Learning a Language

I thought I should do a post of what I spend the majority of my time here doing (probably for the next year and a half!). I am trying out a unique learning program. The fist 100 hours of study I only listened, no speaking! I knew a lot of words by the time I made it to the speaking phase. The idea is to master listening and being able to clearly hear and differentiate the sounds before trying to speak something you can't even hear.

I use a lot of cards like this to learn new words.
The idea is to associate the Chinese word
with an image instead of the English word.

This is my tutor (old) Deborah. She is from Norther China and has a pretty
good ancient and clear speech. For the first phase of this learning experience
she was perfect. She used to work with Deaf children and so she focused
on my proper and clear pronunciation (when I did start speaking). 

At first we met at a cafe, but later found it was a better learning environment
if she came to my house.

This is after I finished the listening phase. I had to learn to
say all the words that I knew. This isn't even all of them
and the number is growing everyday!

I try to get up 2 hours before my tutor comes and start studying. I have to
study 6 hours everyday in order to not have to study over the weekends.
I am supposed to have 30 hours a week, which I am almost always
able to get. The more I learn, the easier the hours are to achieve.

I am apart of a group of people going through a similar language learning
process. We meet together every week to process the culture and talk about
the good and bad in language and living in China. This time we were learning
how to tell a story. 

Each object represented a specific part of the
story. This method was a big help.

This is a small portion of my hour log.

My room before I rearranged it (big surprise to those who've lived with me,
I'm always rearranging). Anyway, just a picture of a typical afternoon
study time.

Sometimes I get bored and doodle on myself....sometimes.

I record each tutor session and listen (over and over again) during my
non-tutor study times. It is very helpful to hear the correct pronunciation
and be able to play 'matching games' with myself. 

So there is a small glimpse into my language program and daily schedule. Some of you may have seen on Facebook, but my first tutor gave me her sudden 10 day notice. It really caught me off guard and was a little overwhelming to think about starting the process all over with someone else. The more I thought about it though, the more I knew it was right and I felt peace. I was out with friends chatting with a good Chinese friend telling her about me sudden situation. She happily exclaimed that she was in need of a job, a tutoring job! I was so happy because we were already friends, but I had no idea she tutored, I just thought she was a full-time student. She started 3 days after that conversation and it has been wonderful. I have been thrown into conversation Chinese, it is thrilling, exciting,and sometimes overwhelming! The best part is being able to communicate more and more with Chinese around me, even if it is child-sentences, STILL, I AM SPEAKING CHINESE!! Eee, too exciting! When I hear people on the bus and street speaking, it sounds so crazy, and soon, I will sound like that. The funny thing is, the more Chinese I learn, the more English vocab I loose!! I find myself searching for words a lot longer than normal! It is so strange, AND all my Spanish is coming back. Has anyone else experienced this while learning a language? I'd love to hear about it. Also, in a few months I will be doing a home stay with a Chinese family that speaks....NO ENGLISH! Yay, I am thinking that phase of language will really solidify my speaking. That probably won't be until mid February though, but that feels like it is coming so fast! I am really hoping something great happens soon cause it looks like I will be in a big house to myself for the holidays and thinking about that makes me want to cry a little. However, it really doesn't feel like Christmas here, there is no snow, or colors or lights or Black Fridays, etc. I am hoping in the best and for the best though, and, in faith, it's going to be a great Holiday and New year. In January I will go to Thailand for a meeting and a mini break. I'm looking forward to that. During that time the Chinese will celebrate their New Year, some of them take 2 months off!! I would love to have someone come visit, but I think the China that I know (hustle and bustle) will be on the quieter side, and that wouldn't be super fun for a 'first-timer'. Since I am talking about visitors.... Anyone is welcome!! And on that note, I'll sign off. Since I am spending the night in the Hong Kong airport I'll be able to work on a bunch of blog post, look for more this coming week.

Love,

L