Avoiding Misunderstandings

As someone who has to deal in my second language on a daily basis, I still occasionally get instances where my accent and non-standard pronunciation causes misunderstandings. Occasionally, I also run into misunderstandings when I speak correctly.

Since I don’t look Chinese, most people try to make allowances for the fact that Chinese is not my native languages. This means, amongst other things, that if they believe that I’ve said the wrong word due to getting my tones mixed up (the most common pronunciation error that foreigners make), they mentally substitute the “correct” word for me.Usually this is fine, but occasionally the word that people assume is “wrong”  is actually the word I originally intended to say - but people mishear it because they're expecting to hear something different.

Language Diary Thursday

Well, it's that time of week again. Time for me to give my updates on my language progress.

Language Diary Thursdays

In the last couple of months, I've started learning two different languages: Malay and Russian. I briefly touched on my reasons for learning Malay in my earlier post on why to learn a foreign language - since my boyfriend's grandmother doesn't speak much English, I want to learn Malay so I can communicate better with her. As for Russian, I'm learning it in part because my boyfriend and I have vague plans to go through Central Asia during my summer holidays, and in part simply because I want to.

In order to keep track of my process, and to give others insight into the early stages of learning a language, I've decided to start a regular feature on my blog: every Thursday, I will give an update on my progress in both languages.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to start this section of my blog as I started learning each language, so you'll have to do with me starting partway through. For now, I'll give an update on my progress so far:

The Things You Learn

When away from home, you learn about things that you possibly never would had you just stayed in the same place. It's inevitable in a way. Things like the intricacies (or lack thereof) of foreign transport systems, the taste of different kinds of food and some basic features of common life are all things that you can't help but learn when travelling. One can learn more than that, though.

For example, how many people can say (without looking it up first) what the third tallest building in the ancient world was? I certainly couldn't - not until the same day I went to see it recently. The first two are easy to name: at 146 and 142m in height respectively, the Pyramids of Cheops and Chefren are world-famous, and easily the most distinctive structures in Egypt. Even if people cannot remember the names of the Pharaohs interred within, most people would at least be able to point out their location. Ask people to name the third tallest structure, however, and it's a bit like asking them to name the full crew of Apollo 11: they remember that there was Neil Armstrong, Buzz Alrdin and some other guy.

Given a chance to guess, most people would throw out a few possibilities: perhaps it was a pyramid in Peru? Those knowledgeable about their Ancient Wonders might suggest the Pharos at Alexandria, which would earn them a cookie for being almost right, however even before its destruction in the early 14th century, the Pharos was eclipsed as the third tallest building in the world by a country far removed from Egypt.