Language still there

Yey, finally a good day! And it’s already Wednesday, which means the weekend is one step closer. Wo-ho!

First of all, I am finally typing on my beloved computer again. It was the re-charger that had broken, so I got a new one. Phew!

Second of all, my foot is doing better. I can walk quite well now. Still far away from running but all I want is to be able to move normally a.s.a.p.

And finally, I spent last night speaking Chinese (+ eating Chinese, yum!) and I could still follow the conversation…. Meaning: I haven’t lost all my language skills this summer… wiiiiii!

Yeah, since I was seriously craving spicy food (+ in a slightly bad mood) in the beginning of this week I decided to ask a Chinese friend to join me for a meal at the only “real” Chinese restaurant in town (I say “real” because they still serve the sweet and sour pork/the deep fried chicken/ the bamboo and the banana –but it is run by a Shanghai family so those times I’ve been there I have asked for the “real” menu in Chinese, and last night we simply asked for some dishes out of the blue and the kind manager made them all for us. She’s such a doll!). That turned out to be a good idea! My friend, oblivious to the fact that I was actually nervous about speaking, rambled on in a speedy Chinese, expecting me to follow everything (we have been chatting for days on Skype and there I have had no problems keeping up + a dictionary on hand, so I assume she thought my spoken level would be the same). Although I felt a bit odd in the beginning (the young Chinese guys left our company so I haven’t spoken a word of Chinese for the last 3 weeks) I realized that I actually hadn’t forgotten so much. Or, more importantly, I could understand everything she said (to the point that I could reply correctly, obviously I missed out on some details), and my answers were grammatically correct/understandable. Yey!

I know this may sound like a silly thing to even write about, but you know, I have been seriously worried that 2 months in Finland would result in me forgetting a lot of my Chinese vocab. Last summer I was here for only 1 month and when I eventually came back to China I felt really stiff trying to communicate in Chinese. Sure, my level is higher now than then, but still. It’s always a relief when you realise that your level can actually keep itself up, even when you are not in the “foreign language environment,” I mean, that’s what I’ve been aiming at all along.

So, happy Wednesday in other words. It doesn’t matter that it’s raining and 14 degrees outside my window (hello, it’s supposed to be summer? See now why they love their saunas so much over here?! Might have to de-frost in the middle of the “warmest season” of the year….), I’m still heading to work with a big grin on my face.