My Brain Runneth Over.

We have finished the first volume of our textbooks! 15 lessons in 13 days! Our brains have not exploded, which I find peculiar considering the 300 new vocabulary words, many of which are made of two or more characters. I am still amazed when I do my homework in characters. I look down at the writing and wonder how it got there. I asked a waitress last week what one of my sentences said and she read it, clear as day! She could read my writing! Amazing! Our teacher is very creative. Today she made an exercise for us with stickers. We had to paste the proper words to complete the dialogue. That is incredibly creative considering that school children don't play games, they are drilled and can sing complicated songs in other languages but not comprehend the meaning. Memorization is more important than comprehension and proper usage. To find a teacher like ours is rare here. We tell her often how much we enjoy her teaching. We are supposed to compose a paragraph describing our families to read aloud tomorrow. For Chinese that is easy, most only have their parents. I have three sisters and their families and Frank has five other siblings! This could take awhile. We also have to prepare for our review of the entire book which is in a few days. I guess I better put the blog down and pick up my book. We will let you know how it goes.

“Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages”
Dave Barry

“There is the fear, common to all English-only speakers, that the chief purpose of foreign languages is to make fun of us. Otherwise, you know, why not just come out and say it?”
Barbara Ehrenreich