So one of the best things I've learned throughout my language learning is the difference in holiday traditions. Due to the time of year, I felt I should share a little bit about that.
One main difference is when countries celebrate the "new year". In America, we celebrate it between December and January, but in a lot of other countries they celebrate at a different time. The Chinese New Year is a really big holiday that causes a lot of workers to get at least a week off. Some people can get up to two weeks off for this day which they will travel home and spend with their families. This is pretty common to what we celebrate here as well.
My friend, Jing, was able to send me some photos from Tianjin.
Two different traditions they do involve cleaning out their houses. This is done as a way to remove any "bad spirits" that may reside from the previous year in hopes of starting the new year with only good spirits. There is also decorations that are put up. This isn't so much the way that we do to celebrate but instead to scare away. The decorations are meant to scare away any new spirits or ghosts that may be in the streets coming to bring bad times to your family.
Strawberries for Christmas!
Before you judge, remember that we are the people who grow up learning not to stop on cracks in the sidewalk for our mother's safety. We are worried of "jinxing" ourselves and believe the best way to rid ourselves of this is to find the nearest wood and knock on it......okay.
Most recently, I was talking to a few people about how Christmas is celebrated. As Christmas has turned into more of a holiday for buying gifts, it is partially treated that way in China. It isn't celebrated as a traditional holiday, more of a "Hallmark Holiday." The unique part is more around Christmas Eve. In China, this is celebrated by giving people apples, the fruit. It is common to give somebody an apple as a way of wishing them well on Christmas Eve. Sure, this seems truly strange as apple prices rise with the demand and they can even cost extra if they are pre-wrapped, but there is an extremely simple explanation for all of this. In Mandarin, Christmas Eve is 平安夜 (Píng'ān yè) which has the word for apple in it as well (苹果Píngguǒ). Basically, they use the name to determine what to do with it.
Apples at the office for all the employees.
For all my friends learning Mandarin, I wish an apple on you and your family today. To the rest of you, I wish you a happy holiday season, whichever you celebrate. We all celebrate our holidays differently, but what they all center around is family.
Yes, you read that right. I seriously just understood what I'm saying. It came to me yesterday as I was going for a run. My mind tends to wander a lot which leads to a common, "How did you think of that?" response from people when I tell them. Regardless, somehow while I was running I was just thinking about Arabic. Over the last few weeks I have been gaining a better understanding of the language including different possessive words.
مع السلامة
Go with peace (Good bye)
السلام عليكم
Peace be upon your day (Hello)
وعليكم السلام
And your day with peace (Hello response)
It may seem silly to see this written out but in Mandarin it is actually a more awkward saying. Most people are familiar with how to say hello in Mandarin but do they really understand what is being said? More importantly, when you ask how somebody is doing:
你好
You good (Hello)
你好吗
You good, yes? (How are you?)
Mainly, asking how somebody is in Mandarin can almost appear awkward. We have these types of phrases in English as well. Our typical greeting can range from, "What's up?" which likely would confuse any foreigner if that was the first question you asked them, or, "How are you doing?" How am I doing what? How am I doing in life?! Geez, the most awkward part about these questions is that when somebody asks you this, if you answer anything beyond, "I'm good." You'll get a bad response. Somehow, it is now part of our culture that we ask how we are doing but don't actually care to hear a real response.
Looking at how my Arabic has grown over the past month, I can definitely see some growth in what I can say. I may struggle at times to come up with the correct word, conjugation, tense, etc. but I know that I can say more than what I previously had done. Before, I was reciting things that I had memorized; now I am creating new sentences by combining words that I've learned and grammar that I've acquired. This has caused my speaking to slow down, but that is what I want to emphasize. I want to show the moments when I'm thinking on my feet. I don't want to prepare a nice memorized script to read to you because that doesn't really show how I would interact in a social setting.
My biggest weakness right now is my listening. I plan to attack that this week so hopefully I can have a better idea of how to actually listen to the language that I'm speaking.
So I mentioned previously that I was having a tough way of going about this. My initial plan wasn't working as well as I had hoped and my confidence was draining. There needed to be some direction in what I was doing. You can't exactly get to a final destination if you don't have a map.
I decided a few weeks ago to get some tutoring. It wasn't going to be too intensive, just help get a foundation that I could build on. My hope was that after a few lessons I would be able to start applying what I learned into expanding my skills.
I was able to find a "community tutor" who was able to work with me from Palestine and immediately I could tell a difference. The first thing we did was go over verb conjugations, which hadn't been explained to me yet, and suddenly I took off. Although I was struggling to get words out as effectively, I was happier knowing that what I was doing was actually correct. Previously, I was only memorizing phrases, but now I can manipulate a sentence to mean something different with just a few words.
So many notes to write in Arabic, in English, to listen, to say, bah! Gotta keep up!
The lessons have been difficult at times. Being as they are only an hour we try to jam as much information into that hour as possible, which usually leaves me overwhelmed by the end. Also, due to the time differences, the lessons are all at 5am. This has left me exceptionally exhausted at times but if I want to make this work, I have to make it a priority. It isn't just when it is convenient that I practice; I need to make time for this and put forth the effort.
One thing really struck me during my last lesson which was Friday morning. Whenever I am presented a new work, I am given both the English phonetic spelling as well as the Arabic spelling. With newer words that are being presented to me, I have been able to write them out in Arabic BEFORE I am even given the spelling. This was exciting knowing that I am starting to differentiate certain letters that sound similar. This was a small but happy win in the Alex column.
We're making progress guys! On day at a time.
I have one more lesson in a week before I have to decide to sign up for more lessons or to go back on my own. At this time I'm not sure which way I will go. Both ways have their benefits so I'm hoping after the lesson I will have a better idea of which I want to pursue. For now, I'll leave you with another Arabic video!
Accidentally used the wrong verbs when talking about my dog, so pretend I am talking TO him, about him, and it totally works.......
This goes out to anybody taking on something new. That can be anybody taking on a new language like myself, a change in your nutrition, a change in your exercise routine, etc. At some point we all decide to make a change in hopes for the better. That initial moment is exciting, you have a purpose and a plan and you're ready to go!
How long has it been? How long since you started? How long since it wasn't as easy to stay motivated? How long since you felt you like you were still doing it right?
The truth is, that initial moment is going to pass and following it will be a large place of uncertainty. When I first began learning Arabic I was excited. I felt like I was learning things and moving forward. After a few days I hit that first bump in the road and it slowed me down. Suddenly, things started to get more difficult. My motivation from before was still trying to push back but the obstacles got larger. Did I take a wrong turn? Why wasn't it as easy as before?
Honestly, that rut hit me for longer than I want to admit. I felt like I had a vague idea of the language for a while. I felt I could recognize the letters, but other than that all I could do was say, "Hello." This can really start to wear down on you.
