Hi friends! The language pledge ended yesterday so I figured I could sum up the last week in English.
Last night and today have been so odd! The language pledge ended at the end of our closing ceremony. Following the ceremony we all went to eat dinner and dance outside with the other language schools. I was definitely more comfortable speaking in Chinese than in English, but it was fun to test laoshimen de (teacher’s) English skills. I kept feeling “name” sounds so much worse than “名字”, and that my American accent felt so obvious and terribly ugly compared to Chinese. Also, learning people’s yingwen mingzi (English name) was wild. All I’ve known for most of them is their Chinese name so I feel their Chinese represents them well. But their English name?!? 不太适合他们. (Doesn’t suit them).
I think the most notable change is I forgot how much you can intuitively assess someone when having a conversation with them in English (Or just your native language). 通过用英文交流，我能更好地了解他们的性格。I quickly got used to the conversation style in Chinese, and didn’t really feel I was lacking a deeper intuitive level of understanding. I still discussed deep topics with friends and had fulfilling conversations, but it was clear immediately after starting to speak English how much of our personalities and selves were stilted by communicating in a second language. Also note: it is hard writing this right now. I keep trying to use Chinese grammar.
Additional fun English tidbit: I am very happy listening to my favorite music again! I get to sing along with it, which is a favorite past-time that has not been quite as accessible these past eight weeks. Also:) This morning at breakfast I had a terribly difficult time getting out a sentence with the words “we” and “say”. These past eight weeks, I’ve said “women” and “shuo” so often that it was hard to get the English out instead.
These past eight weeks, I tried to only think in Chinese as well as only speak in Chinese. While this was not entirely feasible. The majority of the time, if I thought in English I would force myself to translate into Chinese. I am still doing that in my head. I think in English, reprimand myself, and then translate before remembering I don’t have to anymore. I want to hold onto Chinese thoughts for as long as possible!
All of the ways that my brain is fighting the transition to English truly made me take stock of how worthwhile the language pledge and the work put in was. I never doubted the effectiveness of this program, however when “good morning,” “have a good rest of your night,” and “have a good one” sounded like alien speech, I had no option but to value the power of the pledge.
I am very grateful for all the teachers I had this summer. Their hours were insane and their help invaluable. Thank you all! Thank you to all the people who sponsored me and advocated for me to do this program. I had a blast and learned so much.