"Zhong Wen"
For some strange reason, I had the urge this morning to work on my Chinese writing. It's been forever since I last wrote anything in Chinese, so I wanted to know if I still retained a fair bit of the knowledge of writing, vocabulary and grammar. The basics were real easy to remember, but once I tried venturing out to other deeper things, that's where I got stuck. Bummer! I couldn't believe that I had already forgotten words that I had always used whenever I wrote essays and caligraphy in high school. And high school didn't seem so long ago, so there's no excuse for me to forget! Well, I left school 8 years ago and didn't need to use much Chinese since then. No wonder my brain got lazy.
As this new 'revelation' was revealed to me, I started writing down as many words as I could remember. Then I started writing some full sentences, which turned out to be harder than I thought. However, I wasn't discouraged. I took out my Chinese-English Oxford dictionary (my good 'ol pal) and started turning its pages, looking at familiar words. Gradually they started coming back into my memory. It's amazing how the brain and the hand work together sometimes. It was like magic: I'd remember a word, and right away my hand automatically knew the strokes to it that even I didn't think I remembered at all. They tell you that the way to learning Chinese is by repetition and LOTS of practice, like as if you're training your hand to have its own mind when it writes. It appeared to be very much true for me today.
I've decided that I'd at least devote an hour each day to picking back up my Chinese again. As crazy as I think it is, I actually miss it. I miss speaking it, writing it, and the way my mind has to work double the effort to translate everything from Chinese to English and vice versa. I'm sure one of these days I'd be thankful that I remembered. *By the way, the title of this blog is the pronouncation of the 2 Chinese characters above, meaning Chinese*
Chinese lessons, anyone?!
I want
Posted by
Anonymous |
Friday, August 05, 2005 6:08:00 PM
No thank you. . .As much as I would love to learn another language, that is definately not something that God graced me with talent to do. I have attempted to learn different languages and no such luck. That's great that you are brushing up on it though!!
Posted by
Just Me. . . |
Friday, August 05, 2005 10:02:00 PM