Learning a language is like losing weight

Good advice for myself (and perhaps others).

From the article
Ten good habits for learning Japanese for life in Japan
by Eido Inoue (Adrian D. Havill)

Repetition with both writing and listening works best. Don't just mentally read and answer the exercises in the textbook. Copy the questions longhand whole to a notebook along with the answers. Verbally say and hear everything you write. There are tons of books with mnemonic systems. Maybe they work. Maybe they don't. But repetition does work. Nobody likes to hear that. Just like nobody likes to hear that the foolproof way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. Because it's hard work. You should approach learning a foreign language the same way you would exercise and diet. The exercise is the endless repetition of writing of the same words and phrases — longhand — over and over. It's the endless oral repetition of your written notes. It's the endless repetition of reading the same phrases over and over. The diet part? That's refraining from using too much of your native language in Japan (—or whatever country you're in).

Today I irritated the hell out of an old lady

Ah, language blunders…you gotta love 'em.

Before all that, though, I must point out that I'm currently snacking on hot tea and a wonderfully delicious loaf of bread.

It's the one on the left in the picture, made with lemon, pomelo, and chocolate chips, and it's out of this world.

The one on the right is chocolate and tangerine, which is next on my list.

The bakery is called Magie du Levain (樂凡) and it's only a couple of minutes from my work (桃園市永安北路466號).

OK, so here's what happened today.

I'd been out on my scooter, doing errands and on my way home, and decided that I wanted to make a salad for dinner. Instead of going to a grocery store where I'd have to find a parking spot and go inside the store, I thought it would be much more efficient to find a vegetable stand down some back alley. Which I did.

I pulled up in front of the stand, but didn't see any lettuce. There may have been lettuce in the rear part of the shop, but I was feeling too lazy to get off my scooter to take a look. So I decided to be authentically Taiwanese and just sit on my scooter and ask the laobanniang (lady shopkeeper) if she had any lettuce.

(I should point out that previously I'd learned the Chinese word for lettuce as 生菜 shēng tsài. Also, when you look up 'lettuce' in various online dictionaries, the first translation it gives is sheng tsai—just so you know I'm not making this stuff up.)

ME: Qing wen, you mei you sheng tsai? Excuse me, do you have lettuce?

SHOPKEEPER: Zhe bian. Here (pointing to cilantro).

ME: Bu shi, wo bu yao xiang tsai. You sheng tsai ma?  No that's not it, I don't want cilantro. Do you have lettuce?

SHOPKEEPER: Zhe bian you a. Yeah, it's right here! (once again motioning toward the cilantro and starting to get pissed)

ME: Wo zhi dao, zhe shi XIANG tsai, ke shi wo yao SHENG tsai…SSSHHENG TSAI. Um, yeah, I know this is cilantro, but I want lettuce…LET-TUCE!

SHOPKEEPER: (waving her hand and walking away, mumbling obscenities under her breath)

There was nothing to do but leave.

I reassured myself that I had been pronouncing the words flawlessly; it was simply a matter of this short-tempered woman not recognizing impeccable Chinese when she heard it.

I later called my friend, a Chinese language god among men, to ask him where I'd gone wrong. He informed me that, despite Google Translate, sheng tsai actually means any leafy vegetable, so when you ask for it you'll be shown any leafy vegetable the shop happens to have on hand.

Like cilantro.

The actual word for lettuce is 萵苣, pronounced wō jù.  

So instead of a salad I whipped up a delightful broccoli cheese soup. I'm still contemplating whether or not to risk further humiliation by returning to the vegetable stand to explain myself.

A bilingual pun (explained)

The Chinese words sound like the English words when pronounced with a Chinese accent.
The Chinese meaning is appropriate for any language.

忙Day     "Mang'day"   Busy Day

求死Day  "Chius'day"   Requesting-Death Day

未死Day  "Ways'day"    Haven't-Died-Yet Day

受死Day  "Shows'day"  Accept-Death Day

福來Day  "Fulai'day"    Good Fortune-Comes Day

Anniversary in Taiwan

Today marks 2.5 years since I arrived in Taiwan. What did I do to celebrate? Nothing, just mundane errands.

I skipped my Chinese class this morning because I didn't go to bed until 3:30am. Long story short, it took me that long to locate, download, and watch the latest episode of Survivor that I could access in Taiwan.

I filled out my absentee voting ballot and mailed it. I'm very curious if Proposition 19--legalizing marijuana in California--will pass.

I went to the store to buy some toothpaste (Black Man brand).

I picked up a biandang for lunch.

Pretty boring, I know.

