I keep getting amazed that Chinese people in the US refer to white people as "waiguoren". I occasionally point out that, no, you're the waiguoren here. But I think waiguoren has already mutated to mean something like "Westerner" rather than specifically "foreigner". People in Taiwan certainly never used waiguoren to refer to Filipinos or Japanese people -- it was pretty much exclusively for white people.
As for amazement at learning Chinese... I think a fairly large part of this is due to linguistic arrogance. "These foreigners can't learn Chinese -- our language requires far too much brain power for them." I definitely got a lot of people in Taiwan saying, with pride, how Chinese is probably the hardest language to learn. (I didn't usually have time to point out that "Chinese" isn't actually a language, but a language family.) When I'd point out how simple the grammar is, they'd either scratch their heads ("Chinese doesn't have grammar, does it?") or immediately say how difficult characters are to learn. And, every once in a while,
( ... )
I specifically didn't use 'waiguoren' to the kid because - well, we're both Americans. Obviously, the kid had been born here and spoke good English
( ... )
I forgot who said 天下無所不有, when... But it's the famous "There is nothing under Heaven which we do not have" quote that signalled China's closing itself off from the world. Tian1xia4 wu2 suo3bu4you3
( ... )
She's from 江门, Jiangmen, about two hour's drive SW of Guangzhou. Heart of Cantonese territory. The choice of a Beijing'er accent is more that that's the 'standard'. And I'm not about to try Cantonese.
(1) tones and the reproduction of same: hard to do if you're not born to it. And to listen and catch them! (2) Characters. I'm learning simplified. Mao had a good reason for it, and who am I to complicate my life? (3) Putting it all together with collocation / idiom / word choice. Evil and demands a huge knowledge of the cultural matrix. If I say 'where's the beef' or 'doh!', you have to have the cultural matrix of an American up on their pop culture to understand it. Ditto Chinese.
I believe that you're in or near Lisle, no? If you're going to the Chineese school that's between Main Street Lisle and Naper Blvd, that's where my friends went while I was growing up. I still have people in that area and a family I know very, very well is close with the school.
Would you be interested in an introduction to someone who could tutor?
I'm glad to hear that Mere is pursuing learning with a vengence. Still, I hope that you find a way to tutor her in patience, especially when it comes to how people differ from her; I speak from my own experience that until I started learning it in my 20s and 30s I was a royal pain in the ass.
As I was saying earlier, when I was in the 'smartest kid in the class / early prodigy' situation myself, I had a hard time of it too - bored with the very slow class, etc. My way around this was to basically bring reading material to learn on my own and respond in class just enough to keep the teacher from going after me.
Meredith isn't that patient, isn't that quiet. But she's more socially adept than I was at the time. I became The Big Geek To Pick On Who Thinks He's Smarter Than Us, and this kept up until I went into college.
We started our trip in Wuxi (except for flying in), which wasn't part of the guided tour. There's a university there that seems to have a somewhat cosmopolitan student body, but we were still pretty much a novelty when we were out on the street. It was humbling, in a way, because people were always helping us. We looked lost at the noodle shop, and folks came over and indicated that we should sit at their table and then we'd have a place when they got up. Sometimes people knew some English, other times they indicated. But they always wanted to help.
The other thing was the "Hello" phenomenon. People saw the blond hair and guessed we were English speakers. I was always hearing someone say "Hello!" and I'd turn and nobody would be owning up to it. After a while, I just said "Hello" back to the direction it came from.
I hope Sarah will want to learn some Chinese. (Is there such a thing as "some"?)
I hope Sarah will want to learn some Chinese. (Is there such a thing as "some"?)
What I'm seeing over and over again is that it's a tough road to hoe. Unless the kids start picking it up by Mere's age, they generally lose any personal interest in learning it for good. Another factor is - what chance are they going to have to speak with native or fluent Chinese speakers on a regular basis? If not, not.
I've seen with older adoptees that they tend to drop Chinese as quickly as they can, to assimilate culturally with their peers. Mere's best buddy Jessica is the child of two immigrants from Nanjing, and her parents push the idea of her picking up and keeping Chinese, but it's looking like a very hard road for them. She's just not all that interested. Her peers don't speak Chinese.
Are you learning Mandarin or Cantonese? I'm still somewhat confused as to which Chinese I should learn, so I'm putting my study on hold temporarily until I figure that out.
What are your purposes? Do you want to go into a Chinese restaurant and order in the language of the proprietors? (In which case -- ask around. There's a good chance that people there speak Hokkien, Cantonese, Shanghai hua or a million other possibilities.) Do you want to negotiate with corporate bigwigs in their own language in the Mainland (in which case, Mandarin pretty much for sure). Do you want to hang out in Hong Kong or San Francisco's Chinatown? Then Cantonese. Do you want to teach English in Taiwan? Then Mandarin, or maybe Taiwanese. The language you choose should be dictated by how you need to use it.
