Amid everything else going on in our lives, I’ve added a new hobby. I briefly mentioned it in my Portland post, but now I’m officially fascinated with the Chinese language.  Brian and I would both really like to become more familiar with the Chinese language, both written and spoken– this is an incredibly overwhelming task considering neither of us knows a lick of Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese). Because we don’t know what provinces we’ll be traveling to until we accept a referral, I’m hedging my bets and starting with Mandarin.

I found a great free app for my phone which allows me to practice correct character writing; every morning I review flashcards on my phone and continue to add more and more characters to my vocabulary. Additionally, one of my colleagues and friends at the museum is Chinese and speaks/writes both Mandarin and Cantonese (not to mention what she considers “Beijingese.”)  She’s been incredibly helpful with my stroke order and pronunciation, and I am feeling less and less awkward with all the different inflections needed for this beautiful language.

I can’t quite explain it, but I’m finding my comprehension growing quite naturally. So far, I find the characters quite logical graphically, and I’m starting to put the pronunciation with the character. Another friend at the museum suggested I check our our library’s language software, and I found out excitedly that our library offers Mango Languages for free for all patrons. Woohoo!

I’m sure I’ll be sharing more quips as I learn more, but I had a great moment this week. As you might guess, Brian and I are settling in on our top name choices for our child (most welfare institute names are given en masse– all children in one institution are given the same last name, and first names are given as a matter of practicality. As we’ve mentioned earlier, all children in the Waiting Child Program have been abandoned, with 99.9% having no identifying information, so no medical record, no birthday listed, no name). After practicing some of the characters at lunch one day, my friend at work stopped by and looked at my paper and was able to read what I had written, including our finalists for names.  It’s difficult to articulate, but to have a native speaker be able to read my very amatueur attempt at such a complex language really made my day.

I know learning a new language from scratch is no short-term goal, but I think we and our child will have a lifetime of learning together.