“At Sinoland we study!”
We’ve been allowed back into China (for the time being) and have started our Mandarin classes at Sinoland College. Here’s a quick breakdown of the school and our study structure:
We have class Monday through Friday from 9am until noon. Steph and I have only one other classmate, Marcos, from Brazil. Class is taught by our constantly-correcting and infinitely-patient teacher, Liu Xiao Jing, aka “Liu laoshi.” The focus of the class is on speaking so for the vast majority of the class we are talking. Every afternoon we write out dialogs, study vocabulary and try to speak to each other in Chinese.
While we have a very limited vocabulary, we can still manage to say a lot of important things to each other. Here’s a quick “Best Of” from our growing Mandarin mastery:
- Zhè shì xīn chū de jīnián yóupiào. (This is a newly-issued commemorative stamp.)
- Qǐng wèn, nǐ zhì dào zài năr yăn jīngjù ma? (Excuse me, do you know where the opera is performed?)
- Wŏ bù shì dàifu! (I am not a doctor!)
- Nǐ māma zài jiā ma? (Is your mom at home?)
- Tīng shuō nǐ kě yǐ fàndiàn lǐ huàn qián. (I hear you can change money inside the hotel.)
- Wŏ hěn xǐhuan hē jiŭ! (I like to drink wine!)
- Wŏ shì xiāng jiāo! (I am a banana!)
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- Liú lăoshī getting her teach on.
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- Kùgē hard at work.
hengaoxing kandao zhege.
feichang hao.
Just don’t understand why “wo shi xiang jiao”
How long does that commute take?
WELL. An excellent question. The walking from our apartment to the school building is really only ten minutes or less. But due to the extremely inefficient elevator system in the building the whole commute is a little over 20 minutes, our door to the classroom.
Can you also say “My spoon is too big?”