First of all, Chinese is an awesome language! Unlike English, there are many versions of Chinese  depeding on where in China you are. The best feeling that comes with learning Chinese, as I guess with any language, is speaking the language learnt, and been understood. An equally quality feeling, is been able to answer a question, or reply to someone, even if it’s just in a shop or a taxi.

A hard thing to get over is the characters, to me they are unfathomable, complex drawings. So far, I only understand 1234 in them. However, with the characters comes pinyin. Pinyin is the Chinese language written in the alphabet, and I think it’s easier to read than written English. Of course I can read English correctly, but it’s very complicated to grasp for people learning it. I’ve become much more aware of this since I became a teacher. Weight sounds like ‘wate’, and height sounds like ‘hite’. Even though they both have ‘ei’, they are pronounced differently. There’s none of this in pinyin. Vowels, and vowel combinations, are pronounced the same way every time. So once you learn the rules of pinyin and remember them, you can pretty much read it. I can read pinyin rather fluently now, even though I might not understand what I’m saying.

Another easy thing about Chinese is the lack of past or future tense, and grammar. Don’t get me wrong, there is grammar in Chinese, just not a lot. ‘Am’, ‘is’ and ‘are’, are all the same word. It’s not hooked up on putting an ‘a’ or a ‘the’ before nouns, and don’t really use plurals from what I gather.

All in all, I’m not saying Chinese is easy, not by a long shot. But it is formularised, the rules are simpler and easier to understand. The thing that makes it very very hard is the tone system. I’ll explain that tomorrow.

More to come ……….

Luckily, Chinese cinemas show a considerable number of films made on the other side of the world. While the choice of English speaking films isn’t greatly varied, there are enough to happily go to the flicks once or twice a month.  I have to say, I love going to the cinema! I’m a huge movie fan, (there will probably be a movie section on this blog in the near future). And going to the cinema, how ever normal it may be, helps me miss England a very little bit less. I know that might sound a bit weird, but it’s true! However, there’s one thing that’s  a bit annoying.

Who saw Non-stop with Liam Neeson? Or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes? Great movies, I loved both of them. The thing these two movies have in common is the use of unspoken dialogue. Liam Neeson received a lot of text messages, that where displayed in Chinese characters, with no English sub-titles. And in Planet of the Apes, the apes converse very often in their own unique sign language, without English sub titles. Now I understand that I’m in China, why should there be English subtitles in China? But it is an English speaking movie that would target foreginers to watch it. Luckily, Lifei was with me both times, and she spent a considerable amount of the movie translating quietly into my ear. Hopefully she didn’t mind too much!! I’m curious now though. I have to admit, I’ve never seen a Non-English-speaking movie in England. I wonder if in cases like this, the subtitles are both sets of subtitles for unspoken dialogue? If anyone knows the answer, please let me know!

One thing that I love about Chinese cinemas, is that the movie starts more or less at the time it says on the ticket. I haven’t been to the cinema in England for a long time, but from what I remember, the movie never started on or anywhere near the time stated. There are usually at least 30 mins of adverts and trailers right? Over here, you get there and the movie is starting within 10 mins of arrival. Brilliant!

Tell me what you guys think!

Hey Guys!

I’m Aaron, I come from England and I’m 29.

I’ve decided to start this blog not only for some good banter, but to share my thoughts, opinions and experiences that I’ve gathered so far while living in China. I know there are already many blogs out there based on this stuff, so I’ll try to make my posts as interesting and informative as possible. Based on the last two years, I could write hundreds of posts right now. There’s so much to talk about, but all in good time.

Feel free to comment on any of my posts, it would be great to get your opinions too.

So, watch this space because there’s a bucket load more to come.

Bye for now.