Hello again! Every day this week I listened to lesson one of my Living Language Platinum Chinese on my way to work and I feel like I have successfully remembered how to say those words. I was constantly getting “Bù kèqì” (you’re welcome) and “Duìbùqĭ” (I’m sorry) confused. So what did I do to celebrate my success? Go on to lesson two!
I have to admit, these new words are confusing. It’s not that it’s specifically hard, it’s more my inability to remember them. One saving grace in Chinese however is that past, present, and future tense are all contained in the same verb, and changing whether it’s me, you, him, her, doesn’t change the verb. In almost all the other languages I’ve taken that was one of the hardest things for me to learn, all the varying verbs that say the same thing, but change with every pronoun. I literally let out a sigh of relief when the book told me that I only had to learn a verb once.
Lesson two was all about family and people with two verbs mixed in. Two very important verbs in fact: to be “shì” and to have “yŏu”. Those two verbs were possibly the easiest part of this lesson. They threw a lot of new words at me for different family members of the family - men, women, they, you, etc.
I’m starting to feel that in each lesson there is going to be that one word that really holds me up. Last lesson it was “Duìbùqĭ” (I’m sorry) and this lesson it was “xuésheng” (student). “Shhway-shong” is the closest pronunciation I can come up with, and I don’t think that’s completely accurate. What can I say? It’s a work in progress.
Despite my difficulties with all of these new words (I definitely will be listening in the car a lot this week again), I can now say a few phrases in Chinese; entire sentences in fact! Such as “Wŏ yŏu jiĕjie” which means “I have an older sister” and “Wŏ shì nŭrén” which means “I am a woman”.
One thing that is particularly easy in Chinese is turning phrases into questions. You literally just add “ma” to the end of the sentence and it makes it into a question. I like languages that make things easy for you.
I really think one of my biggest challenges will be pronouncing these new words correctly. That being said, grammar will be the easy part, which was always the challenge for me in other languages.
Until next time – “Zàijiàn!” Goodbye!