Whenever we set out with a new goal, a new change, a new plan, etc. we always have the end in sight but we forget about the middle ground. We forget how difficult those times in between can be. So what happens when we get to those difficult times? We lose our path. We forget why we started. That's the time to really remember why we started.
For anybody who is striving for something more but struggling through the middle, take a second to remind yourself of why you started and where you hope to get to. You'd be surprised how often we forget to encourage ourselves to keep pushing for our own goals.
One thing that is important to do is to remind yourself of how far you've come. I can look at my video I made today and say, "Wow, I struggled to get out a single sentence. I had to stop and think for EVERY word." I could continually tell myself that I'm no where near being able to comfortable talk with people without a cheat sheet. Or, I can look at how far I've come. Most of the words and phrases I'm saying I didn't even know two weeks ago. This week I could actually say some phrases that explain myself and my family. Even though I look confused and lost in the videos I've posted the past two weeks, I am a lot more confident in myself and what I'm doing.
Stay positive and keep pushing yourself to reach your goals. We'll get through the rough patches together. Please feel free to contact me if you need any motivation for chasing your goals.
I'm excited to announce I've made some real Arabic progress! This past week I was able to work with somebody from the Middle East to help get a better understanding of how to approach the language. So far I have learned more in the past week than I felt I have in nearly five months of studying.
For starters, I now have a better understanding of verbs. Verbs start with a root word that can be expanded out to form different words for each person. This has helped A LOT as I can then take any verb and hopefully format it to work with any word I want. This helped in realizing how you say, "How are you?"
Last week I was able to distinguish between "my book" and "this book". During the past week I have been able to expand on that and learn more ways of saying possession of a noun. This has been a really good starting block for a lot more to come.
Having an understanding of the alphabet has helped quite a bit. This was especially helpful when new words were presented and I was able to help distinguish between a few letters that may sound the same but look different. I've been able to write out most of the stuff that I've learned.
Look at all the things I can write!
I'm quite happy with this past week. Although a lot of the stuff I have learned is more shaky than what I have been learning, I feel that it is pushing me in the correct direction. I feel that I have a better foundation to build off of with what I've been learning over the past week. My hope is that this confidence can help keep me both motivated and pushing myself every day from here forward.
Overall this week's post is short. There's a lot going on behind the scenes that has me optimistic. This week my video is literally going to be me just rehearsing phrases and words that I've learned most recently. It likely won't make sense but I hope you can feel more confidence being shown, maybe not from the presentation of what I say but in the fearlessness that what I'm saying is closer to correct.
When I first began learning Chinese, I told myself it was because I wanted to meet new people. The idea was that I would be able to communicate with people who I previously hadn't been able to communicate with due to a language barrier. For a year I felt like I was doing that until I realized that everybody I was communicating with was also learning English. This meant that although I was able to use a new language to talk to them, I still would have been able to had I tried speaking English. I needed a different idea.
At the same time I was getting frustrated. Most of the people I tried to talk with had the same mindset as me. You come to a language learning app, with the hopes of being able to practice your language with a native. Most people didn't want to dedicate their time speaking their native language helping the other person. This often led to a "language battle" where each person only responds using the language they're learning, so it isn't really a conversation of either language. I tried to play the middle ground and respond in both languages, but the person I was talking to wouldn't budge.
Finally, I made a rash decision: I was going to find somebody else who would only speak to me in Chinese. How was I going to do this? I set out to find somebody who was ALSO learning Chinese, but from a different country. My goal was that they couldn't speak English so that the only language we could communicate with was Chinese. Initially, I messaged people in Chinese with my plan, but due to how complex of an idea it was, I didn't get any responses. Most people thought I was way beyond their level or didn't feel they could communicate with somebody in Chinese.
I went to my second attempt. Knowing that they couldn't translate as much as I was sending in Chinese, I needed to message them in their language. The problem was I didn't know their language at all. How did I accomplish this? Google translate is a wonderful thing! I typed up a generic message in English, translated it to various languages, and then sent it to people from those countries. Most people were terrified of this idea, fearing that without a comfortable language for us both to communicate in, how would we talk if we got lost in translation? Some people have responded and it has been entertaining to say the least.
Carrying on a conversation with somebody who is also learning Chinese can get interesting.
My success rate of getting somebody to respond is way below 10%. Some people respond back in their language (thanks Google for helping to translate that), some respond in English, but most responses come in Chinese. This sets up a beneficial situation for both of us as we can focus on the one language we both want to learn.
A few of the translations I've used to try to get people to talk to me.
This summer I had the chance to have an actual video chat with somebody from a different country. I was terrified. To prepare, I sent them a list of vocabulary words that I would likely use to introduce myself (I don't expect a beginner to know Mechanical Engineer) to help make sure we could keep a conversation going. Not only that, but knowing that some words may be confusing, I drew pictures. I figured if they got confused when I said I like to ride bikes, I could draw a bicycle and hopefully we could communicate that way. The person I was supposed to chat with got scared and passed the video off to their friend who also spoke Chinese. Being as determined as I was, I was still able to have a conversation with them even though we didn't really have time to prepare. My drawings didn't have to come up either.
Overall, the experience of trying to meet somebody that doesn't speak English at all has been entertaining. There is plenty of times people ignore my request, but there's also times that I can have an actual conversation with somebody that I never would have been able to before. Currenlty, I am having conversations with two different people from different countries in Africa who are also learning Chinese. Had I never reached out to those people, I never would have been able to talk to them. Better to take a chance than to never have that opportunity, right?
This week I had a wonderful little breakthrough. I had been realizing that sometimes you should say "al" before a noun but never figured out why. Turns out it is a way of saying "the" or "a". This week I was able to help understand the difference between that and saying "my". Little steps lead to a lot bigger progress.
I'm not the only person learning a language. There are millions of people learning other languages. I've talked to multiple people who are also learning a language at this time; so what makes me different? Do I have a secret to allow me to be better at learning a language? Yes, it is using the language.
This seems so obvious but it can be challenging as well. Obviously as we learn a language our hope is to be able to use it. The issue is that we always wait until we think we are "good enough" to actually start to use it. We'll wait until we have a large enough vocabulary, grammar, confidence, etc. The problem is that this is actually slowing down the progress.
Nobody was able to walk on their first attempt. The first word you ever said when you were a baby likely wasn't some novel idea. The first time you do something, you aren't going to be good at it. The sooner you get working on it the sooner it will be able to improve. You can spend hours, days, and years reading how to ride a bike but until you get out and start riding you won't see that improvement.
More than anything, you have to be willing to make mistakes. Don't be worried about saying something incorrectly. You'll find that people get excited when you are speaking their language and will go out of their way to help you instead. Not only that, but you learn more from your mistakes than from your successes. I figured out pretty quick the different between "don't" and "haven't" with regards to Mandarin. If you recall, the first time I tried to tell somebody that we were hungry because we "haven't" eat I accidentally said we "don't". That's a pretty big difference in those regards and the reaction I got proved that as well. The more willing you are to throw yourself out there and make mistakes, the more likely you are to see improvement.
