It doesn’t matter if you are scouring dating sites for Asian women or living abroad. Learning to talk the local language is a great hobby!
Learning Chinese/Spanish/Tagalog The Fun Way
I have had the pleasure of living in abroad on two different occasions. I currently reside in Taiwan. Before Taiwan, I had a brief stint as an English teacher in Spain. To say I speak excellent Spanish or Chinese would be complete bullshit.
I have also picked up a little bit of Tagalog while in Taiwan. This is the native language for the people of the Philippines.
Let’s just face it, Filipina girls are just plain SEXY!
Learning all three languages has been extremely fun.
My Chinese sometimes goes up to a level of “hai-hao.” (pronounced hi-how)
This is only after about three hours of bar room warm-up conversations.
This is where I practice my basic sentences with as many hot chicks as possible (You are pretty, No, you’re not fat, How old are you?, No, I thought you were 25J)
A brief look at the sentences I practice can show you at least I am having fun while I am here.
Why Should I Bother Learning a Language?
My boring MBA qualifications would probably qualify me to prove to you the responsible benefits of learning Chinese, or any other language.
Blah, blah, blah, right?
I personally have always been interested in the “behind-the-scenes” benefits for much of life.
This quest for off-the wall information is why I decided to give you some of the entertaining stuff about learning a language.
Enjoy my top 6!
6. Things Are Going to Get Easier
Before I learned any Chinese at all, I was absolutely bottomed-out.
I had lost my job here in Taiwan as an English teacher, and I could barely speak Chinese clearly enough for people to understand more than about 2% of what I was trying to say.
In the midst of this overseas “bottoming-out,” a sexy “language-exchange partner” by the name of Windy came into my life.
Windy has come and gone. But, she was still an excellent reminder of how important learning the local language is.
We hung out about four times before either of us could understand a word the other person was saying. Most of our time was spent making awkward grunting noises, and pointing.
The final time we hung out was like a freaking miracle. I could actually go past “Hello, how are you?” with her in Chinese.
Our first tiny conversation was even more magical than I could have ever imagined.
The conversation happened quickly, And, I could literally hear in my head the scene from Boyz in The Hood as Denzel Washing sings the song “Ooh Child” to his son. The most influential lyrics of the song are “Things are going to get easier.”
If you are unsure what I am talking about, this is a movie from the 80’s where the lead character Denzel Washington sings the above-mentioned song to his child.
That song always had such a deep and intricate meaning to me.
Sure enough, since that day things have gotten much easier with learning Chinese.
So, keep your head up as you start learning the language since it will seem close to impossible.
Trust me, it will get easier!
5. Fight Awkwardness
Ever been trapped in a scarcely populated Chinese karaoke bar at 3 a.m.? I hope not!
I was!
This 3 a.m. trip was mostly to win over the hot bartender for me.
Well, let me tell you once it fully set in that I was the only person in that bar speaking English, and she was not even remotely interested in speaking my language of love, it was an incredibly uncomfortable place to be.
The other option is if I would have been working on my language skills, I was bound to be able to hold the conversation floor down at least for a little bit.
This night was definitely encouragement to start hitting the Chinese a little harder.
So, what do you think about spending an hour a day to avoid that disaster?
4. Respect
“Hallo!!”
“Where do you come from?”
“Are you from the America?”
This is just a tiny sampling of the horrifically butchered grammar you may get if you ever travel abroad from the locals. They are just giving their best shot to speak English.
It quite honestly gets incredibly annoying at times.
However, it is just a sign of respect that they care enough about you, and your country to at least give their best effort to communicate with you.
That is why even if I only know a word or two in another person’s language, I will almost always give it a try.
Who knows if I am just as annoying to them at times!
3. Inflate Your Ego
If you are anything like I was three years ago, you are probably rolling your eyes as you read that twisted statement.
I have come to realize that an inflation to the ego never hurts.
So, go ahead and soak in the benefits of random people saying things like:
“Your Chinese is nice.”
“Omg, I never met a white person that spoke Chinese.”
It’s OK. I won’t tell anybody that you enjoy being complimented.
2. Just Say No to 7-11 Meals
Living in Taiwan aids in the development of bizarre eating habits.
Menus are extremely difficult to read.
Menus look like a random assortment of 37 squiggly lines bantered across a piece of laminated paper.
After 7 months of eating at 7-11, my first solo trip to a real Taiwanese restaurant to show off my newly-acquired Chinese reading skills resulted in an epic disaster.
I tried to order in simple terms the “not spicy chicken.” The old bag of a waitress apparently had NO IDEA what I was saying.
She came back with “spicy beef.”
Point is if my Chinese was better I wouldn’t have to deal with that.
1. Meeting Hot Chicks
Taiwan is absolutely flooded with seriously “la mei” or hot chicks. You can be like many of my foreign counterparts who kid themselves and think that learning Chinese is pointless.
Those are the same guys that spend their weekends bitching about how “Boring” Taiwan is and can seldom find a girl to talk to them.
I promised you from the beginning that I am not going to bullshit you. I am not a ‘pull seven girls a week’ kind of guy, and nor do I have the interest.
All I am saying is you’re seldom going to hear me talk about how “bored” I am.
Author Bio: Joshua Dent is a 35 year old American living in Taiwan. He never believes in doing things the traditional way. For example, the only race he ever competed in during his whole entire life was a Half Iron Man race. Not to mention he purchased his $200 Huffy mountain bike with road tires the night before the race. One more example of doing things the unconventional way is learning Chinese while he is in Taiwan. He is not one for sitting in a classroom and taking notes. That is why he has chosen to dabble a bit with Sexy Mandarin, and mainly just tries to meet as many hot chicks as he can to teach him Chinese. If you like what you read, you can follow more of his adventures on his personal blog. The website link is- http://taiwaniseasy.blogspot.tw/
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Study Up ^_^