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November 13, 2020
This week's assignment told me to write about what I was reading. I am not specifically reading a book, but I try to incorporate Chinese in to my daily life little by little. I will bring up what I'm reading tho
My essential question: How can I be prepared to face the constant linguistic challenges that may occur in Taiwan for me?
I intend in the future to begin planning out more how I am going to do these things. I might not start doing everything all at once, but at some point I'd like to make my journals bilingual. Just this week I started making my to-do lists in Chinese, as neatly as possible, and the sheer amount of language I've learned from just that feels amazing.
Additionally, I made a rule for myself that I have to speak for a half-hour (so far) to someone who is American-born in Chinese. I noticed in talking to Kathleen, in referencing my lists and using words I didn't know yet, going outside of my comfort zone in Chinese, that the words just stuck. I learned the word "臟“--it means "dirty" and without trying it stuck. Ordinarily a word like this would be hard to remember and take me ages to memorize, but just simply in using it in conversation with my friend, I made an emotional connection with the word.
I often listen to the radio in Chinese, but it's not often that I pay close attention to it. As I move up the levels, I plan to start putting my devices in Chinese, labeling household objects in Chinese, and speaking Chinese as much as I can (even if I have to translate myself to others). A good rule would be to only say something after I've learned it in Chinese.
As a final helper, I might want to begin watching shows and reading books. Poems seem to be good for me since they're not usually too long and many famous ones have been read by most people who know Chinese so I can get help. When I feel ready, I may also want to consider speaking once a month with a native speaker (who doesn't know English), like my friend Tingwei.
Teaching myself next year, without a specifically guided set of words and grammar points to learn, I will be challenged like this to push my ability to use immersion to the limits. I can learn the names of different sites in Chinese, make videos in Chinese, write in Chinese, anything that will help to eliminate the language barrier, so it's not something I worry about going into college.
What am I reading? I'd love to talk about the wonderful book I'm reading, but unfortunately it doesn't exist yet. I would like to read Modern Chinese Lexicology by Ge Benyi which I've mentioned before but I have to wait until Christmas for that. I will try to assign myself Baidu articles in Chinese which for the general news typically aren't too difficult. Reading is something I need to get advice on, especially in getting something to read that is at my level- the Syracuse database doesn't have the book, nor the library, and I need to be able to preview the book because many times books can look easy but actually be scattered with a wide assortment of my not-so-favorite thing: idioms :(
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