So the Slaughter Continues

It is that time again (actually it was time last week but whatever) where we take a knife to the Chinese language and butcher it unintentionally. For everyone who doesn’t care about me attempting Chinese, and for those who do as well, I will have a normal blog post within a week I promise. I will even throw in a short story because you all have been so nice. But until then, enjoy!

1. 王力薇是我的中国人朋友.
2. 孔达宁上午太不好了!
3. 我有英文问题.
4. 王力今天晚在拨弄公室给一个打电话。
5. 我有空吃的电话。

Wasn’t that inspiring? Inspiring to not end up like me and sound stupid in two languages. Well here we go with the intended English.

1. Wang Li Mei is my Chinese friend.
2. Kong Daning hates mornings.
3. I have problems with English.
4. Wang Li is in the office at night making a phone call.
5. I have free time to eat my phone.

Now that that is over it is time to get to the fun part where I get to use English to talk about Chinese! I’ve mentioned this before in my non-award winning show “The Chinese Illiteracy Super Show” and I will add another segment on the next installment but I want to bring it up again as it is consuming a more and more of my time. LiveMocha.com is a great place that everyone who is trying to learn or would like to teach a language should go. It is a community of people around the world who are interested in learning/teaching a language. At first I didn’t do anything on it but once I started talking to actual people it grew into something of a must. I don’t know exactly what it was but when I actually started to talk to people who are from and in China, it hit me how cool it was. Everyone was so nice and inviting. I quickly noticed though that just because a person’s status read “intermediate” or “advanced” doesn’t mean anything. It is a real adventure sometimes trying to communicate with some of these people. It can be very frustrating but also very rewarding.
Now I’m going to point out that I have not spoken or practice any of my Chinese yet. I’ve stuck to English and helping others in English. Anyone who knows me knows just how funny the idea of me trying to teach English to anyone else is. But I think I’m doing a good job, plus most of it is basic. This actually makes me write clear and grammatically correct which is a good thing. The level at which I have to help varies a lot and at times it is difficult in helping. What I mean is, some times the person has very broken English and it is just hard understanding what they mean. To help them would prbably overwhelm them and you have to settle for minor corrections. Other times I understand what they are saying it is just that some words shouldn’t be used. This one is more frustrating to me because I do not know what to do. When you are just talking, stopping every sentence would just be annoying and frustrating on both parties. But what they are saying is incorrect and they are looking for help. It is so frustrating because you understand completely but yet you have to tell them they are wrong. It is a judgement call that is not easy to make.
Some special cases come up like from one of my friend’s, echo. She wrote an “essay” and asked me to go over it. It wasn’t for school but was just for her own. When I read it I was confused because it read a lot like poetry. It was a really cool read and I highly enjoyed it but, it was suppose to be an essay. I didn’t know how to grade/help it. I showed a friend and he understood what I meant. To change it would be to take away what it was but leaving it would mean it was slightly incorrect. It is one of the things where it is not correct but it is not wrong.
Another problem is the huge time gap. Most of the people I talk to in China are 13 ahead of us. This means that a good time to talk to them is 3 in the morning onward. This is fine for me because I’m always up that late but I’m also trying to do other work. It can be a bit over whelming trying to use and teach English to the many people who want to talk with you. You might get flooded by a lot of chat requests and it can be hard to juggle the different levels each person is on. Though it is great that many people want to talk to you, it gets tiring repeating the same questions and phrases when you first meet someone, especially if you two do not fully understand each other. If you are tired, it is hard to help, be polite, and get your own work done.
Though it sounds like I’m complaining a lot there is things and people that make me stay on. Every once in awhile you run into people that have a great passion for wanting to learn both the language and the culture. My one friend fighting ( well it changed and might change again) has such enthusiasm that I find refreshing. I want to help anyone who is that motivated and that nice. I don’t like to pick favorites but if I had to, my favorite person to talk to on livemocha is Vickie or as I just learned 王力薇 She has been very nice to talk with. She is friendly interesting and always a joy to talk to. She is not just interested in the language and the culture but she also wants to become good friends. Since I wanted to help her with English and getting to know me, I gave her the link to this blog/ Even though it is probably a bit too advanced for her, she tries to read it anyways. It is written for English speakers and is a bit off the wall and weird, as I’m sure you have noticed. It is funny and interesting when she askes me to explain something I’ve written. The best were when I had to explain the difference between “house” and “home”, the phrase “sounds cheesy” (like “that sounds cheesy”, and my personal favorite “a swift kick to the crotch is necessary”. It took some time to explain them so she could understand and it was an interesting excise for me. But I really appreciate how she is trying and is interested in what I have to say. It is scary if she knows what I’m saying and still talks to me. I have a feeling she will ask about that one as well. If you are reading this now 王力薇, thank you and I will have a surprise for you on the next blog!
I’m going to start to wrap this up so here is a funny story. So I know this guy who I’ve gotten to know better over the past few weeks. He is a student a year ahead of me and is in the advanced Chinese class. He is a pretty cool guy and he actually knows my brother. One day I learned that he went to a grade school that was near mine. But it was just tonight that I made a connection. I asked him if he was in his grade school’s band and he said yeah. I just remembered that we actually had band together. All this time and neither of us made the connection. I’m not going to say that lame phrase about how this is a small world because it is a very big world. The fact that China is 13 hours ahead of us due to the distance proves that. Now if I saw 王力薇 in my creative writing class then I might buy your argument. But it doesn’t end there. If you remember I said that I only talked in English on Livemocha. Well I have to blog in Chinese and I needed help. Everyone I talk to said they would help me with my Chinese. The problem is that none of my fiends were on. But I had recently hooked up my friend into getting a Livemocha account. Since everyone was gone he stepped up to the plate. So the website that is letting me get help from people in China was really just letting me get help from someone who lives in a one miles radius of me. The irony is stunning. But thank you my friend for helping me with lines such as “I have free time to eat my phone” which I’m glad to say I did that one by myself! So for now I’m going to leave it at that and just say that another blog will be up soon. I know I said under a week but since I just thought of a really awesome thing to do for my friend it might take longer. I will try hard to make my target time but forgive me if I go a bit over. Take care everyone and hopefully I didn’t bore you to death. Zaijian

~Love~