My Chinese teacher Valarie met me at my hostel this morning to see me off. We chatted for about ah hour in (mostly) Chinese and she told me my Chinese has improved a lot on this trip! She can chat to me at pretty much regular speed, whereas she used to have to talk very slowly and repeat herself more often.
I also had a (sort of) chat with the cab driver on the way to the airport (which took about an hour). I understood most of what he asked me, and my little Pleco translator came in very handly! For example he asked my if Canada was very "fuyu", so I punched in "fuyu" and came up with "富裕" - "well off" or "prosperous". I told him yes but also very expensive!
At one point he asked me "... jia ... ren ..." and I know "jia ren" is "family", so I told him I have 2 kids. He laughed and said "no, no" and I finally understood that he was asking " ... jia yuan ... ren min bi ..." - or, how many Canadian dollars ("jia yuan") per Chinese RMB ("ren min bi").
Slowly I um understanding this language!!!
I got caught trying to smuggle a knife on board the plane (it is a small knife I carry to sharpen pencils, I had forgotten about it). Luckily I looked harmless so they just laughed at me and confiscated it. I think it's because I've said nice things about China on my blog :-)
It's raining today so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my flight won't be delayed!
No comments:
Post a Comment