My Life In China

Learning a foreign language

2013-05-19T01:01:00.000+08:00

It's been a long a time since I blogged. Hhhmmmm!! Life of a student! Anyway, within this period of silence, I have been learning (some, in fact, very little) Chinese. It's been quite interesting, and I've realized that learning Chinese, generally, is not different from learning any other language. In fact, I think Chinese is easier to learn, as far as grammar is concerned. If you don't agree with me, try German, or French. Even English! :-). However, aside the general similarities, there are a few peculiarities in every language that one must take into consideration when learning a foreign language.

Anyway, I have observed that, to successfully learn a new language,

Learn a few phrases or sentences applicable to your immediate environment or circumstances. For example, if you are a student, you may consider starting with the school, classroom, or dormitory environment. As a tourist, you might consider, how to book a hotel, etc. However, in all situations, I suggest you start with basic greetings and responses and introduction. The goal is to begin to have simple conversations as early as possible. It will boost your morale.
Depending on your needs and the time available, you may learn about the writing system of the language. (Does this apply to Chinese?) This will give you the independence to teach yourself, afterwards. Even if the symbols (alphabetic or otherwise) used in that language are similar to that of your native language, note that, their sounds may be different. Although, I recommend this to be the second step, it can be postponed, depending on circumstances.
After learning a few sentences and phrases for simple conversation, you may move on to some simple rules of grammar. This will help you to begin to form your own sentences.
Learn more vocabulary and expressions, to aid you in forming your own sentences. In fact, you may decide to precede step 3 with this step or have them go together. If you have learnt about the writing system of the language (step 2), reading more books will be of help.
Listen more, especially, to native speakers. Here, television or radio programmes in that language will be of help. Don't be too ambitious, start with programmes made for beginners. The Internet will also be of help. This step will help you to adapt to the way native speakers speak. In addition, you will also learn expressions that cannot be learnt from textbooks.
Grab every opportunity to practice speaking the language . If you have very little opportunity to do so, you may consider the "Crazy English" option.

I guess this will suffice for now. In my next blog, I will talk about the Chinese language, and the peculiarities, as far as learning it is concerned. I will blog specifically about Putonghua or Mandarin.

A stranger in a foreign land

2012-09-05T02:06:00.000+08:00

Some International Students Present

To God be the glory!

I have been fully matriculated into UESTC. It was a very colourful ceremony. They call it Opening Ceremony. The auditorium was full of Chinese (of course! It's a Chinese University), but other nationalities were there too. Yes, "I was there some" :-), together with some other Ghanaians. There were Pakistanis, Vietnamese, Kenyans, Ethiopians, ... End of Thinking Capacity (sorry, I meant "etc", lol). It was great.

A Section of theStudents Present

Although the ceremony was wonderful, I felt like a complete stranger. Why? They spoke only Chinese! :-( . The writings were also 99.99% Chinese. In fact, I understood how it feels like, to be an illiterate.The characters were meaningless to me. I was a complete stranger in a foreign land.

Anyway, the names and positions of the VIPs introduced were translated for us on a screen. The speech by the president of the university was also translated on the screen. But that was all.

More Students

My journey from Ghana to China

2012-09-03T00:50:00.001+08:00

I was so excited when I got the visa to travel to China. It meant that, all was clear for me to travel to China for my PhD. I had longed for this day!

The journey itself was very long. I, together with another colleague, left Accra around 13: 50 GMT. It took us six hours and ten minutes to get to Cairo, by Egyptair, nine hours and fifty minutes, from Cairo to Guangzhou, and finally, two hours and five minutes from Guangzhou to Chengdu. The scheduled time between flights were supposed to be one hour twenty-five minutes (since we were just transiting) and two hours fifty minutes, respectively.

There was a delay in the flight schedule from Cairo to Guangzhou by about one hour, fifteen minutes. I knew that was going to affect us when we got to Guangzhou. In order to save time, we did our best by rushing to join the queue for the immigration processes, but we could still not make it in time to catch the flight (China Southern Airline) we had booked for Chengdu. Fortunately for us, we got a reservation on China Air for free. Apparently, Egyptair and China Air are members of Star Alliance. Since Egyptair's delay contributed to our missing the flight, another Star Alliance member had to bear the consequences. To cut a long story short, we got to Chengdu around 23:00 (GMT+8), the following day.

We lodged at a hotel and found our way to the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) the following day.