The Wandering Monkey

Today in my Mandarin-speaking group, only my tutor and I showed up, so we ended up chatting. She said the point of the group is to enhance both Mandarin- and English-speaking ability. So, since it is one of my goals to teach English, today I became the tutor and she my student.

My tutor is a native Mandarin speaker and not perfectly fluent in English. When she speaks, it is immediately apparent she is not a native speaker. I asked her to speak a few sentences and critiqued her as we went along.

Pronounciation was a problem, so I asked her to repeat sample words starting with each letter of the alphabet. Quickly I could identify 3 letters (i, e, v) which had problems. Some sounds were also difficult, such as 'th'. Also, English is terribly inconsistent on vowel pronounciation. 'Fox' and 'Dog', for instance.

Her speech was halting, just like my Mandarin. But her vocabulary is wide enough to explain nearly every concept. Her grammar was decent. She has achieved a 'critical mass' in English. She knows enough English to explain what she wants and can get more words from any English speaker. That's the point I would like to be at with my Mandarin speaking.

Searching for a topic, I asked if she could recite a recipe. She said it the first time and I corrected her as she went along. Once we had all the correct vocabulary and grammar, I asked her to repeat the entire recipe. The second time was smoother, but you could tell with almost every word that the speaker was from a foreign country.

So I broke it down to see exactly why I could detect that. Pronounciation was the first issue. Misuse of articles (like "a" and "the") was the second. Verb tenses was the third. Man, English verb tenses are downright silly. If you remember learning them the first time, we must have spent years on it. What's the point of it? English is really an unwieldy language. It's only because we're so familiar with it that we can put up with it.

Then, I asked if she was any good at writing. She said yes, but she tended to use lots of small words. I said that actually, that's the best way to write. So I asked her to write down the recipe she had just recited. I was surprised with the result. She had only one error in spelling and one in grammar in a three-sentence recipe procedure. In all I would wager that most native English speakers could not create written instructions this good, and I told her so.

We went on for two hours. She learned very quickly and did not grow tired (I tire of Mandarin after about 60 minutes!) I encouraged her to speak on any topic, so long as she used full sentences. It ws fascinating to analyze exactly what the issues were and address them.

I think I can teach her to speak fluently. And, I found this work suited me, especially with a bright student. It's like immediate feedback. Making computer systems gives you mostly negative feedback (error handling). There is satisfaction in designing a good computer system, but this is completely different.

So now I will tutor her in English and she will tutor me in Mandarin. Added Bonus : I don't have to pay for lessons anymore!