Adding Stamps

Just the beginning...

So I’ve made the goal to learn Mandarin, as daunting as the task is I know there will be light at the end of the tunnel even if I won’t see it for another 10 months.

 Above are my basics, “Beginners” Dictionary, “Rough Guide to Mandarin” Phrase book, Children’s Fairy tales in Pinyin (Wendy seemed to magically produce this in the Wal*Mart book section, a little beaten up but the only copy and only book in Pinyin) and of course my mini notebook that gets toted everywhere for the quick scribbles.

Wendy has been kind enough to offer an exchange of lessons although I think we all know who is getting ripped off.  She has the patience of an angel as I slaughter her language but still she doesn’t give up. Thank you Wendy. She offers sweet encouragement and never criticizes.

With this being my second language to try and squeeze under the belt I am beginning to know my personal weaknesses when it comes to conquering a foreign language. For me it is best to start at the very beginning. So everyone pull out your kindergarten worksheets and lets start with letter pronunciation.

Spanish not so hard, okay switch around some vowels, roll your r’s wait shh your double rr’s, double ll’s and y’s and why not any r that comes at the beginning of the word. Add an o here and a iendo here and you got it, just like normal speech in good old Cali. Chinese on the other hand not so flexible. At least in Spanish you can just repeat the word a few times using  different inflection here and there and eventually they get the gist. Chinese not so lucky change the inflection you get an entirely different word.

One day I will have my Mother's handwriting wait nope that would be in my dreams.

So back to the alphabet board it is! I have a pocket chart hanging on my living room wall with my basics, tacky yes but hey it is better than draping it over the TV which is about as good as that box is to me right now. Don’t get me started on my TV withdrawals and panic attacks for missing the season openers on well EVERYTHING.

 

Re-learning my alphabet, how do kids do it?

The hardest part so far, yes I know it is only going to get harder for a while, is trying to reproduce the Chinese sounds in my horrible English phonetics.  As the white out can attest it is not so easy to assign English equivalents. The funniest part of this whole exercise is Wendy kept insisting that I use what I would call the dictionary pronunciation. Yes that is probably the better way to go but if you are like me or shall I say the average American, who can actually read that?!? So she gave up trying to suggest anything and I went back to writing my own little language.

So for now lets just be honest I don’t speak a word and I mean not a word, I still can’t even get thank you to come out correctly. I need to start a routine and things will get better. I am really beginning to look forward to school starting.

Someday this will all make sense.

My first book in Pinyin - Northern European Fairtales

Ultimate Goal be able to read this book cover to cover! Hey I didn’t say without a dictionary.