Keeping up with language skills

Life will soon return back to it's usual routine ... well almost. After returning back from Taipei, I started to compare life in Taipei with life here in Singapore. Aside from the weather, which is always hot in the island state, the first thing that struck me was that Singapore is still predominantly English speaking. No wonder people from English speaking backgrounds settle in Singapore. Yesterday I hung out in my favorite Starbucks and for the first time I really noticed how much English was being spoken around me. Of course it is Raffles city but compared to Taipei, all I ever heard was Chinese. 

                   

So there in lies my challenge. How to maintain my Chinese language skills in an environment such as this? Let me explain. It is often the case in Singapore that if someone speaks Chinese, they also speak English. So with someone like me, it is clear what is going to happen. English will be used. The difference in China or Taiwan is that English is not common and so Chinese has to be employed. So, in a bid to maintain some momentum, I have decided in the run up to sitting the Chinese proficiency test for level 5, to enroll in a course to give me some structure and continuity.

Jou Chieh Lee and I smile for the camera. Last day at TLI

A bonus from my stay in Taipei, is that I have made some new friends. My teachers are keen to keep in touch and communicating via email is just one more great way to keep up my language skills. Yesterday I shared via email with one of my teachers those magic moments when something learned in class comes up in a random conversation.

I was cabbing back to my apartment in Zhongxiao Dunhua on the Saturday night and the cab driver was really keen to talk. I felt very happy to hear him say my Chinese was good as he could understand all I said. I'm seasoned enough to know when the comment is a genuine judgement. He was, after all, a fairly honest and upfront driver. Suddenly in our conversation up pops a four character phrase in Chinese we call 成语. Chengyu's are like idioms very common in Chinese and something you either love or hate in language learning. He used 莫名其妙 mo ming qi miao which is used when something is strange or unexplainable. 

As my teacher said, nothing is more rewarding than when something you learned in class comes up in daily life!

School starts soon.