OK, here's a story from Tuesday. I went to a nearby clinic to get my yearly flu shot. As I was filling out paperwork at the reception counter, a middle-aged Taiwanese woman, who was also at the counter, got a wide-eyed look on her face when I presented my National Health Insurance card. She then proceeded to make remarks to the receptionist about how surprising it was that I would have an insurance card.

I got a bit upset because she had an arrogant tone, and apparently she figured I couldn't understand her Chinese. I turned to her and, a bit rashly, blurted out, "我住台灣, 所以我有健保卡." (I live in Taiwan, so I have an insurance card) I felt bad for getting a bit testy, but that feeling vanished when she haughtily looked me over and asked (in English), "Oh, are you Taiwanese?"

I shot back, "不是, 我是美國人, 可是我在台灣工作." (No, I'm American, but I work in Taiwan.) I so wanted to add, "and I pay taxes" but I don't know how to say 'taxes' in Chinese, and at that point I refused to speak English.

I mention this story for two reasons. First, to show that Taiwan does have its negative sides, no matter how much I may wax poetic about it. (Although the vast majority of Taiwanese I've met are friendly). And second, now having been the victim of "it's OK to talk about him in front of his face because he doesn't understand"--of which I've been guilty--I'm determined not to do this to anyone else.

I think tonight after work I'll celebrate my 2.5 years here by eating yuyuan douhua (bean curd with sweet potato and taro) and watching mahjong on TV.

So Taiwanese :-)

Chinglish (and Englinese?)

Click here for some laughs:

A Sampling of Chinglish: slideshow

Of course, I'm sure I make some howlers when I mangle Chinese (I call it “Englinese”).

Speaking of which, I'm proud to say I'm still on track. As of yesterday, I remembered the meaning, pronunciation, reading ,and writing of the following words for this week (patting myself on the back here, but also testing myself today as I write these):

有意思	yǒu yì si	to be interesting		試	shì	to try
說	shuō	to speak		慢	màn	slow
首	shǒu	[measure:songs]		週末	zhōu mò	weekend
密碼	mì mǎ	password		喝	hē	to drink
愉快	yú kuài	happy		吸煙	xī yān	to smoke
肉絲	ròu sī	shredded meat		得	de	[particle:manner/degree]
能	néng	can (physically)		可以	kě yǐ	can (permission)
會	huì	can (learned)		聽	tīng	to hear, listen
茄子	qié zi	eggplant		青椒	qīng jiāo	green pepper
話	huà	word		事	shì	matter, affair
歌	gē	song		難	nán	difficult
有一點	yǒu yì diǎn	slightly		意思	yì si	meaning
好像	hǎo xiàng	to seem to be		酒	jiǔ	alcohol
念	niàn	to read		番茄	fān qié	tomato
真	zhēn	real, true		做事	zuò shì	to take care of matters
畫畫	huà huà	to paint, draw		寫	xiě	to write
教	jiāo	to teach		飯	fàn	food, cooked rice
點飯	diǎn fàn	to order food		唱	chàng	to sing
無線上網	wú xiàn shàng wǎng	wireless Internet		味道	wèi dào	flavor
現在	xiàn zài	now

There are two words from this week that I keep forgetting how to write, although I can recognize the meaning and pronunciation when I see them:

不錯

bú cuò

not bad

跳舞

tiào wǔ

to dance

Did you notice that there are two words above pronounced exactly alike? SHÌ (試 to try) and SHÌ (事 matter). These homophones significantly complicate my learning.

Add to these some other words that I already know—

SHÌ (是 to be)
SHÌ (市 city,market)
SHÌ (式 style)
SHÌ (視 part of the word for TV)
SHÌ (世 part of the word for world)

—Plus some other SHIs that I know with different tones—

SHĪ (師 part of the word for teacher)
SHĪ (獅 lion)
SHÍ (十 ten)
SHÍ (時 hour)
SHÍ (石 stone)
SHǏ (屎 excrement)

—well, the picture sums it up pretty well.

Proud of myself

This morning, I did NOT turn on my computer the first thing. Instead, I made some coffee, unplugged my laptop, put it on the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM, and proceeded to do one hour of calligraphy practice, and one hour of Chinese study.

Yes, it's gotten to that point: If I want to get anything worthwhile accomplished, I have to force myself to stay away from the damn Internet.

If felt good. No, it felt great! Can I keep it up? This week will be a test for me.

By the way, here are some photos of my weekend activities. Enjoy!

Click on photos to enlarge

I hate this guy

Not really. He speaks amazing Cantonese and Mandarin.

