learn mandarin

Well, i had my first mandarin class at the Seattle Language Acadamy. I’m taking Mandarin 101 since I have zero recollection of the chinese characters I learned as a child AND I’ve never actually spoken Mandarin (my family speaks Cantonese) even though I’ve been peripherally exposed to it.

The class started off pretty well – I had gotten there early and taken a quick peak through the materials I recognized a bunch of characters already. When the class started, I noticed I was the only chinese person in the class (of 10 people, 7 were males, 3 females) and the only person with a chinese name. The class thought I was hot stuff when I was able to write my chinese name on the board – that I’d have an easier time learning to speak mandarin. Little did everyone know, that I have never actually HEARD my name being called out in Mandarin, and for the 4 times the teacher called on me to read something our or answer a question, I had no idea she was talking to me. ha ha. I struggled my way through the class like everyone else, though I do actually understand what she’s saying, I just can’t seem to speak back and pronounce things properly.

Oh well, first class :) Hopefully things will go a little smoother next class (wed) and I’ll actually know when the teacher is talking to me.

A couple of years ago when I lived in Maryland, I made an extremely weak effort at trying to learn mandarin. I was renting a room from a friend of a friend’s family and only the son spoke english. His parents and I communicated through charades and gestures.

Calvin (the son) really wanted to learn cantonese (which I speak – somewhat at least) so we thought we’d do a language swap where he’d teach me mandarin and I’d teach him cantonese.

Well…it didn’t turn out so well – Calvin’s cantonese improved by my mandarin didn’t go very far – every word he tried to teach me came out of my mouth as cantonese instead of mandarin.

Eventually I just gave up….but now 4 years later I’m taking mandarin lessons soon…whee!