lookee...

couldn't think of anything to say during this blog session, so i decided to play with the template and add a few things. more blogs and some links. so lookee...

funny, as i was saying that in my head, it made me think of how that sounds like 'lohk-yee', which means 'police' in Cantonese and the dialect that i grew up hearing (but not speaking much), Toi San.

i consider myself to be fluent in 2.5 languages - English, Spanish, and Toi San. of course, the half language is the chinese part. i can understand 70-80% of what the friends of my parents will say to me...the bad thing is that i have a hard time replying in chinese. and they give me funny looks if i answer them in Spanish.

chinese, regardless of dialect, is one of the most difficult languages in the world to master. many people learn to speak Mandarin and Cantonese somewhat well. however, since these two main dialects of China are tonal, it can be quite a task if you are tone deaf; most people who cannot pick up the tones in Chinese, often do well in Japanese, which can be learned with a tone deaf ear. that's not all that easy either since there are three scripts: Hirigani, Katakana, and Kanji.

my lack of retaining the speaking part of the language is due to the general little use of it. our mother always wanted us to remember our native tongue. and i think, of the seven children in our family, the youngest two, my sister and myself, probably have the best Chinese language skills. however, our mom was never strict enough to force us to answer her in Chinese. really, the only people that speak to us in Toi San are some friends of our parents and our mother; even our father has spoken to us in English most of our lives.

not wanting to learn the language was never an issue either. my sister and i were subject to seven years of Chinese school as kids...and i even took one year of Mandarin in college. it's just the circles you hang in...we had few opportunities outside the home to use Toi San....especially since it is more of a village dialect; there are WAY more speakers of Cantonese (of which Toi San resembles)...and Mandarin is the most widely spoken language on the planet - one billion +.

for me, it was much more logical to take Spanish in school. i took five years before college and later graduated with a minor. i was only five classes away from a degree in Spanish, but i was so burnt out with school. luckily, my proficiency improved by working with Spanish speakers at a restaurant job and by digging in both Mexico and Peru.

so...the friends of my parents were always puzzled why i could understand them, but had a tough time answering. like i was some mute savant.

perhaps we both consider ourselves lucky. in a way, i wish i grew up speaking the language...while non-English speakers feel very much the same. what is ironic is that most English speakers i know consider Chinese to be the hardest language to learn and Chinese speakers believe the same regarding English. did i just repeat myself? ¿Acabo de repetirme?

back to the point...chinese languages are tonal. basically, you can say one thing and easily mean another. for example, 'gee' (like gee-whiz) in Toi San can mean paper...pig...pearl...or to cook; the differences are quite subtle and recognizing them requires a very good ear. there are four tones in Mandarin and nine(!) in Cantonese...imagine the faux pas combinations.

as i said earlier, chinese is perhaps the hardest language to master. this is evident with the written language. speakers of romance languages such as English or Spanish only have to contend with 26 or 28 letters. Chinese is all about learning the characters, which are combinations of phonics....you have (a) vocal and complement components. to read a newspaper in the U.S., a person only needs a sixth grade reading level proficiency and some successful combinations of the 26 letters. to read a basic chinese newspaper, you must know at least FIVE THOUSAND characters! if i remember correctly, there are at least 40,000 characters in the written chinese language. and we wonder why some kids in china commit suicide if they fail college entry exams... hell, half of them are blind from studying! my chinese name alone consists of three characters and 29 brushstrokes.

English is not so easy though. most non-native speakers struggle with the ambiguity of its spelling and meanings. at least in Spanish and Chinese you have the subject, verb, and object...the essential ingredients of a sentence...there are no homophones or homonyms. and not to be punny, but we all know that ignorant americans snicker if they hear the prefix 'homo'. people from other countries say their respective native languages have simple rules and are always applied. in English, you have language rules...never cut-and-dried though.

so be careful if you're diligently trying to learn chinese. you never want to ask a chinese mom to cook rice and end up calling the her a horse who would rather sleep with pigs. please do everyone a favor and ask her in English. the spanish speaking chinese guy thanks you...