Friday night Jessie and I watched The Chronicles of Narnia and I thought it'd be fun to try to translate it in real time as we went. It wasn't long before I was asked to stop but it was cool to see that I was able to translate quite a bit more than I expected. I've done this before with a Dr. Seuss book and the same reaction happened. I was more successful than I thought I would have been. Sometimes you have to stop holding yourself back and just trust that you can do more than you thought.
This week I did a lot of planning for future improvements that I'm hoping to see in about a month. I realized I had some goals earlier in the year that I may not have completed so I'm going to try to see which ones are still within reach without going off my main path just to check off a box. This week I went for my 5 minute monologue in Chinese. I used it as a way to talk about a challenge that I've faced when trying to practice Chinese.
Not even going to try adding subtitles for all of this. My video editing system right now is lacking to say the least. Instead, fun activity for anybody who speaks Mandarin to use it as a chance to listen. Again, I made plenty of mistakes along the way. There's words I don't have in my vocabulary, word order was off, I couldn't think of what to say, etc. but the important thing is that I can give it my full effort and not back down.
Literally thought to myself, "Why am I always sitting in the same seat?" so I stepped outside. Guys, I went outside!
When I first began learning a language, I had no intent of really learning the culture behind it. I figured everything would be pretty straight forward and equivalent to English. Obviously, that isn't the case. As you learn a language, there is certain indications about the culture itself that you have to learn to really interact.
My first experience of this was when I began learning the appropriate way to start a conversation with somebody using Chinese. A common phrase, "你好吗?" is closely related to, "How are you?" There was a time that hunger was a very serious issue in China. This issue led so much that a common greeting was instead inquiring that the person you were talking to had eaten for the day. Previously, a more common phrase to use was, "你吃了吗?" which is, "Have you eaten yet?" If somebody approached me on the street in the U.S. and asked me that out of no where, I'd likely be a little skeptical; are you about to ask me out to eat? This common phrase from the older generations in China is a way of showing your concern for the well-being of somebody you are talking to.
Another interesting aspect of other languages is the order of your name. In China, your name is commonly referred to as <Last Name> <First Name>. I always like to consider the values of the country when looking at this situation. When it comes down to who you are, you put your family first.
In a more grammatical sense, the explanation is likely that it is common to start with a larger group and then go to a smaller subsection. Instead of saying, "I am from Iowa City, Iowa, U.S." I would say, "I am from U.S., Iowa, Iowa City" For a lot of people I'm sure this seems completely backwards, why would I say something that way? Honestly, it makes more sense to start with the general area. You may not know where Iowa City or Iowa is located so until I mention the U.S. you are completely clueless as to where I am talking. On the other hand, when I start with the general area you are more clear of the location prior to hearing the exact place.
With regards to Arabic, there is a lot of religion that goes with the phrases. Here is a list of common phrases and their literal translations:
Hello (Peace be upon you) السلام عليكم
Hello (Peace upon you as well) وعليكم السلام
Response to how are you: (Good, praise to Allah) كويس الحمد لله
Response to offering you to do something: (If Allah wills it) إن شاء الله
At first this may seem to concern people, the whole language is driven by religion!? What about English? We always say things like, "Bless your" or "God bless you" and it never is a very big deal. When tragedy strikes a certain person or location, we say, "Pray for <blank>". There are certain words that originated from religion as well. "Holiday" can easily be rooted back to "Holy Day" yet we use "Happy Holidays" as a way to refrain from any religious conflicts.
Overall, one theme that can be seen in a lot of languages is how you pay respect to your family. It took me a little time when I first began Chinese to realize that having a brother wasn't good enough. There are different words for siblings that are either older or younger than you. There are different words for you dad's and your mom's parents. This is seen in a lot of other languages as well, distinguishing somebody by either their age or their side of the family.
Another interesting aspect of languages is how some of them are related. Would you believe that one of the easiest languages is actually rooted from one of the hardest? Due to historical conquests, there are around 8,000 Spanish words that have Arabic origin. This week I am going to go over some of those words in both Spanish and Arabic to show how nearly 600 years of separating cultures can still have very similar sounds.I will start each one with the Spanish word, followed by the original Arabic word.
About a month ago I was getting very frustrated with my
Arabic progress. I didn’t feel like I was getting better, I couldn’t figure out
how to form sentences, I wasn’t confident in what dialect to use, and I just
overall didn’t like the way things were going. About the only thing I had going
for me was that I could recognize almost all the letters in all their forms. In
all honesty, I wanted to learn, I just didn’t know how. I feel that Arabic is one of the most beautiful languages to listen to and I wanted to be
able to understand what I was listening to; I just couldn’t figure out how to go about progressing.
A lot of times when I get frustrated with Arabic I start to
doubt myself. Maybe Arabic is just too hard for me to learn by myself? I have
considered giving up countless times and just focusing on Mandarin. I have a
good thing going with Mandarin; why not focus on that and come back to Arabic
in a few years?Mandarin is more fun
because I can use it. Most situations that come up in my day, I can talk about
in some way or another.
Recently, I found a school in China that I could attend that
is a full immersion school. This would allow me to improve my Mandarin while
living in the country, using it to explore, learn, grow, etc. But is this what
I want? Do I want to spend money to be taught how to use a language or do I
want to make mistakes and learn from personal experiences? I’ve started to plan
a 10-14-day trip where I would travel through China, visiting the people that
I’ve met while learning this language and seeing their cities. Sure, this
school would be easier to coordinate the experience, but would I be able to
make it my own? For now, I’m putting it on a back burner. One thing that has kept me going is this blog. I can't just give up on something so quickly, what would I really be proving with that? At times I feel embarrassed that I'm struggling because I wanted to be able to show everyone that anybody can learn a language. What instead I'm hoping this shows is that, yes, it is hard, you will have bad days, you will doubt yourself, you will think of giving up, but you are not alone. I hope this will show you that even with any success I've had it hasn't been an easy path. I hope you realize that if you are trying to do the same thing and feel confused, I've been there as well. I can tell you from experience that it does get better, it does get easier, and it does get a lot more fun once you can really start to use a language. So thank you for taking the time to read this. Knowing that wherever you are, you are watching what I'm doing, has given me motivation to not give up and to help keep this journey going. I couldn't do it without you. This week has given me some optimism. I’ve finally started
learning more of a dialect than the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) because nobody
speaks using MSA. I found some videos that go through some simple phrases in
Egyptian Arabic and have started to repeat those phrases to myself more and
more each day. I’m feeling better that I can say those without too much
trouble. Not only have I started to focus on a few videos, I also watched a few
other people speaking Arabic and I recognized more than I thought I would. I
figured I would catch the first two sentences and that would be it, but I could
follow for almost a minute! Even more exciting for me was trying to pick up random words
further into the dialogue. Sometimes when taking on a new challenge the easiest
part may not be at the beginning. This could be why, using my triathlon experience,
you learn to ride a bicycle before you attempt a flying mount. When learning a
new song, you might start at a portion in the middle of the song that is
simpler than just the beginning. For languages, you can’t always start with the
first word and begin learning that word before moving further on. I was so
excited while listening to somebody speak Arabic when suddenly I recognized the
word for “film” which I hadn’t practiced for a month or so. Sure, I didn’t
catch the whole sentence but by knowing a few words within a sentence you can
piece together the meaning of the whole.