Um, yeah, I guess I do hate him :-Þ

Earthquake and breakfast

So we had another earthquake this morning. I was sitting at the computer, actually not wasting my time but studying Chinese, when my apartment started swaying. It was a 6.4, centered about 180 miles south of me.

This is my first earthquake experience since I moved into this apartment last December. I had wondered what they would feel like, being ten floors above the ground. Now I know. The room swayed back and forth for a good 20-30 seconds, starting slowly then getting stronger, and gradually subsiding (Reminded me of how my wife described labor contractions). I've heard that the up-and-down shaking of a quake is more dangerous than side-to-side swaying; I'm relieved that we had the latter type. I don't have a TV, so I don't know the situation in southern Taiwan. Guess I'll have to wait to hear from students today.

Today's Chinese speaking practice included ordering some new dishes at the breakfast shop downstairs. I'll have to remember to post a photo of the place, and of the friendly shopkeeper. No matter how busy she is, she'll have a smile on her face as I'm deperately fumbling with her language.

I got 黑胡椒豬排 hēi hú jiāo zhū pái (Black pepper pork), just like what you see on the left. I also got 酥皮餅 sū pí bǐng (crispy skin cake), kinda sorta like a flaky quesadilla, to which I added cheese and bacon.

Khatzumoto is right; learning a language is much better when you're using it to do something fun and enjoyable. For me, eating certainly fits the bill :-Þ

I also enjoy silly cartoons, so I'm going to start watching 我們這一家 Wǒmen zhè yī jiā ("This family of ours"?) Check it out!

Chinese language learning update

OK, I'm back on track, actually studying--and enjoying learning--this crazy, wonderful language.

I've signed up with Chinese Pod (www.chinesepod.com). I'm past the Basic stage and am listening to the Elementary level lessons. One of my favorite learning tools of theirs is Skritter (www.skritter.com), which I guess you could call "e-practice" for reading and writing characters. The combination of listening, reading, and writing should help my old-man memory.

As far as speaking, my goal is to force myself to speak to someone, anyone, everyday. I've found a great motivator online who uses the handle Khatzumoto. He runs the site "All Japanese All The Time" (www.alljapaneseallthetime.com).

Briefly, this young man was living and going to school in Utah, had an intense desire to learn Japanese, but had no classes nor native speakers where he lived. So he studied on his own, using Internet resources, movies, music--whatever he could get his hands on. He totally immersed himself in the language. By 2005, after only 18 months of study, he was fluent enough to read technical material, conduct business correspondence, and have job interviews in Japanese. He landed a job as a software engineer at a large Japanese company in Tokyo, where he still lives today.

This guy is amazing; yet, he'll be the first to tell you that what he did is not amazing, that anyone can learn any language with enough desire, motivation, and, most of all, fun. Not only is he a great motivator, but his writing is funny as hell!


So, most every morning I've been visiting the breakfast shop near by apartment, ordering a different menu item in order to 1)practice my Chinese, and 2) enlarge my repertoire of Taiwanese cuisine.

This morning I got 吉士豬排堡 Jí shì zhū pái bǎo. I already knew that 豬排 is a pork patty, and 堡 means it comes on a bun, but my handy dictionary translated 吉士 as "custard." Eww. So I took the plunge and ordered it, and was pleasantly surprised. Turns out that the pork patty is breaded and stuffed with a thin slice of ham and cheese. Delicious.

UPDATE: I found out that 吉士 can be pronounced almost like "cheese" in English, hence its use in this dish. This "ham-and-cheese-stuffed" dish is also known to as 藍帶 lán dài "blue ribbon", referring to the French style cordon bleu. I just love when pieces of language all come together!

Chinese....onward and upward! 加油!

Chinese language update

It's not really a full update, because I'm busy getting ready for my trip to the US on Saturday! However, I'm proud to report that I'm still on track with my New Year's Resolution of studying everyday, even if it's just for 10 minutes.

So, I have to share a cool word I just learned. It's 臭美 (chòu měi). It means something like 'smug', 'conceited' or 'showing off your looks.' I'll never forget this word, because the characters literally mean―get this―"stinky beauty."

Isn't that awesome?

Chinese study update

My main New Year's Resolution is to study Chinese every day, including writing. So far I've kept on task (patting myself on back).

Last week I concentrated on memorizing "banker's numbers." These characters are more complicated than the everyday use ones, and are akin to spelling out the numbers in English when writing a check. For example:

The normal number 1 is written 一. This can easily be changed to 2 (二), 7 (七), etc.

The banker's number for 1, however, is 壹, which is nearly impossible to alter.

