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Today's new words

wai xing ren alien, like those from outer space
wai ceng kong jian outer space
Xing Qiu Da Zhan Star Wars

Myles and my Chinese lessons have begun again. I wish I could say both of us jumped right back into it with enthusiasm, but that would not be completely true. I am not feeling that motivated right now, but I am going ahead anyway. I am buoyed by Myles' excitement over his lessons. Even though he has three two-hour sessions a week, he is begging for more. I'm embarrassed at my inability to keep up with my two sessions. Today he and his teacher talked about aliens and outer space, and good guys and bad guys. My lesson was on the grammar of making comparisons. Who do you think had more fun?
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Anonymous said…
You're good so long as he's learning to enunnciate in the same dialect as you are 25 years ago I began working for an American multinational in Germany wit Latin as my second language (English grammar school!) where I was privieleged to have a local University language professor teach German to me and four other expats (two US two UK). My 3-yr old son was not privvy to this privilige - I sent him for "immersion" learning to kindergarten for 6 hours a day, complemented with a neighbor acting as childminder for the remainder of the day 'till I got home. Her six strapping kids all spoke the local dialect, and I could not find most of the words my son used in the dictionary!! For example he would gabble on about what he wanted to "anziegen" each day, and I would be perplexed at what a goat (Ziege) had to do with anything. The locals pronounced "to wear" (anzeihen) with a very strong emphasis on the 3rd syllable. Another word for humid weather my son always said correctly: "schwul" but I on the other hand with my tin ear couldn't distinguish labial vowels and would pronounce it (to much snickering) schwül, which has nothing to do with the natural meteorological temperament rather an unnatural sexual one (gay).

You're sure to experience many more quirky memories, are youing keep a "real" journal as well as the blog? (I kept a scrapbook page sized one to record artwork, first poems, first assignments etc)

Recall we're in the midst of Anno Paolino. St. Paul was a tentmaker and you're in good company - whatever fit on the back of his camel went with them on the journey. And his most important goods he didn't even keep for himself - his letters got sent to the four corners of the then know world, where folks treasured and collected them to share amongst themselves, kinda like blogging!

God Bless for letting us have an opportunity to experience the wonder of a extraordinary childhood!
Sep 6, 2008, 11:02:00 AM
Jen Ambrose said…
Clare-LOL! Yes we are mostly getting the same dialect. I say mostly because both of our teachers speak to us in Standard Mandarin, though mine is from the North and his is from the South, so some of the "Standard" pronunciations are a matter of interpretation. I use a lot more "r" sounds than Myles does, though he understands me when I do. That would be the major differnce.
If he were picking up more dialect words, that would be a problem. Some of my foreign friends who have ayis have children that speak Hunanhua (notable for the "f" sound used when "h" is the Standard pronunciation, and occassionaly interchanging "l" and "n") or Sichuanhua (which sounds to me like dropping the "h" from any "sh" or "ch" dipthong).
And yes, we are keeping something of a regular journal, mostly a portfolio of his art projects and maps.
Sep 6, 2008, 4:07:00 PM
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