When you have two hours between flights, you be productive!
This weekend I’m going to be busy with a wedding (Congrats
to Cameron and Kylie!) so I won’t be able to dedicate as much time to my blog
which is why I’m currently writing it in an airport. My video is going to be
reflecting on as many phrases and words that I can remember in all dialects of
Arabic that I’ve learned (MSA, Egyptian, Iraqi). When we don’t take the time to
reflect on our progress, it can quickly seem like we haven’t made any progress.
I hope that this video will do more good for myself than for you in reminding
me of how far I’ve come.
When I first started learning a new language, a common question I got asked a lot was, "Why did you decide to learn Chinese?" Why would I take on what a lot of people consider to be one of the hardest languages in the world? Why would I decide at this point in my life to learn a new language? Do I have plans to use it? What really am I hoping to gain from this?
The reason I began learning a new language is not the same reason that I am still learning. As most people know, I volunteer with HOBY and now get the honor of helping out at the DC seminar. In 2015 I had a group that forever changed my life. During our first time together we did an icebreaker called "hot seat" where everybody spends one minute getting asked any questions that the group can come up with. Each time a new student was in the middle, one of the questions continually came from another student asking, "What languages do you speak?" As each kid came through the middle, they all mentioned at least one other language that they spoke. Finally, when the student who kept asking everyone else about languages had his moment in the middle I instantly threw the question at him, "What languages do you speak?" to which he listed off about five languages. As we went through the weekend, languages seemed to come up multiple times. Our groups count-off was done in multiple languages, and I was forced to say my number in English.
I remember going home that night following the weekend. It was so amazing to see all of these high school students that actually could use a language that they had learned, but it also had me feeling a tad embarrassed. I spent four years learning Spanish but never felt confident saying anything. To put myself further down, somehow I ended up watching Inglorious Basterds that night where multiple languages are used. I didn't pay much attention to the movie but was instead focused on all of the languages.
It hit me that not being able to speak more than one language was limiting me. I told myself that to stay competitive in the job market, I needed to have another language that I could speak or soon I would be left behind. I found some online quiz that was to determine what language would be best for me to learn and it told me German. Instantly I was like, "No, that's no fun!" and kept trying to find a language that I thought would be impressive to learn. My goal was not to find a language to speak at that moment, but one that would be useful ten years down the road. Somehow, this put me looking at Mandarin Chinese as I felt that would be exceptionally useful in 2025. I downloaded Rosetta Stone and started working my way through the program.
Goal setting is something I've had success and failure with. I knew the instant excitement I had for learning a new language would fade. Most people set goals at one time in the year: New Year's. The statistics are not very promising for taking on new challenges as people get discouraged and slowly stop doing the goal they had set out to go for. I wanted to make sure this wasn't me. I emailed those students who inspired me and told them my plan. I wanted them to hold me accountable. As I started learning words and phrases, I kept preparing for the moment when one of them saw me and asked how my Chinese was so that I could respond and say I was making it work.
The email I sent back on June 2nd, 2015 in hopes of being held accountable for my actions.
This was a ten year goal in the making. I knew from the start that this was a very long shot of working. I didn't have plans of actually using the language for a while; like I could really be able to use it anytime soon, anyways. I read blogs, books, articles, and watched videos to try to get myself ahead. I felt good that I could say some things and understand how the language worked, but most of that was just something I kept to myself. It wasn't until I tried using Chinese that I suddenly felt a rush of excitement. That rush has been mentioned before but more than anything, it was fun! It was a way to see the work I had put in finally be put to use.
A few of those students I still hear from. The ones that I do, they all know what I'm up to. One of them was actually able to help me get over one of my fears this summer and we went to a Chinese Speaking Meetup group in DC. Another has helped me with my Arabic if I get frustrated. I was so happy to get to talk to another a few weeks ago that I hadn't talked to for over a year, but she remembered that goal I said to them.
Now, I don't learn the language for the same reason. My end goal isn't to be able to use a language for work; my goal is to be able to communicate with people. There are 7.4 billion people in the world, each one with their own unique story, and less than 400 million of them speak English. Now, I'm learning languages to be able to meet as many of those people as possible.
In honor of this experience that really got me going down this path, here is a video of me trying to explain in short how it all happened in the language that got me on going.
As I go about learning languages, there are good days and there are bad days. Some days I am able to really focus my time and I feel like I'm making progress; some days I get distracted and don't take time to work on my new language. I could say I'm busy but the choice to do other things instead of practice is still mine. Missing a day isn't an issue, but when that day turns into two or three the gap can add up.
A primary model of learning is called "Spaced-Repetition" which helps convert short term memory into long term memory. When you learn something new, it will easily be forgotten if you don't refresh yourself of it quickly. The more times you review it, the more time you can spend between reviewing it without fear of losing it. This is especially important for language learning as you learn new vocabulary.The more you use a phrase, the more likely it is that you will remember it if you take a break from using it for a while.
Back when I was in high school I took four years of Spanish. During this time we did a block scheduling where you had the class for twice as long but only half of the year. Although I was able to retain a lot of information for short periods of time, my long term memory never truly gathered everything from each year. The first few weeks of each year were mostly reviewing the previous year instead of building upon it.
Why am I bringing up my previous language learning? I studied a language for four years and never really got to a successful or comfortable level that I could use. This is a lot to do with how I reviewed and the repetition. My Chinese for example allowed me to have a conversation in less than a year. My conversation wasn't just with a teacher of the language, but somebody who didn't really have experience teaching it. If I go a longer time without practicing my Chinese, I notice it pretty quickly. The only time I really ever "tried" to use my Spanish previously was when my family went to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico where everybody spoke English. I'd try to greet people and thank them in Spanish but that was ever about it. The first time I actually used it for practical purposes was just this past January when I was at an airport in Iowa and tried to help a few women who couldn't speak English. Being as I had gotten past the idea of trying to sound perfect but instead just tried to communicate, I was able to help them locate their plane.
