Today was my 19th first day of school. Since I
just graduated in May I feel kind of weird going back to school. I thought I
was done! Alas, I’m a glutton for punishment as well as a big nerd that loves
learning.
We signed a “Language Commitment Pledge” today stating that Monday
through Friday from 8am to 8pm we will only speak Chinese. I am going to try to
use Chinese for 23 hours a day Sunday through Friday and have a cheat day on Saturdays. I will see how this goes. I have only used English (right now) and to send some emails. Today, I had to say "对不起, 我不知道怎么说．．．＂(Sorry, I don't know how to say...) many times. Bless whoever is trying to converse with me. I am trying my best.
There are thirteen people in my program of varying levels of
proficiency. I thought we would all talk to each other less because we cannot
speak in our native tongue. But I was pleasantly surprised that people were
still chatting and telling jokes. Jokes in convoluted broken Chinese are
hilarious. More on this next time.
My favorite vocabulary term we learned today is “快活.” It means “happy.” However, there are many
phrases you can mean that directly translate to “happy” that each are slightly
different. This particular phrase means you are happy because of something
really simple. The example she used in
class is: You are really dirty and then you take a shower. Afterwards you 觉得很快活 (feel
happy). How cool is that? The second line in my textbook is “生命对于人只有一次.”
Translation: #YOLO. I giggled and 觉得很快活.
Three things I am grateful for:
1.
The first day of school is always exciting. I am
full of enthusiasm and am not fatigued yet.
2.
I had a great first day of speaking only
Chinese. It was hard at times but I know the practice will improve my speaking
ability.
3.
I showed my host family some of my pictures and
spent time with them. I wish I could spend more time with them but I need to
study. We have 4 hours of classes everyday and they tell us we should be
studying/doing homework for 8 hours. Um… what?
Kat-tonga.
ReplyDeleteThat is so cool. Are you gonna also speak zhong wen with your host family?
And wait, so are your other classmates non-native chinese speaking people.
Are you gonna forget how to speak ying wen and won't be able to talk with me?
Guess I'll have to take this class too.
~Piky