Meal 2: Grinning Groceries

So I noticed a few weeks ago that the cashiers at my local grocer speak Mandarin, which fits nicely into Plan 2 (outlined earlier). But I’ve been hesitant to try my skills.

The biggest barrier is knowing that I can’t really carry on a conversation. What if I say “Ni Hao” [hello] and suddenly they think I can speak fluent Mandarin and flood me with strange words leaving me confused and looking dumb as a post? It sounds silly (a tall white guy with terrible pronunciation – whose going to mistake him for a native Mandarin speaker?) but those are the kinds of things that run through my mind when an opportunity comes up.

Then came the magic sentence “Wo shuo yidiar hanu” [I speak a little Mandarin]. In practice I rarely use it, but knowing that I can explain my limits and switch back to English if I need to makes it easier to try out the basics like “Shei shei” [thank you], zaijian [bye], and “dze she shenme?” [what’s this?].

It’s not an all or nothing game -- particularly if you also speak English. You can switch back and forth between two languages as you need to and still be understood. It’s the same with English and French in Montreal; there’s a kind of rotating linguistic tennis that people play that is part of the fun of living there. You start in French and finish in English. They start in English, slip into French and then back to English again. Sometimes you’re not sure who is most comfortable in which language.

So that’s pretty much how it went yesterday. At the cash with three red peppers, some bananas and a few other things I decided to go out on a limb and test my 12 word vocabulary: “Ni Hao…”

The other worry that has been holding me back is the opposite of the first: that I will so obviously and brutally butcher whatever I am trying to say that it will be painful for the whoever I am talking to. Again, at this level at least, it’s a silly worry; “Ni Hao” isn’t so hard to say, and besides so what if I get it a bit wrong?

Both worries were quickly shelved by the reaction that I got.

“Oh, [confused smile] You speak Mandarin?”

“Dui, wo shuo yidiar hanu”

“Hen Hao!” [very good!]

It was perfect. I had imagined my way through a bunch of reactions, but I hadn’t expected so many smiles. Maybe I should have though – if you spend a chunk of your time trying to learn someone else’s language and to understand their culture maybe it seems like a compliment if some of them do the same. Once I’ve got the necessary vocabulary, I’ll have to ask.

~@~