This past week I was able to get back to meeting with some graduate students who are wanting to improve their English. We have had a wonderful opportunity this year to learn about each others culture. It was great to see them again after a few months apart and we talked a lot about what they did for the summer. When it was time to speak in Chinese I wasn't sure if I was ready as I hadn't been speaking at their speed very much since we left. The conversations got intense! If I were to tell you a week ago that I was going to be discussing whether the U.S. was creating bullet trains and where I would have had been lying. Somehow, with no prior plan of it, we were able to have a conversation. Then we decided to focus on "weather" which really meant trying to explain how to keep your car from being too hot during the day in the summer. Both of these conversations were completely unplanned and I struggled through a lot of it, but I tried my best to keep my composure came out the other side quite please with what we said.
One thing that has come in handy for me when speaking Chinese is having some go to phrases that I use a lot. Typical things that you would expect to say a lot or will come in handy as you go. Here are some phrases that I've learned in Chinese (technically the English translation) that has proven to help out a lot:
- Wait one second (a good staller as I try to figure out what to say) deng3 yi1 xia4
- Say that again, a little slower (almost every single conversation.....) zai4 shuo1 yi1 bian4, man4 dian3
- Anyways....... (when I've lost my thought path) bu4 guan3 zen3 yang4
- How do you say.......(pretty self-explanatory of how useful it is) ni3 zen3 me shuo1
Today, I'll keep it short. My video is me practicing some of the phrases. If you notice me looking afar, it is me looking at my attempt at trying to pronounce these phrases. Practice makes perfect so this conversation.......isn't a conversation.
Until next time!
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