Hanging out with three students of Chinese (each from very different English-speaking backgrounds) and two Chinese trying to learn English, conversation takes lots of odd turns. Much of our time is spent explaining idiomatic phrases, slowly sounding out proper pronunciation of words and correcting one another's grammar and spelling.
We all carry little notebooks to jot down words and phrases and their meaning, intending to study them later. Mine includes the Chinese for things like "Have a drink," "Water polo," "Where is the bathroom?" Emily's and Harvey's (Harvey is a young Chinese guy studying to work in IT) notebooks have phrases like "Are you down with that?" "Let's scoot," and "Blimey goff!" Harvey starts his list of English phrases each day at #1, and on a recent day had written down more than 30 phrases. We were all walking around the city last night, and stopped every two minutes for him to record something that he'd heard. It would be annoying if his dedication wasn't so darn impressive.
Alot of people here are working very hard to learn English. Emily, as I mentioned earlier, hangs around the pub to work on hers. She told me yesterday that there is an annual English competition for Chinese students. It includes reading and oral comprehension, delivered in numerous different accents. Last time the contest was held (which I believe was just months ago), Emily placed third. There will be another competition in July. Stay tuned to find out how she does.
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