Today's video is going to be a little entertaining to demonstrate this. I have Jessie joining me to have a conversation in Spanish, a language that I studied for four years, but haven't really "studied" for over eight years. How much will I be able to remember? I'm guessing a lot of simple phrases from the first year due to the quantity of repetition and getting moved further into long term memory, but most likely, not very much from the other three years. She also studied Spanish but actually used it during her time studying and continued even after her schooling so you can likely tell a difference between our levels. You can tell during the video when she realizes that I'm messing up but goes along with it as she realizes what I'm trying to say.
So last week I was getting a little down on myself and the progress I've made. I didn't feel like I had a clear idea of where I was going with Arabic as the language is not the same as Mandarin has been. Last week I had a few plans of how I was going to effectively improve my skills and am taking some time now to look back on those ideas and see what has worked and what hasn't. I also will take a second to break down a few issues that still are coming up.
One thing that helped me a lot this past week was speaking with a native Arabic speaker. I was able to talk about how I can better pronounce three letters (ه خ ح). After trying to do them it was much better to have them point out which ways were correct or not. I'd quickly take notes to try to explain to myself what I was doing with my mouth to better emphasize that for future times.
I started with the alphabet. When I originally began learning the language I wanted to learn the alphabet as I felt it would help me to sound words out whether I understood what they meant or not. By using an Arabic keyboard, I've forced myself to learn all of the letters and now am much better at recognizing certain ones that I wasn't as sure of before. This also allowed me to learn new words in a way that as I am chatting using HelloTalk I can actually recognize certain words that I have been using myself. I would rate this as success!
I'm starting to get used to finding these letters on a keyboard!
Following my video from last week, I worked more on writing the alphabet. When I first began I was able to find a video playlist that went through the letters and helped me to pronounce them as well. Unfortunately, I went through them a little too fast and overwhelmed myself. Also, somehow I couldn't find any videos for a few of the later letters. While practicing this week with my writing, I have been able to sound out the words as I go so that I can get a better idea of what they would sound like before I even use an audio assistance. This has also helped me to get comfortable writing words and even has caused me to look around my keyboard for the write letter that I know is next. This is also helping my progress.
My last plan was to use a CD that I got to listen to Arabic dialogue while driving in my car. This would in turn allow me to practice repeating phrases and listening to them as well. Great news, the CD is not actually a CD, it is a DVD. I put it in my car on Monday morning and was all set like, "Here we go let's do this!!!" and my car spit it right back out......yay. This plan did not go as well as I had hoped, due to I literally can't do it, so I'm just going to move past it.
A few things that have caused some issues for me beyond just knowing where to go is understanding what language to really learn. Within Arabic there are many different dialects that are spoken based on the countries. Most people begin by either learning Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Egyptian Arabic. MSA is a more formal style that is reserved primarily for writing whereas Egyptian Arabic is the dialect you hear in most movies. I didn't want to settle on a dialect immediately because I want the ability to speak with people from many countries. Who knows if somebody from Iraq or Morocco would understand an Egyptian dialect? These dialects don't just have different accents but different words and phrases as well.
Another part that makes reading difficult is that a lot of the vowel sounds are not shown. In more formal tenses that use accents to indicate the vowels but otherwise short vowels are not written. That means you basically have a lot of consonants with no clear idea of what vowel sounds to make. My approach for this is to think of how in English certain letters have different sounds in specific words. I'm hoping that the more I see certain words, I will instinctively know how to pronounce them without the vowels.
This weeks video is going to cover me doing two things. First, I'll go over trying to pronounce the three different letters I worked on all week (ه خ ح). Second, I'll try to cover a little small talk that would be something you can talk to almost anybody about. Typically, as I struggle I'll use the pronunciation that I've created but this time I will only be using the Arabic letters that make up the words. I'll likely miss some vowels a bit.
So I'll preface this post with a few things. First, I don't feel like I'm progressing very well with Arabic. This is mostly due to not having as clear of an understanding of the foundation of the language as I did with Chinese when I began that. Why? That's part two. Second, I am trying to spend as LITTLE money as possible on this language as possible (in hopes of a interesting blog post later). This prevents me from getting professional classes, courses, tutoring, etc. as they all can add up in expenses. This definitely has discouraged me as I go about my learning. I'm no expert on this, I'm struggling just like most people who likely try to start a new language.
What are these words? What am I doing?!
If I can't spend any money on this language, then what can I do? I've rethought out how I approach it as (in contrast to my last post) I feel that Arabic is a very difficult language to learn. This is mainly due to not being sure of the path to go on. So I'm going to mix it up a little to take a few different ideas of how I can improve and see what works best.
First, I'm just going to force myself to use the alphabet. One of the big claims of why Arabic is hard is because all of the letters look different depending on where they are written in the word. That means there are four ways to write all 28 letters (independent, initial, medial, and final position). That sounds terrifying right? Well, I've tried to approach it differently this past week and I saw some improvement. First off, not all letters change based on their position (see alif). Also, when you grow up learning cursive the letters have to change their shape just slightly when there is a letter before or after it. It just takes time to recognize those. By forcing myself to type the letters this past week I have been able to recognize all of the letters in each form A LOT better than previously.
The more that I write, I feel that I get used to seeing the letters. That seems pretty obvious but it was something I originally backed away from.
Second, carrying on from this I plan to really practice on writing all of the letters and phrases. I'm hoping multiple ways of drilling these words into my head can really help absorb more ideas. When I first started learning to write the alphabet I got discouraged and stopped because I sucked to be honest. Well, who said I would be perfect at the start? To assume I would be some amazing calligraphist in a foreign language when even my written English is nothing to brag about was just a silly idea.
Third, I'm going to use this CD that came with the Arabic book I got (the only expense so far!). I have about 40 minutes of driving both in the morning and the evening that I either call people, jam out to music, or pretend to give motivational speeches during. This will allow me to repeat back words and sounds in the comfort of my car and be as ridiculous as possible without worrying about other people staring at me in disbelief.
When I first began learning a new language I came across this. I think it is a good reminder that the beginning will be rough but when you get to a point later on, things will get much better.
So here we go. I've not been too successful, but that doesn't mean I stop. There will be rough patches and you just have to keep working past them. I've been able to have a lot of people encourage me and knowing people are keeping track of my progress holds me accountable for what I do.
This weeks video is of me writing in Arabic. Honestly, the written language is extremely beautiful and I really want to be able to read it. The whole language is beautiful which was one of the reasons I was intrigued to learn it. You can see me struggle at times but I keep pushing through.
If you have any ideas of things that may help or any comments at all, please feel free to share them!
Whenever I tell people that I'm learning two languages they seem to think it is something incredible. The comments I get when I tell them the languages are Mandarin Chinese and Arabic are even more complimentary. People seem to think that these languages are the most difficult languages in the world and if I were to somehow try to learn both at the same time, I must be some type of genius. Let's stop right there. I am by no means a genius. Most the people I surround myself with I feel are much smarter than I am. So why is it that I can take on these two languages? My attitude.
