November 4th, 2009

Before I came to China, I tried learning some Chinese. I bought myself a couple of books (5 total) and searched the internet for resources. It wasn't long before I could say "this is my older brother", "I'm American" and "where are the bathrooms?" I seriously couldn't understand why everyone thought it a difficult language! There are no past, or future tenses, no articles, and the vocabulary is incredibly logical. Take "panda" for instance. Literally it translates as "big bear cat". That makes perfect sense! A panda is big like a bear and as cute as a cat! What else? Every day of the week is numbered: moon 1, moon 2, etc. Matter of fact, each month is numbered too!

And how about the characters, you might ask? The books traced the "etimology" of the major characters and the original pictograms made sense! No, what really trips me, especially now that I'm in China, is the pinyin! My Chinese pronunciation is far removed from the actual language! My efforts at bragging are usually met with blank stares. But then again, maybe that's because no one flies kites anymore these days in Beijing!!!