Learning Mandarin

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So I decided that since I have a little free time before my class starts, I should try to learn Mandarin on my own. I reminded myself when M asked me what I was doing for money while I'm in Shanghai, and I told him that this is a very expensive trip for me. That said, I better make sure I have some native born sounding Mandarin in 5 months! 😊

1) I went to find an electronic translator. They have these blackberry sized gadgets where you can type the english or pinyin AND it will pronounce the word for you! I thought that was pretty cool... only I learned that the pronounciation is only comes in English. Duh, I'm in China! hahah. The one I wanted turned out to be too expensive, so I settled for...

2) English/Chinese and Chinese/English Dictionary. I went to the bookstore and selected a tiny translator. I enjoyed browsing the bookstore. I tried to find my little niece a book that had words in English/Pinyin/Characters, but it didn't exist. Then I went to the International books section and they had almost the exact same dictionary I purchased- for 180 RMB!!! Can you believe that? They marked it up more 4 times! Sheesh.

3) On my way to the subway, there was a team of people handing out ads for a language school. I took her advertisement and she asked me if I wanted to learn English! 😊 I replied with asking her if she wanted to teach me Mandarin. She said there would be plenty of people who wanted to do a language exchange if I just hang out by their school. So I stopped by the school, and asked if I could post something on their bulletin and they weren't too pleased with that idea, because it's taking away their business..... so then I bumped in a large group of students coming out of class waiting for the elevator, and I asked one of the girls if she wanted to practice her English with me! She gave me her cell phone number and told me to SMS her. SMS is really popular here.

4) I bought two more Chinese dubbed DVDs too.

TGIF! I woke up early and walked down to eat street food breakfast - vegetable bao zi (yum), soy bean milk, sponge cake, and this other onion pancake. I think my jet lag is starting to go away, and all of a sudden I'm starving. Anyway, my eyes were larger than my tummy and I had to throw most of it away. I proceeded to Starbucks for my coffee, and after I read the newspaper, I felt major food coma.... and I nodded off! How embarassing. After that, I braved the rain and walked to the ATM and to lunch with a new acquaintance. B invited me to come to his MBA alumni lunch at a Taiwanese restaurant. B is my friend's friend's friend. All his friends seem successful and entreprenuer-minded. A few of them are from China.... they all have excellent English. I wonder if it's possible to be successful in your career (in China) without knowing any English... Is knowing Mandarin going to help me in my career?

Going to volunteer tomorrow morning and buy a bike. I spent over 100 RMB on cabs this week. Sunday I'm going to get a foot massage.

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Comments

[Christina]

what's sms? i like how you promptly fell asleep after your morning coffee. true addict!