My friend, who is my former Chinese handler, is an English major. He left work with my company to work at a translation company. I have posted pictures of the austere communist era office park where he works in Hefei.
Since I arrived in China, he has often sent me text messages using the Chinese instant messenger program called QQ. It is very similar to facebook's messenger system.
He often asks me to explain words that he cannot understand. I find it very interesting how words and concepts that we are familiar with in America take a long to to explain to a Chinese person, even one who speaks very good english.
This evening, I had a ten minute IM chat with him about the word Chaperone. The concept makes sense to me, but he thought it was some sort of teaching position. I explained that Chaperones ensure that younger adults behave properly at places like high school dances. Eventually he got it.
The Chinese language is in many respects much more complex than English. The pronunciation of Mandarin is perhaps the most difficult part of learning the language.
In addition, there are many words that have exactly the same pronunciation but have different meaning depending upon the context in which the word is used. For example, there are about 6 different words that are pronounced "Mei". The meaning ranges from a negative participle to the word for "enzyme".
English is also a very complex and rich language. However, the basic structure of the language is alot easier to learn than Chinese.
Today I got a message from my friend to explain the difference between a note, a letter and a memo. The joy never ceases.
Since I arrived in China, he has often sent me text messages using the Chinese instant messenger program called QQ. It is very similar to facebook's messenger system.
He often asks me to explain words that he cannot understand. I find it very interesting how words and concepts that we are familiar with in America take a long to to explain to a Chinese person, even one who speaks very good english.
This evening, I had a ten minute IM chat with him about the word Chaperone. The concept makes sense to me, but he thought it was some sort of teaching position. I explained that Chaperones ensure that younger adults behave properly at places like high school dances. Eventually he got it.
The Chinese language is in many respects much more complex than English. The pronunciation of Mandarin is perhaps the most difficult part of learning the language.
In addition, there are many words that have exactly the same pronunciation but have different meaning depending upon the context in which the word is used. For example, there are about 6 different words that are pronounced "Mei". The meaning ranges from a negative participle to the word for "enzyme".
English is also a very complex and rich language. However, the basic structure of the language is alot easier to learn than Chinese.
Today I got a message from my friend to explain the difference between a note, a letter and a memo. The joy never ceases.
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