You would think that living in China while learning Chinese means I get a lot of practice. In some ways I do (and I certainly could never learn the language if I didn’t live here) but in many ways, it doesn’t help at all. Technically every minute outside I could be practicing my listening. But more often then not I tend to just shut my ears and ignore those around me. And when I’m hanging out with my chinese friends they don’t take the time to teach me new words. Instead we just talk, like normal people. For the most part I get what they are saying, even if I miss a word here or there. And if they are saying something I really don’t get they try to explain it to me. If I still don’t get it we either give up, move on or I whip out my dictionary. I don’t use hang out time as class time.
But sometimes friends will go to great lengths to teach me a new vocab word. I was hanging out with a chinese friend (who can’t speak any English) when he started a conversation using a new word I was unfamiliar with. San miao? I said repeating his pronunciation (which meant 3 cats). Bu dui, he said. Not right. Sa niao.
Sa niao? I repeated again, searching the dusty corners of my brain. Nothing was coming to mind. Usually I can come up with a reasonable guess, based on context, but this was an entirely new conversation and I had no contextual clues. Was this a place? An animal? A grammar form?! I had no clue.
But my friend wasn’t going to let me down. “It’s there,” he said point to my, er, lower lady bits. I was starting to get some context but that was only making me more confused. Sa niao? I repeated again. Then he said “WC.”
None of this was helping. “Wo bu zhi dao!” I said. I don’t know. He laughed, then got up and went to the bathroom. I figured that was the end of that. Sometimes I just don’t know words and that’s fine. We move on.
When he came back out he said. “What did I just do?”
Another weird question! I was thrown again. I just looked at him and he said it again. “What did I just do?”
“xiao bian?” I answered unsure. It was the only word for urine, or pee, I knew.
“Yes!” he said a big smile spreading across his face. “Xiao bian. Sa niao.” He said using my word for pee, then his. Pee! Sa niao meant pee! I finally got it and learned it in a way I probably will never forget. It was a herculean effort for one tiny little word but now it’s burned into my brain forever.
“xie xie laoshi,” I said. Thank you teacher. He laughed.
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