After much dithering about whether I'll get more mileage out of vague attempts at Chinese or vague attempts at French, I was all geared up for ordering some French language resources, when someone in one of the LJ Chinese language groups posted the following tone twister:


Si shi si, shi shi shi, shisi shi shisi, sishi shi sishi.
Translation: 4 is 4, 10 is 10, 14 is 14, 40 is 40.
That's without the tones. But for the curious, si is a falling tone, when shi="ten" it's a rising tone, when shi="is" it's a falling tone, usually. (I think).

It's rather fun.

So now I'm back to dithering again - French, Chinese? Chinese, French?

Which one do I want to tackle? Chinese or French, French or Chinese? I actually really want to tackle both but that would be setting myself up for failure.

This time round I'll be trying to learn by exposure and learn very gradually. No memorising big long lists - way to go to have a relapse. If I choose Chinese, I'll separate the speaking and listening from the writing: on other occasions I've tried to have my character recognition and writing keep pace with my speaking and listening - this is unrealistic and unneccesary.


French:

I was dragged, kicking and screaming, through six years of French and then in a moment of madness, enrolled in first year French at uni. I hated every minute of it but in recent years I've realised it's a lovely language and that there is much I could do with it.

Further, whenever I start Chinese again, all my French comes back to me. It seems I've got more of it tucked away than I realised.

So initially at least, I'd probably zip along and feel really good about it.

On the other hand, same problem as in high school: when the hell am I going to use it?



Chinese(Mandarin):

I also happen to love the sound of Mandarin Chinese and the sight of the written form, and I live on the corner of Asia. I've studied a reasonable amount of Chinese history and anthropology (and still reckon there's an interesting thesis I could consider about the Chinese who collaborated with the Japanese, if only I could read enough to get through the primary documents. Oh and magically improve my health, of course), my interest is fairly well developed and multi faceted.

So far I've had three concerted efforts to learn, the last one being two to three years after I developed ME/CFS. I gave it up when I realised the attempts to memorise just one character a day were bringing on the same set of symptoms as a long walk, and that I was simply not improving. I was struggling to simply retain what I had learnt and consolidation of knowledge was getting harder and harder. It was just too different.

On the other hand, more opportunities to listen, so long as I'm well enough to get out and about occasionally.

If I get well enough to travel anywhere, it's most likely going to be a country where at the very least, a working knowledge of the written form would not go astray.


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Or maybe neither. Just debating this has left me brainfried already....

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Anyone got any opinions on this?

How to deal with my angst about going into the outside world:

1. Get really, really angry about it.

2. Think "biltong".

3. Think: "there's that South African shop not so far away, I bet they have biltong." (Biltong is a South African specialty, a type of dried beef. It's very moresome).

4. When the angst about the fact that I'm supposed to be consuming nothing except sustagen for a few days hits, remember that biltong is just protein and salt. No fibre, very little fat.

5. Mmm. Salt.

6. Having a specific thing to do works better than just shlepping round until you get used to the idea of being out. Just shlepping round does nothing to reduce the self-consciousness: if anything it focusses your attention on how you feel. And there's no reward either. So go get yourself some biltong.

7. When leaving the house, don't turn directly into the main street, go round the block so you have an intermediate period of lower exposure to the world before facing the wall of slow moving peak hour traffic and dull-eyed drivers that you must pass before you get to biltong central.

8. When the cashier at your local biltong emporium looks at the scooter outside and the stick in your hand and then asks if there's something wrong with you, saying "Why yes, I have a chronic illness and it limits my mobility" is really quite hilarious when you think about it. (No really, it is. Especially when you say it as though this is an informative answer and manage to resist the temptation to raise one eyebrow, roll your eyes or say "d'uh" at the end of it.)

But it's probably not as hilarious as suddenly looking in horror at your stick and your scooter as if seeing them for the first time and screaming "HOLY FUCK!!11! I HAD NO IDEA!!!!eleven!! DEAR GOD WHAT'S HAPPENNED TO ME?!1?" before impulsively flinging your stick across the store as though it were suddenly transformed into a poisonous viper and running away down the street while waving your hands in the air and screaming.

Patience, Grasshopper. Await the perfect moment. Have faith that it shall arrive.

9. But given you don't really want to be mean (she wasn't being rude, she was just a little awkward, and it's better than the silent pretence of not-staring), say it with a smile and wish her a nice day.

10. Staying off main streets is kind of nice anyway, so do it whenever you can. Gives you a nice balance between achieving a goal and stopping to smell the roses without fucking yourself up too fast.

11. The total lack of suspension with this scooter is a real pain (and something to bear in mind for anyone else looking to get one, especially if your problem involves fatigue) but isn't so bad if you go slowly. Funnily enough, going slowly is quite easy to do when you're relaxed. It's perhaps testament to how I've felt so far that today was the first day I really noticed the advantage of slow travel.

12. Once you've got your biltong, go home! Going onwards to the bike shop for a lock and thence to the second hand bookstore is overkill. You want to get used to going out on a whim: doing too much and knocking yourself out in the process does not facilitate this. No good for the budget either.

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I'm going back to the bike store some time soon to get myself a bell. The scooter comes with its own horn but it's loud and 'orrible. It would be good for life-or-death emergencies but there's no way I'd inflict it on some poor soul who only needs to know that I'm about to overtake on a narrow footpath. Tinkly bells are much friendlier.

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Oh and I've finally got a halfway decent Chinese dictionary! I say halfway because it's only from Chinese into English. It has usage examples like "betray the values of the revolution" and "have infinite faith in this doctrine", which are amusing until you realise it was published in 1997. I can only chuckle at those sorts of phrases when I think that they have historical value, not current application. I guess it's a bit optimistic to think the nature of the PRC will change in a big hurry. If ever, and if not to be replaced by something equally repressive with mindless slogans of its very own.