Picking up the accent

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We had our second day of language class today. Our teacher today took more of an approach of answering all of our language questions as she went along instead of trying to teach us every single letter and word in the Chinese language one at a time. While we were learning how to say useful phrases such as "I am American" or "Where are we?", it came up that what we thought we were hearing Chinese people saying was slightly different than how are teacher was pronouncing words. It turns out we are not just incorrectly hearing things, but that the Beijingers have a problem like the British. Apparently they feel the need to put r's on the end of certain words. I thought it was neat that we have been learning from the taxi drivers how to speak like proper Beijingers!
I would also like to mention that the English name our teacher for today had been given was LaFonda. Now if you have seen Napoleon Dynamite, then you can imagine how much the class was laughing when we heard that this little Chinese girl was called LaFonda amongst her friends. Even if you haven't seen the movie, I'm sure the match of LaFonda to a Chinese person is still rather funny. I think it is great how everyone who speaks some level of English has an English name here. I asked the girls at work how they got their names and one of the girls, named Rachel, said she chose her name because she read in a name book that it meant light-haired, smart, and pretty girl.
Then there is the practice of asking a native English speaker to give a Chinese person an English name. Kitty at work approached me about giving her a new English name. I chose Cathy for her because Kitty likes to shop, just like the cartoon character Cathy. Then there is Linda, whose Chinese name is Sophie. I haven't really figured out whether she knows that Sophie is also an English name. I am thinking about having a different name in various languages so that when I am conducting international business they can feel more comfortable with my name😉
In response to Carla's comments about the fog, I am pretty sure that the sun's rays can still get through even though we can't see the sun because you are right that there are very pretty flowers and green park areas in Beijing. As far as the blind path hypothesis goes, all the cross walks also have sounds to go along with the pedestrian "walk"/"don't walk" lights but the yellow path does not continue through the street. And yes I am 12 hours ahead of you, but I didn't have anywhere to be today until this afternoon so I was allowed to stay up a little later than usual😊

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