Meeting New People: Making a Challenge Real (Arabic Week 19)

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.

Until next time.