One of the greatest and most underrated joys of learning a new language is have small victories. All too often, big victories are emphasized – especially here in Taiwan and especially when learning English is the topic. However, I find so much more satisfaction in small victories. Learning new [hanzi]æ¼¢å—[/hanzi] and recognizing them on tv, in ads, or somewhere else. Understanding a little more each day. This is incredibly important and rewarding when your brain finally just *clicks* and you understand what is being said.
As a perfect example, I was driving today and had the radio going to a local station. It was commercial time and I wasn’t really paying attention to the music – it was mostly just background noise to keep my brain immersed in Chinese as much as possible. Anyway, as I was driving, I just caught a small part of the commercial:
[hanzi]85折!![/hanzi]
I’m not sure what the commercial was for, but they were talking about having a sale: [hanzi]折[/hanzi] means discount or rebate. Now, most of you are thinking, as I did when I came to Taiwan, that it would be an 85 dollar discount or perhaps 85% discount. However, in Taiwan, the discount price is given as the percentage of the original price. So 85折 is actually a 15% discount (it’s 85% of the original price, so 15% off).
Now this was, for me, a small and rewarding victory. Not only did I understand that small part, but I also understood that it meant 15% discount and not 85%.
Some readers of this blog might scoff or laugh at such a piddly, unimportant thing, but small victories like these need to be emphasized, not only for Expats learning Chinese and Taiwanese like myself, but for all of us teaching English: I love telling my students how much they improving when they have small victories like this – all too often their parents and other teachers are just badgering them to pass the GEPT or TOEIC or some other test and have a huge victory. I think it’s pretty normal for Taiwanese students to get burned out under such pressure, so emphasizing their small victories is totally worthwhile and helps them realize they are making progress.
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