Here's a list in case you're curious:

  1 一 壹 yī
  2 二 貳 èr
  3 三 參 sān
  4 四 肆 sì
  5 五 伍 wǔ
  6 六 陸 liù
  7 七 柒 qī
  8 八 捌 bā
  9 九 玖 jiǔ
10 十 拾 shí

During my last visit to the bank, I was quite proud to be able to fill out my deposit slip from memory. However, that pride slipped into embarrassment; having recently moved, I didn't know how to write my new address.

So, that's what I'm concentrating on this week.

桃園縣 Taoyuan County
蘆竹鄉 Luzhu Township
段,號,樓 Section, Number, Floor

Let's hope I don't have to go #2

It's 10:00am, and I'm getting ready to go to work. I turn on the faucet...no water. Hmmm.

This happened to me once before, last year, in my old apartment. Apparantly, an announcement had been posted in the elevator notifiying the residents of a temporary water shut-off. I assume that's the situation now.

I just now went to the elevator...ah, there's the notice:



Or, is it? Who knows?

And so, here's yet another reason for me to work on my New Years resolution to get off my lazy ass and start studying Chinese seriously.

Christmas TV

Merry Christmas to all!

My favorite show (姐妹會 Sisters Meeting) had a Christmas episode. Here's a clip where they were having some fun with the host, and you can (once again) see some foreigners speaking Chinese. The guy is from Canada, and the girls are from Belarus, England, China, Brazil, and Papua New Guinea.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHVksi2Hp90

Foreigners speaking Chinese and fun TV

When I had a TV, I used to frequently watch a show called 姐妹會 (Sisters Meeting). Although I didn't understand 98% of it, I loved watching the playful spirit on the show. I especially enjoyed seeing the non-native Chinese speakers, as they were an inspiration to me learning this difficult language. If these 外國人 (foreigners) can get to this conversational level of Chinese, then dammit, so can I!

Happily, I discovered that I can still watch this show, sans TV, thanks to YouTube. Below is an excerpt from one episode, where the girls are parodying Taiwan TV commercials.


More videos can be found by searching 姐妹會 on YouTube.

An inspiration to study harder

I'm humbled again by yet another 外國人 (foreigner) who has a conversational command of Chinese.

A rose by any other name would still be drenched

It's 11:00 am Sunday, and the rain continues to fall outside. I'm crossing my fingers that we get a typhoon day off on Monday for super typhoon Jangmi (Korean for 'rose').

I'm going back to bed. Yeah, it's 11:00am, blah blah. Late last night I discovered MySpace's cool new music play list thingy, resulting in my staying up until 4:30 this morning.

I'm up now only because someone phoned me and woke me. Don't know who it was; I was half-asleep when I answered the phone. The guy sounded businesslike, but he was speaking Chinese and I wasn't comprehending. I kept hearing the word 工作 ('work') and in my disorientd fog I thought it might be someone from my job. I asked 不好意思,你是誰? ("Excuse me, who is this?"), at which he continued to ramble, sounding a bit like a telemarketer. I finally got it through my sleepy skull that this guy didn't realize that I wasn't comprehending him, so I told him 我是美國人.聽不懂 ("I'm an American. I don't understand.") I guess my mistake was saying it in Chinese, because he continued (his sales pitch?). I finally said, in English, "I'm sorry, I don't understand." He finally paused, said a couple of more sentences (no, not "Sorry for disturbing you" or acknowledging that he might have the wrong number), and then hung up. I still don't know what happened there.

Gettin' busy

Summer classes started this week, so I'm busier than I've ever been since arriving in Taiwan. My blog entries have always been sporadic, but they may become even more so during the next six weeks.

I started seeing a Chinese tutor last Wednesday. The class is only for one hour, once a week, but with this hectic summer teaching schedule, it's just as well. Fortunately, the class is enough of an incentive to get my butt in gear and start seriously learning Chinese (isn't that one of the main reasons I came here?!)

As of today I have a new favorite Taiwanese food, 鴨肉麵(ya1 rou4 mian4), Duck Meat Noodles. OMG, it is so delicious! Anyone who knows me is aware that I hate pickles, but this dish has some kind of pickled vegetable in it, and its crunchy, tangy taste compliments the soup perfectly. What's next, me eating nasty cottage cheese?!

The place I got it at was recommended by a couple of students, and it's located just down the road from my work...how convenient! The restaurant is called 宜蘭滷之鄉 (yi2 lan2 lu3 zhi1 xiang1) which, when I looked up the characters, is literally "Yilan Gravy Village" or something like that. I'm guessing that Yilan is known for a particular style of sauce. The Duck Meat Noodles were so delicious that I'll be adventurous and try the Duck Feet and Duck Heads soon.

