Chinese

I took a huge step today. I--now be ready for this--added Chinese to my languages on Facebook. Phew. Got that out of the way.

Ever since I came to Taiwan, I've been learning Chinese--slowly, surely, and with various levels of discipline, but always learning all the same. To some extent, it's a natural effect of living in a Chinese-speaking country: you pick things up. 現在, for instance--I picked it up watching TV (translation: "now"). But unless you're still part of the under-10 crowd, almost nine months of language acquisition (Am I really coming up on nine months in Taiwan? Unbelievable!) and language study is peanuts when it comes to learning a language like Chinese.

I find it odd, but incredibly telling, that one of the first phrases I learned in Chinese was "一點點," ("a little bit") which became my standard response to the inevitable "你可以講中文嗎?" ("Can you speak Chinese?")--and that, for all these months of study, my response has not changed in the slightest. When I got here, I could, indeed, speak 一點點中文, a little bit almost entirely comprised of set phrases like 你好 (hello), 謝謝 (thank you), and 我的名字是百合 (My name is Baihe).

And now? Well, now, I can tell cab drivers where I live, and give directions and approximate times as needed (從這裡到三多商圈騎摩托車大約十分鐘. / From here to SanDuo Shopping District is 10 minutes by scooter.).

I can usually order food, assuming the waiter/waitress is willing to tell me what's on the menu rather than expecting me to read it (I can read basic meat types, etc., but since when is that actually helpful in knowing what to get?).

I can answer more complex questions in more complex sentence patterns, such as why I want to take a scooter instead of the MRT (因為摩托車比較快也比較方便, 所以我要騎摩托車. / I want to ride a scooter because scooters are faster and more convenient.).

I can engage in structured paragraph-long discourses on select subjects. I can travel without a translator. And, most significantly, I can follow most, though certainly not all, of the conversations happening around me.


It's a long way to come in nine months, but then again, it's also a long way from anything even remotely resembling proficiency. Which is why it seems so strange to add Chinese to my Facebook list of languages spoken. At what point can you claim to speak a language? When you know enough of the language to get around without a guide? When you know enough to join in random conversations? When you can converse on any subject, or when you can read a newspaper? When you know enough to correct other peoples' grammar? 


I'm not even remotely close to most of these markers, and that, combined with the fact that most of my ETA colleagues here in Kaohsiung are at least at the random conversations stage, while I feel accomplished to have grasped survival elements and the general drift of conversations around me, has kept me from claiming, ever, in any capacity, that I can speak Chinese.


But, in my own limited capacity, I can. And it's exciting, though terrifying, to claim it. I live in terror that my apparent understanding will lead people into deeper conversation which I absolutely can't follow (I can parrot words and sentences just fine, but trust me, that means nothing!), but my days are punctuated with joyous moments when I catch a new word I've learned in actual use, and am newly able to understand. Those moments are perfect. They make me want to know more.


Yet, ironically, I'm writing this post on a day I didn't make it to Chinese class. Earlier today I did some recording homework, but apart from that and ordering dinner, this blog post is the most I've used Chinese all day. I feel like an imposter.


I wish Facebook let you write whatever you wanted in the language category--I'd write "一點點中文" and leave it that way forever, if I could. But it doesn't, so I guess now is as good a time as any to claim it--I can speak (some, a little, and in pretty much every way limited) Chinese!