End of Chinese Course

So the Chinese course I was doing is done. What next? We really did learn a lot. As normal after exposure to any language, I feel the need to learn it. My drama watching at the moment is predominantly Taiwanese. I'm sorry that I put my Kdramas to the side but the Mandarin hype has not worn off yet. I even find now that when I think in Korean I throw in some "wo"s and "ni"s. ZENMEBAN???? Should I add Mandarin to my list. Right now I need to get back my flow of learning French and Korean and plus I doubt there will be enough TIME to manage all three when school starts back. I need to do some serious thinking.

First Official Chinese Classes

I am currently at the university here in Barbados for a science programme. Even though the programme is geared towards creating scientists we have to take a humanities class, an entrepreneurship class and a Mandarin class.
The Mandarin classes are three sessions weekly for three weeks. This week we learned the different tones and some basic introductory phrases. Most of it I knew already from my failed attempt to self study Mandarin and with obvious help from Taiwanese drama.
Today we had to introduce ourselves to the class. My introduction was quite short but I concentrated on getting the tones correct. The others tried getting more information about themselves while I only used what was taught in class. I seemed kinda lazy... welll...anyhow my presentation was successful and I was the only person to get an applause .*blushes* Trying to get the correct tones made me sound more native. I was so proud of myself. Maybe I will restart learning Mandarin.....
***  Sometimes people describe second tone as a question being asked, but thinking of it like that it was hard for me to apply to a word. I went over the second tone sound in my head and realised it more specifically sounded like "Why?" (well at least how I say "why" with my accent .It is more broken into two (why-i-)than just (y) ). Then I remembered hearing something similar it was from Learn Chinese with YangYang but she used "what" instead.

Was that a joke??

I was talking to my friend from Guadeloupe on Skype using the voice call feature. Most times we just speak English so she can improve  and also because when we first "met" I was not studying French.
The last two times though she encouraged me to try my French. She was telling me a story about her experience with some delicious Chinese food. The story's ending was to be a joke. Instead of the story having a climatic ending, it just fell flat. Why? I did not understand. I felt so bad. It takes alot of effort to tell a joke and at the end of she did not get the response she was looking for. She was laughing and when she realised I wasn't laughing she asked " Tu as compris?" Unfortunately I had to say "Non". The second attempt though was a successful one. I understood.
Moral of the post- It is risky telling a language learner a joke.

Irregular Verbs in French

When I was learning French at school I don't really remember there being so many types of verbs. I decided to start from the beginning when it comes to verbs since i took a two-year break from learning French. It is really alot to remember.*sigh*
                    
                     The Types
Regular -er, -ir and -re verbs
The -cer and -ger verbs where there is a change in the nous form e.g
commençons / mangeons
The verbs where you have to use a grave accent with the silent endings e.g acheter ------> j'achète
The verbs where you double the last consonant in the stem for the silent endings
e.g appeler-----> je m'appelle
The -vaincre verbs which must use   -qu for the plural endings
e.g convaincre -----> convainquent
The -ir verbs which are conjugated like -er verbs
e.g ouvrir-----> j'ouvre
The -ir verbs conjugated like -re verbs
e.g partir-----> je pars
The -oindre, -eindre and -aindre verbs
The -uire verbs
There is still more. I seriously need to find a way to remember these. Practising them using sentences is probably the best way. This is going to take a while but Aja Aja Fighting!!

Krench??? Forean???

Is it just me or do other people find the Korean and French accents slightly similar?
I have regular conversations with myself. No. I am not crazy. I find it very helpful to make up situations and then practice speaking out loud in whatever target language.
The other day I was having one of these conversations and decided to do a sudden switch from Korean to French. It hit me right then and there. The two are quite similar. I did not really need to change to general positioning of my mouth and it sounded similar.
Before when I was learning Spanish and I tried to switch from French to Spanish, the Spanish came out sounding French and then I would have to pause and get into the Spanish mode.
I wonder if the reason I like Korean is because of this. Hmmmm...

Pauline's Bajan Adventures

A few months ago my friend got the opportunity to meet a Japanese woman. I decided to go along with her and meet the woman as well. During our little chat she told us that she had a blog called Bajapanese where she posts all about her experiences in Barbados.
A few days ago that blog came across my mind and so I visited the page. There I saw a post about a woman named Pauline who is from France who published a book about her life in Barbados. Pauline came to Barbados to learn English in the Barbados Community College's ESL program. The book is a compilation of articles written in the Advocate newspaper over a one-year period. I remembered seeing some of the articles and they were quite interesting. There was going to be a book launch at Good Life restaurant and so I decided to go.

I was the first guest to arrive. I was by myself and I felt so weird and I believe I looked just as weird as I felt. After a while people finally started coming. People came and sat at the table I was at. There were people speaking French around me. It was almost as if I was in France. hehehe

The evening officially began and Pauline said a little about herself and read a few stories from her book.It always makes me laugh when I hear foreigners talk about what they find strange about Bajan (Barbadian) culture.

Pauline Rouiller-Luinati sharing her stories

At intermission Pauline signed my book. She asked me my name and I spelled it "C-H-E-R-Y-S-E". She said " Oh. Chereez." Lol! The French and their z.

How cute

There was entertainment after by Thobekile Bridget Mbanda from South Africa. She sang two songs with a mix of Zulu and English. They were quite nice.

South Africa, France, Japan. People from all these places in little Barbados. I always wonder how these people find out about Barbados. The world is such a huge place and they come to this dot on the map. I find it so amazing.
The evening at Good Life was a pleasant one. It was good to get out the house.

The book itself, "Pauline's Bajan Adventures", is quite funny. There are many stories about a whole bunch of things from church to sailing to clubs to ZR vans. The pictures are colourful and it is easy reading.

Want to get a copy? 

You can get it from Book Source in Barbados or from Amazon. As Pauline said, it will surely put a large smile on your face.