It's a beautiful Sunday--sunny and 86F--so I'm headed to Taipei to visit friends.

My Chinese name

I've decided on a Chinese name: Kong Shu-wen. This wasn't a decision that I took lightly; it came about after doing research and discussing it with Taiwanese friends. I'm pleased with all aspects of the name: The sounds correspond to the English counterparts in my name (as best they can in the Chinese sound system); the shapes of the characters are aesthetically pleasing; and I feel their meanings accurately reflect, well, me.

First, it was important to me to have a familiar, one-syllable Chinese surname, not a foreign sounding multi-character surname. The first character you see to the right, 孔, is pronounced kong (3rd tone). It is a common family name, and is a reasonably close approximation to the first syllable of Coleman. Additionally, one of the meanings associated with Kong is "hole," which is quite apropos since a coal man (Coleman) extracts rocks from holes in the earth. To top it off, I learned that 孔 is the real Chinese surname for the great philosopher we call Confucius.

The next two characters, 書文, are pronounced shu (1st tone) wen (2nd tone), and represent my name Stephen. Shu has the basic meaning of "book" or "letter", while Wen embodies "language", "literature", and "gentle." I think people who really know me will agree that these characters are a good choice.

The image on the left shows the same characters written in "seal script." This style of writing is largely decorative and is widely used in official seals, hence the name. I got my own name seal today, but chose a readable font like the one in the first image.

I also got my haircut today, and then took a spin on my new bicycle (new to me). After 8 weeks in Taiwan without wheels, this bike is opening up new worlds for me. I can't wait to take a long ride on Sunday!

Chinese learning update

Chinese update:

I've got bopomofo down, and have memorized about 30 characters and combination of characters. I'm using a book, Chinese Characters For Beginners, to learn the first 100 most common ones. I try to add a new word each day. I chose this book because it gives the traditional characters prominence, plus gives the pronunciation in both bopomofo and pinyin. I'm trying to rely on bopomofo because the children's books written for Taiwanese youngsters use bopomofo to aid in pronunciation.

The book also shows the historical development of the characters, stroke order, and 5 sample words for each character. For example, when I learn 大 "big" [ㄉㄚˋ], I also learn 大家 "everyone" [ㄉㄚˋㄐㄧㄚ], 大學 "university" [ㄉㄚˋㄒㄩㄝˊ], etc.

So I started to read a very simple children's book that I had bought a couple of weeks ago: 桃太郎 Momotaro (Peach Boy) [ㄊㄠˊㄊㄞˋㄌㄤˊ]. I like this book because there is only one sentence per page (plus I can color the pictures if I want, lol). I also felt a fondness for this story because I remember it from when I studied Japanese, plus Momotaro's name contains the character for "peach", just like Taoyuan, my city.

I hope to learn more vocabulary this way, and how the words are used, not just random words on flashcards.

The story opens:

老夫婦生活很艱苦。The old couple lived a hard life.

[ㄌㄠˇ　ㄈㄨㄈㄨˋ　ㄕㄥㄏㄨㄛˊ　ㄏㄣˇ　ㄐㄧㄢㄎㄨˇ。]

The only word that I already knew was 老"old" so I have a nice bit of extra vocabulary to learn. Additionally, I noted that I need to be careful to differentiate between 天"sky/day" and 夫"man/husband."

My goal is to learn or memorize a sentence or two per week. At that rate, it'll take more than 4 months just to learn this short story. It seems slow; however, I don't want to bite off more than I can chew.

Onomotopoeia

I was listening to my Chinese language tapes this morning, and heard an interesting bit of vocabulary. "Bounce a check" in Mandarin is 跳票 tiào piào. I had to chuckle because, to me, the rhyming words "tiào piào" sound like the noise of a ricocheting object. As in a bouncing ball (or check) ricocheting around. Oh well...

These tapes are supposed to teach beginner's Mandarin, and I found it odd that this phrase is considered necessary for new arrivals in Taiwan. I hope that's not an indication that payroll checks could be dicey. In any case, I certainly won't be forgetting this phrase.

I also found out today that the cat speaks Chinese, at least a bit. It's always walking around the house saying "秒" which means "second" (as in short amount of time) and is pronounced "miǎo", complete with the dipping intonation. I guess the cat is trying to let me know just how long it'll tolerate my inattention to him.

Note: I've changed my default font to Arial. Sans serif fonts seem friendlier to me, both in appearance in in being able to handle the pinyin characters.