How anyone can learn any amount of Chinese and not be aware of the tones is completely, utterly beyond me.
Mind you, the idea of emigrating with a suitcase of your posessions, no practical command of the language, and no idea what you're going to *do* - especially if you don't have a visa - is mindboggling indeed.
The wretchedness of some language programs is surprising.
It may also be that she didn't literally not know tones existed at all, but just had not put focus on them and so couldn't use them well. My tones still are not perfect, but if I didn't constantly try to remember and practice them they would be abominable.
Yes, there's probably also some exaggeration for effect in her story. For common phrases, quite often you *can* in fact get by without any tones at all and still be intelligible.
My main problem with mandarin is that I learnt from romanized script and I have a mainly visual memory - which tends to omit the tone marks. So, I can be half way through a sentence and then completely forget which tone comes next. On the other hand, it all starts coming back after a week or two of practice.
*boggles* She didn't know chinese was tonal? What the h*** did her mother teach her? LOL. Clearly the moral of this story is, do something naive like moving to another country without bothering to learn the language or worry about work, because you can always just sell the story to newspapers so people can boggle at your naivety. *g*
:) Actually, despite her naivety, I have to admire her for fitting in. If she managed to last a year and learn enough to have meaningful conversations with her neighbour, she has to be doing something right, and she got a great experience out of it.
There's a certain type of people who can do this, and they tend to make the very best travellers. Sometimes "being prepared" just means being prepared to cope.
It's sheer luck, I suppose. And thousands of people used to do that (and sometimes take less) - all the people who left for the new world or downunder, and many migrants today leave without language and possessions. But if you have the opportunity to get it right, and you trust that things will work out, that's doesn't strike me as very wise.
Well, I've seen it happen often enough to suspect there's more to it than just luck. Part of it, I guess, if that once you've got the coping part down, you can handle a lot of different scenarios, rather than needing precise preparation for every single scenario.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-05-12 05:57 am (UTC)Mind you, the idea of emigrating with a suitcase of your posessions, no practical command of the language, and no idea what you're going to *do* - especially if you don't have a visa - is mindboggling indeed.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-12 06:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-12 09:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-12 01:27 pm (UTC)It may also be that she didn't literally not know tones existed at all, but just had not put focus on them and so couldn't use them well. My tones still are not perfect, but if I didn't constantly try to remember and practice them they would be abominable.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-12 08:10 pm (UTC)My main problem with mandarin is that I learnt from romanized script and I have a mainly visual memory - which tends to omit the tone marks. So, I can be half way through a sentence and then completely forget which tone comes next. On the other hand, it all starts coming back after a week or two of practice.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-12 06:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-12 09:04 am (UTC)There's a certain type of people who can do this, and they tend to make the very best travellers. Sometimes "being prepared" just means being prepared to cope.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-12 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-13 09:32 am (UTC)