Quick Chinese Lesson

谢谢不要担心
我知道回家之前
你会比较忙碌

I got this text message from one of my students yesterday. I told her I was going to send her some English grammar exercises and she replied. Her message above says:

"Thanks, don't worry about it. (Xie xie, bu yao dan xin)
I know before you return home (Wo zhi dao hui jia zhi qian)
you are comparably busy." (Ni hui bi jiao mang lu)

It took me a solid hour to look up the words I didn't know, but it felt good once I knew what was being said. When you look up a word in a Chinese dictionary, you have to know the number of strokes in the character and which stroke comes first. It takes practice.

In this respect, learning Chinese makes me feel like a kid again. The terminology is new and completing the simplest task is something to be proud of. One of the (many) significant differences between English and Chinese is the tones - you have to master them through practice, but once you do, you can get your point across.