Monday, April 7, 2008

Success!

The show was moved from tonight to tomorrow night, so I'll send the link out then (maybe)- but this isn't about that.

Just a few seconds ago, I received tangible evidence that all of my time attempting to learn Chinese has not been in vain.

The phone in my room rang, so I picked it up and said hello. The woman on the other line said "ni hao" and then talked for about ten seconds. I understood none of what she said. I said, in Chinese- "who are you looking for?" And she said something again, and this time I picked up from the context that she wasn't looking for anyone in particular. She ended with "keyi ma? (is this possible/are you able/is this OK/may I/can I/might I?)" And I realized that she was a telemarketer or something and wanted to talk me into buying something!

I told her "Bu keyi, duibuqi" and hung up the phone after saying goodbye to a stranger who (I fervently hope) thought that I could actually speak Chinese.

If I weren't double-majoring already, I'd take a few more language classes back at William and Mary.

3 comments:

Kay said...

Deflecting telemarketers is a skill set you should have in every language. Like buying drugs. Or finding the bathroom.

Mike Johnson said...

I like that in my post about a Chinese telemarketer, I was spammed by a Chinese spammer.

Kay said...

Was that an actual real spam post? I thought it was a joke...