chinese

me in taiwan ✌

























































✠ jerry's been doing swedish lessons with me the last few days and despite his usual impatience and short temper, he's been a very good teacher.

swedish was never a language i would've chosen to learn... and on a few occasions i've been stumped by the ridiculous vowel pronunciations and cracked the shits, refusing to continue with the lesson.

it's not pretty like french or sexy like spanish or romantic like italian or cute like japanese. i've described it to my swedish friends as a wizardish or elfish language- like the language spoken by the pointy-eared elves on 'lord of the rings'.... all conjuring and spell-casting ...'smurgen slussen heus sleus meusen smeagon'.

but i have to learn it eventually, so i might as well start now when i have so much time up my sleeve. they say that chinese is the best language to learn in this day and age, what with china taking over the world etc... but i marvel at those who've learnt chinese as a second language.

i did one class while i was living in taiwan, realised it was impossible, and quit. i had even considered myself a musical person and quite good with languages, but to learn chinese you'd have to be a genius! for example the word 'ma' said with four slightly different intonations can mean four completely different things; candy, horse, mother, and i cant remember the fourth. and the same goes with all words! what a nightmare!

when i have kids, i'm going to force three languages on them from the very beginning, (in as fun a way as possible). maybe i'll chuck chinese in there. they'll thank me for it later.

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