Miracle of Language

What's this? Mandarin?

That's right.

I more or less flipped a coin among the Rosetta Stone languages and this is what I came up with. I have nothing at all to push me along other than my own joy and curiosity, and that, I knew, would be enough to at least match my very few phrases of Cantonese with a very few phrases of Mandarin. I have enough friends that if I want to practice, or need help, I can get it. At the same time I am accountable to no one. This is not connected with any grade or any measurement. I am free to love it for it's own sake.

And, although I am only two days in, I am loving it so far. It's the first tonal language I've done really anything with (tones in Norwegian and Japanese are optional unless you need to sound native). It's entirely foreign, and the only thing I know going in is Ni Hao. I sort of know that goodbye is something like Di Tien, and Xie Xie is thank you, but I have no idea how to pronounce Xie Xie and two minutes into Unit 1 I learn that my pronunciation of Di Tien was WAY off.

So it goes. This is the miracle of language acquisition in it's rawest form. It sends little happy tickles down my spine when I step back for a second and think, two minutes ago this sentence would have sounded like absolute gibberish. Now I know that it means "The adults are not cooking, they are eating." Miracle.

I have no plans to advertise this to anyone until I get a bit further along, if I do get a bit further along. Still, I was thinking to myself, "I wonder when the first time I'll actually understand something in Chinese will be." Now, I'm not sure whether this counts, but later the same day that I started using Rosetta Stone, so about a half hour in, I was at the dining hall and I heard Di Tien, the correct way to say it, that I had just learned, and I couldn't help turning around and feeling very pleased with myself for even understanding such a rudimentary phrase. The girls I turned to look at all noticed that I had a bit of a funny smile on my face, but I don't think they thought too much of it. If only they knew... Muahahahahahaha... XD