Most people who know me, know that I like to stay pretty positive as I go about things. I try to look at the positives of any circumstance. I carry this same approach to learning a language: if you think a language is exceptionally hard, it will be. If you approach the language by noticing all of the ways that it is easy, you can have a better attitude about how you can go about learning it. For this post, I'm going use this approach to explain how the language I originally thought was the hardest language in the world is actually the easiest: Mandarin Chinese.
Pinyin
There is a whole lot of "pinyin" that will be included in this article. Pinyin is a phonetic medium of how to speak Chinese characters using English letters. It also marks the tones that you may have heard of as well. Most of it can be sounded out pretty standard with English. A few to note are "z" and "c". These are pronounced like the "-ds" and "-ts" at the end of "words" and "cats" respectively. Also, x-, sh-, j-, zh-, q-, and ch- all sound similar to each other except one is pronounced in the front and the other is in the back of the mouth.
Grammar
I'm going to start you off with my favorite part of Chinese that makes it SOOOOO much easier than most European languages: the grammar. You don't have to conjugate verbs! There are no genders with regards to different objects. The grammar is so simple to use. Here are some examples of how to say different things in English and Chinese:
English:
I am American
You are American
He is American
She is American
You (pl.) are American
We are American
They are American
Chinese
我是美国人
你是美国人
他是美国人
她是美国人
你们是美国人
我们是美国人
他们是美国人
Pinyin:
wǒ shì měi guó rén
nǐ shì měi guó rén
tā shì měi guó rén
tā shì měi guó rén
nǐ men shì měi guó rén
wǒ men shì měi guó rén
tā men shì měi guó rén
Tenses
If you noticed, the only word that changed was the noun. The verb was always the same. When you learn the verb for noun, you know it for all nouns. This also works with tenses. You don't have to change tenses for words as well.
English
This morning I ate breakfast
Right now I am eating lunch
Later I will eat dinner
My favorite part though is that you can easily form a question with very little vocabulary. All you have to do is add a question word at the end of a sentence. The easiest translation for it would be to say "yes?" at the end of a sentence in hopes of confirmation. If instead of telling something they are American, I would ask them, "You are American, yes?" Obviously this isn't how we usually ask somebody in English, but it also shows why you may notice some people form questions to you in this manner.
English
You are American
Are you American? (You are American yes?)
Chinese
你是美国人
你是美国人吗?
Pinyin nǐ shì měi guó rén nǐ shì měi guó rén ma?
Tones
So let's talk about what people think makes this language difficult. People mention that they don't like that it is a tonal language because they aren't musically gifted of sorts. We actually use tones in English, we just don't realize it. "I'm Ron Burgundy?" is a perfect example of where a tone can drastically change the meaning of a sentence. In Chinese you have 5 tones: Flat, Rising, Dipping, Falling, and Neutral tone. The best example of how different these are is by using the word "ma"
Mother, hemp, horse, scold, question
妈麻马骂吗
mā má mǎ mà ma
All five of these words mean something very different. Making sure you use the right tone can be the difference between saying something or just utter nonsense. The good thing is that context can typically give you a good idea. If I was telling you about my breakfast and I said, "I ate with my 'ma' " but you were unsure of which tone I used, I'm guessing you could easily single out which word I meant to use.
Characters
By now you're probably realizing that the characters are pretty confusing. The reason pinyin was created was to help be a middle ground specifically because there is not indication of how to say a word based on the character. Honestly, when I come across a new word there is no easy method to figure it out besides looking it up. Chinese characters are graphical representations of the words. Basically, I like to think of them as cave drawings. The easiest one is for the words "person" and "big". If you look below, the first character is a very simplified stick PERSON. The second is as if the person was trying to explain how BIG of a fish they caught. These are the "simplified" characters as the "traditional" characters were much more complex and people would spend hours practicing how to write them (only Taiwan still uses the traditional characters as their native language).
Person
人
Big
大
Vocabulary
Lastly, the vocabulary is pretty entertaining. Any new words that have been created typically reside in one of two categories: loan words or combination words. A loan word is basically taking a word from another language and turning it into a Chinese word. I'll show some examples in the video below. The combination words are the ones that I really love. Basically as a new word is needed it is a combination of other words to describe it. Here are a few examples, try to see if you can determine what the full word is based on the other words that make it up:
diàn yǐng
Electronic Shadow
电影
shǒu yǔ
Hand Language (this is currently my favorite one)
手语
English:
Movie
Sign Language
Video
This weeks video I'm going to go through some of the stuff we mentioned here. I'll start by showing the difference of z-, c-, x-, sh-, j-, zh-, q-, ch- followed by the different tones. I'll finish off by saying a few countries that are loan words so try to see if you can guess which countries I'm saying without a translation.
Conclusion
When you approach a problem with the right attitude it can really effect how simple that problem may seem. We can't think that the "hardest" language in the world is the largest native language as well, can we?
Each week I spend some time with a few graduate students, going over different interview questions and allowing them to practice how they would answer the questions. As we work through the questions I give suggestions about how to appear more confident in what you say. I've been trying to instill different methods of how to improve language learning lately but I haven't been following that same advice that I've tried to offer. It makes it a little more difficult to convince somebody to believe these methods would work if I'm not following them myself, right? Today, I'm going to take a look at three of them and how I plan to approach them.
Self-reflection after using a language. One good thing to do after using a language is to ask yourself how the interaction went. What worked? What didn't? Where do you see some areas of improvement to focus on? A lot of times I am so happy I was able to use a language that I immediately go running around my apartment in celebration. I forget a lot to ask myself some of these questions for improvement. This past week I noticed some improper words I had used in my Arabic chat due to tenses and plural forms of words. I've revisited some of these words this week in my video.
Refrain from using "umm" or other filler words. We do this because we are searching for words and at the moment we don't have them yet. The silence feels awkward to we fill it with something, "umm" What I've learned though is that when you are talking with another person, we don't feel these awkward silences as much when we are the listener instead of the speaker. I've encouraged people to become more comfortable with those silences as they actually become more effective speaking tools. I've yet to follow this advice when speaking in other languages because I always feel pressured to speak. This has caused me to keep speaking which has also lead to more grammatical mistakes when speaking because I'm not taking the time to form the proper sentence. My goal is to focus more on forming a correct sentence and allowing those silences to feel comfortable. My hope is that this will allow me to listen more and improve on that at the same time.
Lastly, maintaining eye contact is important for all communication. It's hard to really connect with somebody who is always looking away. I have a MAJOR habit of looking to the sides when I'm trying to find new words. This shows lack of confidence and can easily make the person you're communicating with lose interest in what you say. This is going to be a big goal for me in the upcoming weeks. This weeks video is all focused on that. I apologize if you decide to watch the video. My goal was to stare DIRECTLY at the camera as I worked through some phrases I struggled with this past week. One is to finally allow me to explain what I do at work in Chinese and the other are words/phrases I learned from my previous chat in Arabic.
