Attempts at linguistic competence

I've recently come to the conclusion that I am a terrible language student. It's not that I don't want to learn, or that I am incapable of learning, or refuse to study. Rather, it's because I'm a perfectionist. I don't like to fail.

And that, as it turns out, is a fatal blow to a budding linguist.

See, probably the single biggest advantage to learning a language while living in a country where people speak it is that you get to use what you learn every single day--which, obviously, means you learn it better. You get to take whatever new vocabulary, phrases and sentence patterns you learn one day and start using it from the moment you step out of the door of your classroom, whether it sounds right or not and, through this process of direct exchange with those around you, you learn better and faster.

This doesn't work, of course, if you're too chicken to try it.

And that's where the perfectionism ties in: I like being able to open my mouth and know that the words coming out are correct, and that the person I'm talking to will understand them, rather than laugh or look confused. Yet, as a language learner, this is simply not possible. And that freaks me out.

I miss being able to communicate, and I have a few tools at the ready now, but how do I know that when I swing that hammer I won't be trying to pound in a light switch or something? Sorry for the lame metaphor, but there it is.

Today, Tiffiany and I walked from Sanmin to the nearest Subway in between workshop and Chinese class so I could grab dinner (this was, for the record, my first American restaurant meal in about a month) and we chatted about how terrible I am at putting my newly-learned Chinese phrases to use, and she told me she is the complete opposite, totally willing to thrash about the language until she either hits on the right word/sentence of the person she's talking to figures out what she means.

At Subway, I was taking a while to decide and was on the verge of telling the lady helping us to "deng yi xia" (wait a moment), then second-guessed my memory and just stood there as Tiffiany turned to me and said "Why don't you say 'Deng yi xia?" As we ordered, she began asking the person helping us the names of the different vegetables, while I, coming right after her, just pointed and threw out my old stand-by "Wo yao zhege" -- "I want this one."

I wish I could think like Tiffiany. As it is, I'm trying to conquer my perfectionism on things I obviously won't get perfect the first few times, but it's difficult. Yesterday, I tried out my new ordering phrases twice: the first time, the lady understood perfectly what I was asking; the second time, I got frazzled and stumbled, only to be met with a confused stare before finally having to resort, once again, to "duibuqi, wo yao zhege" (Sorry, I want this one" and pointing to the menu I could see.

A fifty percent success rate is hardly encouraging. But it's a start, and if I manage to overcome my perfectionism here, perhaps I can actually get something meaningful out of my flailing beginnings at Chinese.