Zhong-wen

"Zhong-wen" is Chinese for "Chugoku-go."
"Chugoku-go" is Japanese for "Chinese."
"Chinese" is English for "Zhong-wen."


I went to my first Chinese class tonight, and this is how my brain felt the whole time. What a mess!

It started when last Saturday, I went to a Sayonara Party held by the Tatsuno International Association, for the JETs that are leaving our town. It was an afternoon tea and snacks party, and the members are mostly older folks who are retired and have the time to cultivate hobbies like English, travel, Tai-chi, Flamenco guitar, etc. They are a pretty cool bunch of people.

Anyway, I ran into this retired Japanese guy named Dai, who speaks pretty good English, and he and I get talking and it turns out he studies Chinese too, and invited me to join their class! The dude even hooked me up with a ride (it's 20 minutes away in the next town over). Man it was fun, but a little crazed because the other 3 students (Dai, and these other two older ladies who don't speak English) are beginners, and so most of the explanations are in Japanese. In addition, they all can read and write Chinese charactres (Japan's writing system is based on the Chinese one).

Since I'm a beginnger in Japanese, and am just starting to study the characters, it got to be a little hectic at some points! I was having to translate the Japanese explanations back to English to get the full meaning of the Chinese. Whew! It's a crazy to learn a second language when you can hardly understand the first one. What the f?!

Anyway, that was the cool thing that happened to me today. Now my brain hurts.