around a stage. We are talking a crowd of 100-150 people. Suddenly I hear someone yell 老外. Next thing I know I’m being pushed through the crowd towards the stage. I turn to my friends and yell: “What’s going on!?”. They tell me it’s a beer drinking contest and I should enter. I climbed on stage and walked towards the hosts. They spoke to me in English and wished me a Happy New Year. I don’t know why - I think it was the adrenaline - but I grabbed the microphone and turned to the audience and said 新年快乐. The audience, who were already pretty excited and were taking lots of photos, erupted into cheers. The hostess responded back (in Chinese) about me having the ability to speak Chinese. It was a long sentence and I didn’t know all the words but I guess that was the general meaning. Then something embarrassing happened… I forgot all my Chinese. I tried to say more but I forgot everything. Everything! It was the nerves. There were other moments on my trip where I was in front of large crowds and the pressure made me forget everything. Anyway I participated in the contest. I didn’t win but it didn’t matter. I felt like a winner. There was a moment where all the other contestants stopped to watch me drink and I could hear people saying 加油 which is like an encouragement or supportive chant. When I got off the stage everyone approached me and was full of smiles and thumb’s ups. They even had three professional cameras filming the whole thing so I’ll probably end up in a video collection of embarrassing things foreigners do in China.
I guess the big take away from my trip is that my tones need more work. Whilst I can still improve my pronunciation it’s my tones that really need work. As my friend said: “Mandarin has four tones, but you speak like it only has two - up or down”. That’s some good feedback and will be something I concentrate my efforts on. Does anyone have a good program or advice regarding tone work? I’ve seen this website crop up a few times. Anything else?