I apologize for the audio on this one. Not sure what happened. I say two things in Chinese which you can note I am more comfortable saying "I am a mechanical engineer" than actually what I do.
So I did it. I had a conversation with a native Arabic speaker and I'm here to share my story of how it went.
Heading into the call, I was nervous. What will happen if they don't understand me? What will happen if I don't understand them? What if we literally just sit there and can't communicate because everything I've done in the past two months has been wrong?! Even after being told by a few people who speak Arabic that my accent was very good for a beginner, my confidence was in the gutter.
Trying to show how I was feeling with a face expression? Okay.
I've felt this way before though. I remember heading into my first Chinese call feeling the same way. I don't get nervous before a call in Chinese anymore because I have done it many times; it no longer is a new fear. Leading up to the call I went over the phrases that I intended to say and tried to predict the type of things that I would hear in response. Slowly, I was able to build up some confidence that I can get through this call.
The call started off really well. I was able to say hello and introduce myself. The phrases I was expecting to hear are what I heard. Obviously there came a point where I was pushing too far and had incorrect sentence structures. This could easily discourage you (which it at the later point of the call and afterward the call I was) but I was able to look back and realize a few things that did go well. First, I was able to understand and converse for multiple phrases without stumbling. Second, there were multiple times that I was able to determine what something meant in Arabic without actually knowing the translation due to context (I notice him asking whether I want something written in English or Arabic as well as realize when he says "good"). Finding these small successes can really help keep you positive when you hit a struggle.
Having a patient person to chat with is important. I was lucky to have Abdu who was able to slowly explain some of the things I was saying but correct them. I may have been saying the wrong tense, the wrong plural form, or a slightly incorrect pronunciation. The one thing that was really good was that he would have me go back and repeat a sentence in pieces, breaking down the pronunciation, and then bring it back to a full sentence. If the mistakes aren't corrected, they aren't fixed for later times. It also helps to have somebody to continually encourage you to keep trying instead of saying, "Let's just go to English because I can't understand you." It pushed me out of the comfort zone and helped me with phrases I didn't even know prior to the call.
We established before the call that we would stick to basic topics. This allowed me to work within my boundaries. I wouldn't have any random questions I wasn't ready for. I tried as much as possible to stay speaking Arabic which also made some things difficult as you can see. There are certain phrases that I just didn't have that I need to learn to be more beneficial for next time.
Some notes and phrases I wrote down during the call. Hopefully I can benefit from them in the future.
Overall, I was happy to have Abdu help me and I am hoping that in the coming chats I can improve to have a more comfortable conversation together.
Good news and bad news. I was able to record my first conversation with a native speaker. Unfortunately, his audio got lost somewhere during the recording so it mostly looks like I'm talking to myself. You can notice multiple times throughout the call that I have absolutely no idea what Abdu was saying but I did my best to keep going because had I just given up and decided that Arabic was too hard I wouldn't be able to progress. Nobody will be perfect and we have to accept that. If you're too afraid to make a mistake, you never will take a risk at all.
Last week I talked about how I went about finding somebody to chat with but didn't break it down too exact on the details. This week, I'm going to get pretty specific on what I did. This is going to center around the first time I chatted with my friend, Jing. I had just learned of italki and was encouraged by a polyglot, Benny, that I follow a lot to use italki as a means of finding a language exchange partner. I posted a short entry in Chinese introducing myself and very shortly after posting it received a correction from Jing. I messaged her and thanked her for the correction. I then asked if she would be interested in a language exchange. She said yes and we started to prepare our first Skype call.
One thing that really helped me prepare was laying out a conversational outline. I sent her a message basically saying, "For this conversation we are going to talk about these topics......once those are done, we will be done."
Self-introduction
Family
Work/School
Hobbies
This allowed me an opportunity to do a few things:
Prepare specific vocab and questions
Be prepared of what to listen for from her
Have an easy way to keep the conversation flowing
Have an easy way out when suddenly the conversation stalls
When the time came for this call, I was terrified. When she said she was on Skype and ready, I still just sat there and stared at the computer. It took me a couple of pep talks to even push the call button. What happens if I literally can't understand a thing she says?! What if EVERYTHING I say is wrong???? This could go horribly wrong. What if she laughs at me? I finally mustered the courage to push that button and I couldn't be happier that I did. I got started by introducing myself and my family. Obviously, there were a few times that we had confusion but we were talking in Chinese. My confidence sky rocketed from this call. There were three moments that happened during this call that really stuck out for me:
I really believe in learning your own vocabulary so that you can say what you need to say. For that reason, I know how to say Mechanical Engineer which isn't typically taught very early on in any Chinese course. As Jing was introducing her family, she said her brother was also a mechanical engineer and I understood her!!! I couldn't believe that I actually would be able to.
While we discussed our hobbies she mentioned that she likes to go see movies and followed by asking me if I did as well. I said a Chinese phrase which means "a little" that I had learned and it actually worked in the situation. She then asked me why and luckily I had learned how to say "it's too expensive" from one of my coworkers so I could tell her why. We both laughed and it was extremely satisfying to be able to laugh with somebody while discussing something in their language.
As we neared the end of the conversation I asked her if she wanted to speak in English. She said something that I couldn't understand and we had to clarify briefly. Basically she had asked that next time we try speaking English. To know that she was also nervous about speaking another language was an extreme weight off my shoulder. This meant that I wasn't the only person that was terrified of this situation.
I got off the call with so much excitement that I was running around the apartment; I had an actual conversation in Chinese! Was it perfect? No, but did we have a real chat? Yes! I was so excited that we quickly exchanged WeChat (Chinese messaging app) information and have been in touch ever since.
The big thing was that we planned for the conversation. As you get better at conversations it is easy to improvise but when you start out you need a plan. Making a structure can really help creating success during that first conversation. You also have to recognize the smallest of successes, even if that means celebrating that somebody responded positively when you said, "Hello."
Currently, I have been stalling my first Arabic conversation because I want you to be able to watch it go down. I don't expect it to be pretty. There will likely be a lot of confusion during it. The problem is my current setup, when I tested it to record a Skype call, completely froze up and didn't work. I'm researching a few options and I fully intend to have a video next week of my first ever call. My progress is going well. I have been recording myself talking about myself and my hobbies. The phrases are coming better and I've now been able to ask if you like something in Arabic. Celebrating the small successes along the way are key.
For now, here is a video of me touring my apartment. I think it shows very well that certain phrases and words have become comfortable for me because I use them everyday. Things that are important to you will become easier the more you use them so learn what you need to learn.
