Tales from Shanghai – 10th October 2008
One of the things that daunted me most in the run-up to my relocation to Shanghai was the language. Mandarin is a notoriously tricky tongue, riddled with tonal intricacies, spoken at the speed and cacophony of a herd of running horses, and written with incomprehensible symbols.
So when the decision was made to move out to China, I went on the internet and found myself a Chinese tutor. We met for the first time in Canary Wharf, a premonition of my future among skyscrapers. Over the next ten weeks she led me through the basics of her mother tongue. If my levels of understanding and confidence had been mapped on a graph, it would have looked like the Andes. Some days I could remember tens of characters and understand my tutor as she rattled off various phrases. But other days, I felt like I hadn’t learned a single thing.
When September came around and I headed out east, I was apprehensive. In Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong I found a street seller who knew Mandarin, and successfully haggled the price of a bag down a few dollars. Bolstered by my achievement, I set off for Shanghai thinking it would be plain sailing.
Not so much. Perhaps the Shanghainese are less tolerant than their cousins in the Fragrant Harbour, but being laughed at every time I attempted to say something was somewhat demoralising.
Also, there’s an inescapable tendency among expats to compare levels. One of my friends has lived in China for five years and thus speaks incredible Mandarin. I also know a girl who, at the tender age of eighteen and having been in Shanghai for only six months, has an enviable mastery of the language. It really adds to the pressure to become fluent.
One of the best ways to learn Mandarin (and cheaper than the exorbitantly-priced colleges dotted around) is to do a language exchange with a Chinese person. Half the time you speak in English, the other half in Mandarin. I’m yet to find someone patient enough to tolerate my blank looks and whispers of ‘wo tingbudeng’ (I don’t understand)… I’ll keep looking.
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