Friday, April 25, 2008
My first Chinese lesson
I had my first Chinese lesson today with one of the administrators in our department. It all started because I asked her if there were any schools in Zhangzhou to study Chinese. She asked a student who was also in the office and unfortunately there are not. So, she offered to teach me. At first I was skeptical because these things usually turn out in one of two ways. First, either she will turn it around completely and I'll end up teaching her English. Or, she is looking for a boyfriend and little language learning will take place at all. This happened to me all the time in Korea (usually the first one). Anyway, I decided to show her how serious I was about it and asked her how much she wants for the lessons. She said it would be free. A few days later I went to her office and found out she had bought me some books and supplies for our class. At this point I knew she was just as serious about this as I was. She ended up buying me two children's books for writing and simple vocabulary. Yes, I am now a Chinese child. We spent two and a half hours practicing sounds and basic writing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
good luck with your chinese:)
chinese people trying to learn english either.
Yeah I forgot to mention too that a young girl I met that was a teacher at an english school also helped me out a lot and we used children books as well. It was a great way to start off. I also made it a point not to speak english unless I was teaching an english class or someone asked me a simple question on the language. People would get mad that I would not speak to them in English but I would tell them I was there to learn their langauge and culture and that I would hope that they understand.
Post a Comment