Well, to answer your primary question — many of the people on the team I work with speak… it’s either Cantonese or Mandarin, I think they told me Mandarin but I’m not entirely sure. It isn’t something that would necessarily help me on a professional level, but it would help me on a personal level with many of them.
That’s genuinely my motivation, I don’t really care about ‘seeming’ bilingual — this is mostly to bring me closer to people who have helped me at work.
I guess that’s true, I have actually mentioned it to a few of my coworkers – they all had a reaction that more or less spoke ‘there simply isn’t enough time for that’ lol.
Tangentially, there’s also this bilibili show called ling long reincarnation that, whether I’m stupid for liking it or not, is awesome. The thing about it is that I’ve always felt like there’s something lost in translation about the show, or there are themes that I’m simply unaware of due to… well an overall lack of knowledge about Chinese language and culture, I suppose.
Idk, full immersion would be best like you said — I just have no idea where I’d find that in California. I’m sure there are places, but then there’s the extra layer of somehow finding enough time to actually absorb the language through immersion. Perhaps I’ll just take up Spanish lol, I always did well in it in school and it’s close enough to English. I think it would probably be much easier to find people who speak Spanish here.
Well, to answer your primary question — many of the people on the team I work with speak… it’s either Cantonese or Mandarin, I think they told me Mandarin but I’m not entirely sure. It isn’t something that would necessarily help me on a professional level, but it would help me on a personal level with many of them.
That’s genuinely my motivation, I don’t really care about ‘seeming’ bilingual — this is mostly to bring me closer to people who have helped me at work.
I mean the best way to achieve your goal of personal connection is just asking them to teach you.
I guess that’s true, I have actually mentioned it to a few of my coworkers – they all had a reaction that more or less spoke ‘there simply isn’t enough time for that’ lol.
Tangentially, there’s also this bilibili show called ling long reincarnation that, whether I’m stupid for liking it or not, is awesome. The thing about it is that I’ve always felt like there’s something lost in translation about the show, or there are themes that I’m simply unaware of due to… well an overall lack of knowledge about Chinese language and culture, I suppose.
Idk, full immersion would be best like you said — I just have no idea where I’d find that in California. I’m sure there are places, but then there’s the extra layer of somehow finding enough time to actually absorb the language through immersion. Perhaps I’ll just take up Spanish lol, I always did well in it in school and it’s close enough to English. I think it would probably be much easier to find people who speak Spanish here.