The language you choose should be dictated by how you need to use it.
An excellent sentiment which should be printed on the "Foreign language" section of every high-school class selection form.
In this case, I have no real need to learn Chinese, but rather a wish to do so and sufficient knowledge to know that there are many different forms of Chinese. Being a long way from either San Francisco or Hong Kong, I wouldn't have a chance to go use Cantonese regularly. And while I wouldn't mind negotiating with corporate bigwigs on the mainland, I doubt they'd have much use for negotiating with a library school student/part-time technical writer. ;-) So I think in this case I'm going to follow Jim's suggestion of going with Mandarin, as being as close to a standard Chinese as one can get.
By the way, I just checked your web page and noticed that you're in Minneapolis too, so I added you to my FL.
There's actually a surprisingly large need for Mandarin the Cities. I do medical interpreting (it's my day job), and clearly my clients need interpreting... Plus, there's a fairly steady need for legal interpreters. The biggest need, overall, seems to be for translators for business documents. Best Buy, for example, does tons of business with China. I myself have only done a little bit of business interpreting, but I know there's a big need here. All of which is to say, don't write off commerical purposes just because you're in the Twin Cities. If you're not interested in using Mandarin to make money, that's of course a totally different reason.
Mandarin is definitely a good choice. Cantonese is probably a little less useful in Minnesota -- Chinese folks here tend to be able to speak Mandarin more than Cantonese -- and Mandarin is, well, the standard.
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Have we met by any chance? I don't know... Maybe we've seen each other at a local Con?
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As for amazement at learning Chinese... I think a fairly large part of this is due to linguistic arrogance. "These foreigners can't learn Chinese -- our language requires far too much brain power for them." I definitely got a lot of people in Taiwan saying, with pride, how Chinese is probably the hardest language to learn. (I didn't usually have time to point out that "Chinese" isn't actually a language, but a language family.) When I'd point out how simple the grammar is, they'd either scratch their heads ("Chinese doesn't have grammar, does it?") or immediately say how difficult characters are to learn. And, every once in a while, ( ... )
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(1) tones and the reproduction of same: hard to do if you're not born to it. And to listen and catch them!
(2) Characters. I'm learning simplified. Mao had a good reason for it, and who am I to complicate my life?
(3) Putting it all together with collocation / idiom / word choice. Evil and demands a huge knowledge of the cultural matrix. If I say 'where's the beef' or 'doh!', you have to have the cultural matrix of an American up on their pop culture to understand it. Ditto Chinese.
Reply
Would you be interested in an introduction to someone who could tutor?
Reply
The Naperville Chinese School is at Kennedy Junior High in Lisle proper, between College and Naper Blvd.
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Meredith isn't that patient, isn't that quiet. But she's more socially adept than I was at the time. I became The Big Geek To Pick On Who Thinks He's Smarter Than Us, and this kept up until I went into college.
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The other thing was the "Hello" phenomenon. People saw the blond hair and guessed we were English speakers. I was always hearing someone say "Hello!" and I'd turn and nobody would be owning up to it. After a while, I just said "Hello" back to the direction it came from.
I hope Sarah will want to learn some Chinese. (Is there such a thing as "some"?)
Reply
What I'm seeing over and over again is that it's a tough road to hoe. Unless the kids start picking it up by Mere's age, they generally lose any personal interest in learning it for good. Another factor is - what chance are they going to have to speak with native or fluent Chinese speakers on a regular basis? If not, not.
I've seen with older adoptees that they tend to drop Chinese as quickly as they can, to assimilate culturally with their peers. Mere's best buddy Jessica is the child of two immigrants from Nanjing, and her parents push the idea of her picking up and keeping Chinese, but it's looking like a very hard road for them. She's just not all that interested. Her peers don't speak Chinese.
Reply
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Reply
An excellent sentiment which should be printed on the "Foreign language" section of every high-school class selection form.
In this case, I have no real need to learn Chinese, but rather a wish to do so and sufficient knowledge to know that there are many different forms of Chinese. Being a long way from either San Francisco or Hong Kong, I wouldn't have a chance to go use Cantonese regularly. And while I wouldn't mind negotiating with corporate bigwigs on the mainland, I doubt they'd have much use for negotiating with a library school student/part-time technical writer. ;-) So I think in this case I'm going to follow Jim's suggestion of going with Mandarin, as being as close to a standard Chinese as one can get.
By the way, I just checked your web page and noticed that you're in Minneapolis too, so I added you to my FL.
Reply
Mandarin is definitely a good choice. Cantonese is probably a little less useful in Minnesota -- Chinese folks here tend to be able to speak Mandarin more than Cantonese -- and Mandarin is, well, the standard.
...
Have we met by any chance? I don't know... Maybe we've seen each other at a local Con?
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