Thai, Chinese and learning a foreign language

My Swedish friend photographer Susanna in Bangkok wrote this week on her blog "Bangkok Life" about how she has gone about learning Thai. She went to a language school where the students weren't allowed to speak! (Paddy's comment: "very Zen"). The students were expected to learn the language by listening like small children on their parent's laps, imitating the sounds and eventually getting it right. Sounds like a kind of "Suzuki" method of language comprehension to me. But it seemed to work fine for Susanna and others.

Susanna's teachers were very clever at acting out everything they were saying in Thai and this made me think about my own Chinese lessons at "Chinese Corner" here in Chengdu. Chinese people in general are not very good at using their bodies and physical gestures to convey thoughts. Their body language is virtually silent which can often be frustrating when I myself am trying to convey something in broken Chinese and use gestures and pictures in the air - most people just don't get it. Their trust in the verbal language is so great it can sometimes be very frustrating. I have to repeat myself over and over, more and more exaggerating my movements each time, in the end resorting to drawings etc until my need is conveyed. Even pictures and especially maps and "directional, spatial, abstract thinking" seems to be something that Chinese lack general training in. When shown a city map it is often held upside down, a picture is scrutinized in laborious detail, as if hunting for a hidden clue unlocking its secrets. I have found though that as more and more Chinese travel outside of their own "comfort zone" of regional and cultural  familiarity, their ability to communicate and think abstractly develops. Perfectly understandable.  

On the other hand they are usually extremely forgiving of a foreigner's idiotic attempts at speaking the language. They listen very patiently, offer umpteen loud suggestions as to what on earth you are trying to say, the volume of their suggestion increasing with each sentence, and generally end the entire inane conversation with a positive compliment of  "My, you really speak fantastic Chinese!" Even when what has just come out of your mouth were more like the insane incoherent ramblings of someone with their tongue cut off having an epileptic fit with their arms flying about in the air like a windmill that has lost a few screws and threatens to decapitate the audience........(Something like what Paddy calls an "illogical fit".)

I have two teachers at Chinese Corner, one is better at acting out the language than the other and it is also reflected in her personality. I enjoy these lessons immensely and because the classes are almost all "one on one" we are encouraged to speak as much as possible, of course only in Chinese and never in our native tongue. One day a week I share a lesson in "conversational Chinese" with a Spanish friend B. from Barcelona. We get to talk about whatever we want and being two ladies with a latin background we never lack for anything to babble on about. Usually we are screaming with laughter, the teacher too who loves to teach us lot's of slang and colloquial sayings. Last Friday she commented that I was good at "tooting my own horn" and taught me two ways to say this in Chinese:

Wǎng zì jǐ liǎn shàng tiē jīn.往自己 脸上 贴金. Pasting gold on your face.

Gěi zì jǐ dài gāo mào 给 自己戴 高帽 Put a tall hat on yourself.

I.e. "pay myself a complement", (svenska: en riktig skrytmoster med andra ord).

B. from Barcelona commented that in Mexico where she grew up they say it like this:

"My, aren't you putting a lot of sour cream in your tacos!"