Learning a language is like becoming a double agent... or an actor. You must embrace a new personality, although, that doesn’t mean your old one will perish from this world. At the worst, it might become a little jealous (but also a little less lonely). With every word learned you are taking upon someone else’s centuries of history and culture... you learn to feel and express yourself in entirely different manner...
Of course, at first, your ‘acting’ is more or less suicidal mission, but if you stick to it, you might stop torturing your brain and, step by step, tying words together will become easier. It will slip into your subconsciousness and be left at the mercy of secretive intuition as its only guide.
In every single process, no matter what language you study or why... before you will be able to master it, before you become good enough to transform the language... you will be transformed by it. And this momentary transformation will change you. It sounds rather theatrical but it is true nevertheless. Those who already speak more than one language will probably know what I am talking about. Although, many people think it is the experience that changes you... I dare to disagree!
It is the language!
It is the experience of seeing and feeling differently from what we were taught, differently from the way we were brought up... and the reason we are capable of changing our perception IS the language.
When I first came here, it took me approximately one day to get annoyed by not understanding what was being said around and not being able to express at least Hi, Please or Thank you... It took me a week to get extremely annoyed. You see, I am not used to being in a country whose language I don’t speak at all... Not even a tiny little bit...
All I heard were noises... useless syllables.
Chinese language classes were part of the package from the Agency. I was to be taught eight two-hour sessions, plus another eight as an apology for forgetting to get me a SIM card and bedding upon my arrival as promised (I had no idea they were supposed to provide me with any of that, but I was not about to argue, I accepted the lessons). Later on, my company hired a Chinese teacher and advisor for the interns as well... so I ended up quite overwhelmed... someone up there really but really wanted me to learn Chinese... Believe me, I would, I really would do it... I would go all the way... But before I need to get my French to the level of my English, my Italian to the level of my French... and pull off Russian and Spanish... so, unless I have buy and external memory space for my brain, it’s simply not happening....
Chinese is bloody difficult!
These classes were to get me through this summer and help me understand the people who spoke it.
At first, I was terrified... all those words were so difficult to remember. I was lucky that in theory the sounds were quite similar to Slovak pronunciation, but the way they were combined... that is another story. I thought I will never be able to remember any of them. They were similar to nothing! Nothing I have heard before... and that is the way I remember things... I stroll along the chain of my twisted logic to connect seemingly un-connectable things. Though, here... here I was lost!
At least at the beginning, it took a lot of repetition (now, I don’t want you to think that I actually studied a lot...working like crazy five days a week I was exhausted... so my study was omitted to almost nothing... in another way- I am trying to say you should admire me unconditionally for this... because I had nerves to study during summer and because I was able to REMEMBER some of it eventually- even with such pitiful effort!).
My real problem was the tones. As many of you know, Chinese is a tonal language (meaning you need to watch your intonation). There are four tones applied to all vowel sounds. First one was neutral , second tone went up like when we are asking a question, the third required to lower the tone and then take it up again... the fourth was short and terse as if finishing a sentence. My intonation is a wild serpent... I cannot control my voice (well, now, after two months of online teaching I can – I am so gooooood, actually- but I couldn’t before... at all... so...) ... I can control my voice, but taming my intonation on 24/7 bases is not my cup of coffee. To me, the most problematic turned out to be the neutral tone. I could go up and down and down and up but holding a straight tone?
My Chinese teacher said I was an exception to the rule because I always had problems with stuff I was not supposed to have any trouble with, and I did easily all that was supposed to be complicated... She also said I was very talented in Chinese (muahahaha) although I do not quite agree. Honestly, I think I suck. However, this language really started getting to me. I like it. It so very different and miscellaneous it attracts me as gold does magpies.
Studying this language helped me explain some very common mistakes of my students as, for example, total ignorance of past tense in certain cases, since they again use a syllable at the end of the sentence to express positive past tense or place special word before a verb to express the negation in the past tense. Secondly, they often forget to put a verb ‘to be’ in purely adjective based sentences because in Chinese this sentence structure does not require verb at all... in practice, I often hear: ‘Today very hot!’ ... and so on...
In regard to people and culture...I developed a hypothesis. You see, Chinese people tend to be less open and less emotional as supposed to, for example, English speakers. They are not too fond of expressing their individuality either (this might also be the result of the regime not language... although now that I think of it, the regime might be the result of the language... a bit over-the-top but interesting thought nonetheless).
In Chinese, it is extremely intricate to become your SELF within the language mainly because of the tones. Being forced to bare the tones in mind suppresses emotions... I mean, it is the intonation that reveals the real meaning of the words. One needs to know this language thoroughly to be able to afford the luxury of getting emotional... like Chinese people... you need fight your way through the wall of aloofness in order to be allowed to see any further.
English, on the other hand, (comparing to other languages) has little grammatical structure and is more-or-less left at the mercy of self expression and emotions... which is so incredibly fascinating about it!
I already found out it is not advisable to say a statement with affirmation-seeking question mark. Chinese uses a special syllable at the end of the sentence which clarifies the questions as questions. One must be exceptionally careful because changing a tone could mean saying ‘horse’ instead of ’mother’... or something terrifyingly similar!
Now, the question is: Is sarcasm possible in Chinese?
Sarcasm?
Nooooooooo... :)
