The Joys of (Trying to) Speak Chinese

 

Speaking Chinese yesterday and coming up with a script brought me back to when I did a Chinese language speaking competition back in 2015 in SF, recommended by my Zhongwen Laoshi- Chinese Professor. Back then, I had to write up a few minutes of a speech about myself with the help of my professor. Then I had to memorize it, word for word, no notes.

The hardest part was memorizing it and then imagining myself speaking to a group of people I don't know. Unfortunately, and admittedly, I didn't so well or as well as I thought I would. I forgot most of my speech after hearing others, and I remember saying in my speech a few times- 'dui bu qi', I'm sorry (for forgetting my lines!)

Yesterday though, I didn't memorize my 1-minute spiel in okay Chinese, or 'hai hao' which means okay. Instead, I wrote it out and did my best to remember the words I was trying to use and mostly read off of the script. 

I forgot how enjoyable and rewarding it is to remember what you know to speak and write it down! How much I can recall and yet how little I still know and can use in even simple sentences. Oh, the joys of language learning. It makes me want to continue learning, zhuo ba! Let's go.