Chinese banana girl

I found this really good Chinese learning website, and I was listening to some of the podcasts. There was a particularly interesting one on overseas Chinese which mentioned a term I'd never heard before but think is amazing: "egg". Hah, that made me laugh. I guess that's white on the outside, yellow on the inside? As opposed to banana, which is me, mostly. Although I guess I'd describe myself as a Chinese banana - yellow on the outside, white on the inside, but with a Chinese flavour (and of course made in China). I think that pretty much sums it up.

The whole topic of overseas Chinese is a really interesting one, and I couldn't even begin to discuss it. At least not in a blog. I think it's much more organic and would flow more freely in a conversation. My 口语 kouyu (spoken Chinese) teacher said to my class mate and me that she finds it difficult to think of ways to keep the class interested in the lessons. In my head I thought "well that's obvious", but externally I said "well that's to be expected. The levels of spoken Chinese in this class are too low for decent conversations on most topics, and yet we're all old enough that we don't want to be discussing the baby topics that we could converse on using what we've learnt" (that's not really an exact translation of what I said, but you know, it's what I was trying to say, with a bit of me adding a bit of extra ME into the words that I find more difficult/impossible when I'm speaking Chinese).

I think I may have complained on this blog before about my classes here in Shanghai, but for me I believe the biggest problem is that I'm in this extremely odd space where my spoken, listening and reading/writing skills are ALL different. Listening is the best for me, and spoken is a little way behind (I'm paying for all the time I spent responding to my parents in English when they spoke to me in Chinese), and reading/writing further behind that. I didn't get my act together and fix that when I could so now it's pretty much what I've gotten myself lumped with.

I know from speaking to other students that they also find the classes similarly unstimulating. It is very repetitive learning a language, so I understand that it's not going to be a barrel of laughs. But, like learning anything, a lot hinges on your teachers. If they can get you excited about what you're learning, however dull the grammar structure is that you're learning, then I think you've got a good 'un on your hands. My reading teacher is like that. She teaches us some of the most boring stuff, and yet somehow makes it interesting. Just a natural talent for teaching I guess. Combined with an interest in helping students learn.

I think if she taught all my classes, and if I was in the right level for everything, I could really learn a lot here. As it is, I've surprised myself with how far I've come. I guess I didn't think that I was learning a lot, but in a way, I've gained a lot of knowledge that is now in my brain swimming around somewhere. Chinese isn't like a lot of other languages, because it has so many different words, so you just have to memorise things. There's no way out of it.

I think I'll start listening to more of the podcasts (there are a lot) and supplement my class learning.

http://www.chinesepod.com