The sheer impossibility of learning Chinese

BY ONEIKA RAYMOND


Three things I have come to understand since my short tenure in Hong Kong:

1) Cantonese (spoken in Hong Kong) is quite possibly the most difficult language to ever exist.

2) Mandarin (spoken in most areas of China) is a close 2nd.

3) I will never learn to speak or understand either so I should just save the drama for your mama and just learn how to say “Thank you” and “How much does that cost?” in both languages and call it a day.

Truth is, it pains me to give up that easily. Expats abound here and many don’t think twice about going into a store or office and speaking rapid-fire English to the attendants (who have varying degrees of English ability). Admittedly, this being Hong Kong, many Chinese people speak English quite well (certainly due to the fact that Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997), and thus one really does not need to speak the language. There is usually someone around to translate, and even if not, rarely are there ever any serious communication difficulties as sign language and repetition usually do the trick.

But still. I love language and culture and typically make an effort to speak the local language. In Mexico, my written and spoken Spanish improved by leaps and bounds because I constantly used every interaction with native Spanish speakers as an opportunity. In France, I hung out with Frenchies and my Canadian Quebecois French quickly gave way to French of a more Parisian persuasion. Anywhere I travel, I try to learn at least the most basic of words and politenesses.

But here, it’s different. Chinese is not a language that you can “pick up”, or learn through osmosis. For one thing, I can’t read it. For another, it’s a tonal language. Mandarin has four different tones, and Cantonese has a whopping nine!! Which means that the word “ma” have about 17 different pronounciations (I’m exaggerating, but still).

I have lived here for over two months now and I am ashamed to say that my Cantonese is limited to about seven or eight random words: goh goh (little brother), mmgoy sye (thank you), doh tze (another way of saying thank you), joh san (good morning), gao (nine), siu siu (less less), lido (here), haiya (yes, okay) and a few others that I will neglect to mention here. I JUST learned how to say the name of my street in Cantonese: mo lu miu guy (Mosque Street), which means that I can actually get home without too much communication difficulty! Victory!!

My Mandarin is only slightly better, pretty much due to the fact that my desk at work in right next to all the Mandarin teachers’ desks are. They know I am enthusiastic about language so they have taught me the most basic things, and we do a little “language exchange” every morning, where I teach them one French or Spanish expressions to get the equivalent one in Mandarin (also known as Putonghua).

So, in conclusion:
Ni hao ma? Haoo. Shy-youla. Xie xie ni. Lei ho ho yan.
(Hello, how are you? I am fine. It’s raining. Thank you. You are a nice person).

Are you impressed yet? 😉

SHARING IS CARING

50 Comments

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