Preparing Some Phrases (Arabic Week 4?)

So the past few weeks have slowed me up a little bit as I have been away. There has been some amazing experiences that I'd love to share but I just can't put everything into one post. For now it is about picking back up some momentum to prepare to speaking to a native for the first time (which hopefully I can tape for you!)

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!

Alex goes missing (Arabic Week 1.5) - Getting up to speaking

So this post is a little early due to I won't be near my computer this weekend (or the next following). You can try to understand me via the video as I tell you why or you can just click here. This is a pretty good example of watching me struggle as I try to come up with what I'm trying to say. It isn't perfect but I get the message across, hopefully.

It is very obvious that my Chinese is much more comfortable than my Arabic. This wasn't the case back when I first started. Like I originally said, it took me a while to finally get the courage to try to speak Chinese. For the first six months I wasn't really able to do any conversation beyond saying hello. Finally, I hit a break through when I started approaching situations I could prepare for. This may sound a little confusing so I'll explain the first attempt I ever had speaking Chinese: at a restaurant.

Going to a restaurant to speak the language I knew what the conversation would likely be based around: food. I could prepare phrases and words I expected to hear. "Are you ready to order?" "What would you like to drink?" "How if everything tasting?". By doing this it allowed me to practice the language but also be PREPARED to hear what was likely to come.

As much as I would like to say I rocked this event, I didn't. At one point during the meal I apparently implied to our waitress that my girlfriend is hungry because I never feed her. I knew this instantly because when I tried to say, "She hasn't eaten yet." The waitress responded in shock as if I said something along the lines of, "She isn't allowed to eat." When it came time to order our food I was so ready to order chicken that I made sure to say it with the best pronunciation and tones as possible. The problem was, I wasn't prepared for her to ask me "How do you want the chicken cooked?" I panicked and the only word I knew was fried........so we ate fried chicken wings at a Chinese restaurant.

Some of the words I prepared for my first attempt at ordering in Chinese.

The big thing I got from all of this was the small successes. I was able to understand the staff when only a little bit, but that was still more than nothing. They also were able to understand me. Going in expecting to be some master fluent speaker on your first try to going to put you right back where you were before with a deflated confidence. The other great part of the experience was the actual interaction. The waitress we had was so happy that I was willing to try to speak with her that every time she brought out something new she would present it and then say it in Chinese as a way to help me associate. A lot of times we are worried when we speak somebody else's language they are going to be like, "How dare you butcher my language!" But it is actually the opposite. People are thrilled to see you trying.

Being able to prepare and anticipate how a conversation will go can make it go A LOT smoother for you. Next time I'll talk a little bit about my first ever Skype call with my friend who lives in Tian Jin, China but for now I should probably pack!

Until next time.
再见