It's true though: if you're looking to learn just the basics of a language check out BBC's resources. I did a bit of Italian before my stint in Rome and found it useful, but when it came to Chinese I found that self-teaching is a little (read: a lot) more difficult. The whole tonal system is hard to grasp for a non-native speaker... or at least this non-native speaker, and so I only took away a few words and nonsense phrases that I found humorous, and usually in an infantile manner. The example that comes to mind is that "dragon king" in Pinyin (the anglicized manner of writing Chinese words) comes out as "long wang."
Apparently Dragon Kings are actually something of cultural significance in China as divine rulers of the four seas... and here I am making jokes. This is from the temple of Dragon King in the Summer Palace in Beijing.
In fact, "dragon" became one of my favorite words to incorporate into silly phrases as I learned new words, and when I got to the third tone section of BBC's tutorial and learned the word for "woman" it was all over. "Wo long nu" actually translates directly (and I'm speaking like an expert here... when I'm clearly not. If any Chinese speakers stumble across this and I'm making a fool of myself please call me out.) to "I dragon woman." There is probably a "to be" verb missing, and if English has two words for "woman" and "lady" I don't see why a rich and ancient language like Chinese wouldn't as well, so to translate my blog's title as "I'm dragon lady" is probably shoddy at best.
However, it became an inside joke of sorts when my friend Emilie and I got carried away one day imagining me frivilously prancing through China issuing the one phrase I knew-- wo long nu!-- and ending up with my own TV show. Then we remembered it was Japan that was notorious for ridiculous TV and found ourselves in that unfortunate state of feeling culturally insensitive, or ignorant at best.
But that's part of the humor I intended for my title: a self-awareness of the difficulties that will arise for me, and of the fact that I'll need to find humor in them in order to prevent them from affecting my enjoyment over there. Cultural faux pas will occur, and in a case where there is such a great difference in the languages many of these will be linguistic.
Just like the poor man in my parents' German class years ago learning "Es tut mir leid" was the way to say, "I'm sorry," who thought he might be able to get it through his head if someone could "Just tell me what 'estoot' means!!!" Just like my poor mother was conned by some rascal into approaching a bus driver in Germany and asking, "Wo ist die Bahnhof mit Senf?", which unfortunately means "Where is the train station with mustard?" Or in Spain, thinking she was asking if seafood (mariscos) were offered in a particular restaurant, accidentally requested maridos, which means "husbands". It didn't help that she was pregnant.
A Croatian coworker of my father's once told a story in which a giant "peat moss" went scurrying across the office floor, but he meant "centipede." Upon arriving in Italy I met some attractive boys on the metro and told them I was on my way to "livrere" on the Spanish Steps. I was trying to inform them of my plans to read, which is "leggere." I'm pretty sure there is no such word as "livrere" in Italian.
This is important for me to recognize not only for my own personal goings-on in China concerning the myriad mistakes I'm sure to make in Mandarin, but as an English teacher whose students will be making mistakes as well. Maintaining a lighter atmosphere, without allowing anyone to feel like the butt of any jokes, I think will make things easier and more enjoyable for everyone involved.
So there you have it... Not only am I not really dragon lady, I can't even say it right. And I suppose there might have been something of an Anchorman reference in there as well.
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