So I know what you really want to see: a conversation with natives. Don't worry, I have that for you this week! I'm actually away from home this week so I made my video earlier in the week so I could edit it for faster upload. This weeks video is in Chinese so I'll talk about that for a bit.
Finding somebody to talk with is always a difficult task for people especially if you don't live in that country. I have yet to go to any country that speaks Mandarin or Arabic as their native language but have multiple people who are willing to help me with my language learning. With the current technology we have you can really take advantage off any situation you are put in. I utilize different social media outlets to help myself find language partners (somebody who helps me with their language as I help them with theirs) very easily. Being as my native language is English I easily find people wanting to learn with me. I use HelloTalk and italki for finding language partners. I got exceptionally lucky on italki by finding the first person I ever chatted with in Chinese who I still chat with every week. When I go to visit China, I will likely make sure to visit them. Another opportunity I had was when I took a class in the DC area. Afterwards I wanted to actually "use" my language so I contacted the teacher about any volunteer opportunities that he may know of. It turns out that his daughter works at the local university where they have a large population of foreign graduate students. I was able to get paired up with a few of them to help work with their English pronunciation and also help understand American culture while they helped me with Chinese. It has been an extremely satisfying experience for me.
Now to the speaking part. First off, a big fear is just how fast a native talks. You come in thinking that you can understand but really you've been preparing at a much slower speed so that first conversation can terrify you. I'll be honest, almost every conversation I've had I have had to ask the other person to repeat what they said, a little slower. Just like most things you start off with, it will take time to get up to speed. The first time you hop on a bike you aren't going to go on an all-out sprint but the more time you spend working on something, the better you will become at it. This is why listening to music, movies, podcasts, videos, etc. of natives speaking can really help you get comfortable with the speed of how a conversation will go. Another good way to help feel comfortable is to ask close-ended questions. Ask somebody if they have siblings; they'll likely say no or yes, followed by what type of siblings they may have. Sure, they will be speaking fast, but since you can anticipate the responses you will be ready for specific words when they are spoken.
Let's get right down to the video this week. So I was able to get some of the students I meet with, Vicky and Sue, to have a sporadic conversation with me. We didn't prep any conversation besides, "Lets talk about hobbies/travel/work/weather/etc." I learned about 30 seconds before this conversation how to say, "Ride horses," and we just went with it. You'll notice that I stumble a lot, get confused a lot, and actually faked my way through one portion without any idea what we were talking about. There's also a time I completely change topics. Obviously this conversation wasn't perfect and that was the point. I'm not fluent in this language, but I can get through a conversation. The only way you will learn is by making mistakes and struggling. Embrace the ugly and it will allow you to come out the other side feeling better.
Got a microphone which should help when recording live conversations with people!
This past week I had another person reach out to me asking about any tips I can offer for getting through a learning rut where progress doesn't seem to be coming. Everybody is pressed for time. It is all about being efficient with that time to make it beneficial. You have to ask yourself what you are trying to do with the language you are learning. For example, my goal is to be able to talk to people with the languages I learn. I'm not too concerned about being able to write Chinese so I've stopped dedicating time to writing characters. It also wasn't beneficial because there is not a lot of correlation between the characters and the phonetic pronunciation of the words. Now as I am learning Arabic, it is more phonetically related between the written and spoken word so I will try to learn more on how to write. So how do I approach this with my learning? I talk to myself in Chinese A LOT. I talk to myself driving home from work, while cooking food, while doing dishes, just today when I walked into the grocery store and saw bananas I instantly said "xiang jiao" to remind myself. Not only does this allow me to practice at times when I am not focused on studying but this really helps with becoming comfortable speaking. It also does help to make it less of an "I am studying" mindset and allowing it to become part of your everyday life. This comfort that I've obtained allowed me to have a conversation in Chinese while driving home one of the graduate students that I work with each week. We talked in Chinese about whether they want a car and how I got my car. The big thing about the conversation was that it was at night during a rainstorm and I was still able to listen and speak while trying to navigate using her GPS (which was also in Chinese). The more you break away from the idea of "studying" and form more into the mindset of allowing it to be part of your everyday life it will then become easier to work with.
New words in Arabic.
Going along with this idea, my video this week is.....me talking to myself! At first I was like, "You should talk to yourself in both Arabic and Chinese!" but I realized that the conversation would fall flat pretty quick due to my differing levels. Instead I pretending to be two different people who are just meeting and speaking Arabic. It's short and sweet but it allows me to prepare the phrases I will say and ask when I meet somebody. This is great because you can see me completely forget a few words and have to remember them. During this I was staring off as I tried to remember each phrase.
Hello again! I'll start by giving a very brief update on what has been up the past few weeks. I volunteer with a non-profit youth leadership development program called Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY for those that have seen my Facebook plastered with it lately). At the end of July I had the opportunity to volunteer at the World Leadership Congress in Chicago, Illinois where we had ambassadors from 11 different countries. This was an amazing exposure to different cultures from around the world. This weekend I was in Alabama for HOBY Training Institute where volunteers from all over come to help strategize for creating better seminars and programsin the upcoming years. If you would like to hear more about this, please contact me and I would be able to tell you all about the organization that has truly changed my life and outlook on many things for the past 10 years. While at the Training Institute there were two volunteers from Iraq who I had the opportunity to meet. I decided this would be a good opportunity to potentially clear up some questions and talk to people from a country where I am learning the langauge.
The first time I tried to speak Chinese to somebody, I was terrifed that they would become offended of how poorly I spoke their langauge and yell at me or something. This is a common fear that many people have and I still struggle with a lot. I force myself to push past this fear a lot because I have learned something about this fear; this reaction has never happened. I'll repeat that: THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN. Every time I try to speak to somebody in their language it typically goes as follows:
Me: Hello (In their language)
Them: Hello (In their language, unimpressed)
Me: *say anything else in their langauge*
Them: *face lights up and say some excitement in their language*
Lourd was so excited to see my Arabic writing and started showing me how to write all the letters and random words.
The idea of me being able to speak a foreign language 15 months ago was laughable. I didn't know where to start and this fear overhwelmed me. When I approached Dalia and Lourd and spoke to them in Arabic, they were overjoyed that I was trying. They instantly took to trying to teach me as many words and phrases as possible. I also learned one word in Kurdish as we waited for an hour in Best Buy (most of that time was spent differing between two letters that closely relate to the letter "h" in english). I got to learn that at Iraq's seminar, they speak English instead of Arabic or Kurdish. English is used as a language mediator which I thought was EXTREMELY cool and had never considered before. I offered to have them help me with my video this week and they were so excited to help! You can watch me struggle with the "h" sounds.
The big lesson I have learned is that people love sharing their language with you. Every person that I have tried to communicate with has tried to help me. Don't feel as though they will tell you to stop, it just doesn't happen. If your goal is to be able to talk to somebody in their native language then just do it. The only way you will get better is to practice.
