Tag: Language Learning
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I’m Learning Vietnamese, Y’all: What You Really Need To Know When Learning a New Language
I’m Learning Vietnamese. I Think I’m Learning Vietnamese. I really think so. So I’m learning another language. I’m adding Vietnamese, slowly and poorly intoned, to my slapdash mental collection of half remembered words and phrases from a dozen countries. I may have mentioned this once or twice already. After a decade of trying to cram Turkish…
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More Things That Are Ridiculously Easier in Your Own Language: Food!
The other day, we decided to order dinner in from a kebab shop in our neighbourhood here in Leicester. The menu was online, but it wasn’t linked to any of those nifty websites that also let you place your order and pay in advance. I’d have to call the kebab shop directly. And, like,…
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Dear Language, I Guess I’m Just Not That Into You: Notes on Being the Worst Student Ever
I’ve got a cold and I’m cranky. With my hot, cotton-wool stuffed head expanding outward through my eye sockets and nasal cavity, and my sad little lips fever burnt and ever so slightly frowny, I’m coasting on barely 3 hours of restless sleep. I thought I ought to make that clear before I keep writing.…
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Things You’re Not Allowed to do in Canada: A Photo Essay
A few years back, I read an article about an expat who lived in Greece until he became so fluent in Greek that he understood everything that was going on around him, everything that was being said. Then he had to leave. What he had liked about Greece (until fluency hit) was the ability to…
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A Totally Impractical Expat Interview #17: Edna Zhou
You know what I haven’t done in yonks? Interviewed someone, that’s what. I’m not sure why I re-start the series when I do. It keeps popping up again at odd intervals. I think it may be due to a peculiar combination of my own writer’s block and an annoyance (or impatience) with what I’ve created…
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Notes on my Supposed Unemployment: The September Edition
Remember how I’ve been going on and on for months about being unemployed? How it felt weird to be so suddenly unstructured and aimless after decades of chronic employment? Yeah, well, I lied. Kind of. I am unemployed, by the day-job definition of employment. At 6am most days, there is nowhere I need to be…
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Kandy: Whoa, I Think I May Have Entered a Parallel Universe By Mistake
I was going to title this post Kandy Says, but I doubt anyone would get (or favourably appreciate) the Velvet Underground reference. But you know what? I have no clue what Kandy is saying. Seriously. This town is a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a really awesome fresh chapati. It’s not just the…
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Not a Top 10 List: My 7 Favourite Posts
It’s a funny thing about going home again after a relatively long absence (a year and a half this time), even if it’s only for three weeks: Everything is just so normal and calm and sane and utterly non-extraordinary that I really don’t have much to say about it. It’s just home, you know?…
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14 Notes on teaching English in a Chinese university, in the middle of a quiet burnout and impending unemployment
1. Two weeks ago I renewed my gym membership, which I had let lapse about six months ago. Sometime last Autumn, I had figured that the five flights of stairs I had to climb 8 or so times a day between classroom and office were enough to keep me going through winter, combined with…
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A Totally Impractical Expat Interview #11: Liv From I Eat My Pigeon
Welcome to the eleventh instalment in my infinite expat interview series. I really hadn’t expected it to last this long (I didn’t think anyone would respond, to be honest) but it seems to have taken on a life of its own, slowly taking over this blog, my email inbox and a significant part of my thought…
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A Totally Impractical Expat Interview #9: Hector Lakemonster
Welcome to the 9th interview in the series. It’s been an interesting ride so far, and a good excuse for me to step back and let others take over for a while. My thought processes had been cloudy and dark for quite a while, stupidly mirroring Shanghai’s grey skies. Winter is passing though, and we’ve…
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A Totally Impractical Expat Interview #8: Heather of 2Summers
Welcome to the 8th instalment in my expat interview series. Today you will meet the lovely and interesting Heather, who is in Jo’burg, South Africa. It has been an interesting ride so far, both for myself and for the interviewees and casual bystanders, it seems. I’ve received a lot of feedback for this little impromptu…