piffle | Caramel

Did you know…..?

I can speak a little Spanish…

…a little French….

…a great deal of piffle…

…I can also sign – Bristish Sign Language (I used to be an interpreter)…

…and I would like to say I am fluent in my mother tongue English, however, when I look back at some of my posts and notice the abominable typos, spelling and grammar mistakes, I give you due credit for wondering at times…

But did you know?….

…I can speak a little Chinese? Chinese Mandarin. I have many Cantonese speaking friends, but I cannot understand or speak any Cantonese at all. Mandarin has four tones…that help to define the meaning of the words uttered, Cantonese, I believe has nine tones! Nowadays, I only have chance to use my Chinese when we decide to have a Chinese takeaway. My favourite ingredients in tonight’s takeaway…cashews, mushrooms, spring onions, garlic, ginger…I can sense I am slipping into a food coma!

I only speak a little…I can have a basic conversation. In fact on occasion when I greeted a patient who was Chinese or Taiwanese in Mandarin, I suddenly found myself in the predicament of having to explain that I have never learnt medical terms so cannot really help with their consultation.

Years ago I did one of those TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Langauge) courses and I ended up spending quite a lot of time with some very intelligent Chinese students who were studying in Liverpool. They didn’t come to study anything average. It was always some incredibly long subject ending with ….ology.

I had a wonderful time with the various students I spent time with. Beautiful, hard-working, health conscious and humble. I still have many wonderful Chinese friends.

Now I want you to meet Irene…

Irene Yin is the creator of Hello China!

She has a fabulous blogging site with everything you might want to know about China…well, not absolutely everything…there is a lot more to come from Irene Yin I am quite sure!

Take a look at her post…

Learn some Chinese

…and within a few minutes you and I might be able to have a conversation in Chinese. Or follow in the footsteps of many friends of mine and go exploring China.

Or at the very least…next time you head to the nearest China Town…you could practice the tips Irene can teach you in her post!

My friends have sometimes made some disastrous mistakes by using the wrong tone…I have to say learning a language is only for those who have a sense of humour! You have to be able to laugh at your mistakes!

Now…I am feeling musical tonight…but the only song that popped into my head was “There Are Nine Million Bicycles in Beijing“…and then I found a long list of Chinese music…and I have attached a link to one of the videos.

I am going to say for now…as I want to have sweet sleep so I look almost beautiful tomorrow when I spend the weekend with Goldfinch in Bath! I am sure my next post will be all about Goldfinch!