Today I made my teacher cry :(
I finally made my Chinese teacher cry. Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. I would almost even go so far as to say that it was inevitable. Now this was not something that I set out to do, or even remotely wanted, but it was simply the result of a frustrating situation for both my teacher and for me.
Last week I wrote an essay and we reviewed it only to find that my usage of 天 (tiān) and 天气 (tiān qì) wasn’t quite correct. Willa tried to explain this to me for nearly half an hour, but I just didn’t get it. She finally said she would prepare it over the weekend and get back to me.
Today she took another stab at it, and explained several examples that all made perfect sense to me, but the sentence I had screwed up in my homework still didn’t make sense to me. After she had made several attempts, and after much back and forth trying to get her to understand where the problem lie, I was so frustrated that I told her that her explanation wasn’t helping at all and that we’d better stop and revisit the issue another time.
Willa, who had clearly spent some serious time preparing her explanation, was saddened by the fact that she couldn’t make me understand, and just broke down. I felt really bad, even though I hadn’t been mean or rude in any way. We were both just frustrated, and there was nothing else to do at that point. The mood was somber, and quite awkward. I tried to let her know that it wasn’t a big deal and wasn’t her fault, but had more to do with Chinese being a very difficult language that would frustrate anyone.
After a few minutes, Willa had finally recomposed herself, but it wasn’t really possible to continue the lesson. After a few minutes of her trying to teach me, and me feeling too bad to ask her questions when I didn’t understand, I told her that I was hungry and wanted to go to the market across the street to get a snack. She said that she was also hungry, and we promptly took a break.
When we got back, we ate our snacks and started playing 麻将 (ma jiang) with Ivy. We spent the rest of the class playing ma jiang until it was time for me to go home.
I felt really bad about what happened, and tried several times to reassure Willa that it wasn’t the end of the world, but she still felt bad about not being able to make me understand.
Learning a language is a difficult thing. Anyone who tries to learn a second language is going to face problems at some point, and ultimately get frustrated with their teacher, the language itself, their books, the culture, and probably even anyone who speaks the language at all. It is an arduous process that many people are simply just not up for. As such, I expect to be frustrated with my teachers at times, and in that respect, I sort of need to keep some distance from them. If they were my best friends, it would be very difficult for me to continue to be friendly with them when I was so frustrated with the language. I don’t see how it would ever be possible to effectively learn something so difficult from a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, significant other, or family member. The relationships that could be ruined by the frustrations that arise from learning a language are just too important.
Anyway…..Willa….I’m sorry we were both so frustrated this morning. You are still a good teacher, even if I don’t understand things from time to time
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:50 am
well, that’s definitely a good idea to stand back. sometimes, just relaxing and thinking about how it was in the beginning and comparing it to how it is now, brings in a lost perspective. I’m sure that it is just a minor hump in the learning curve and that with a day or two, you’ll be far beyond where you were when this happened. Good luck bro!
May 23rd, 2006 at 6:34 am
Hang in there. We know how serious you are about learning the language. You’re getting a lot of good life lessons, though, through your language education. Just the awareness of how difficult that experience can be, for both teacher and student, will make you better in both roles.
May 23rd, 2006 at 6:50 am
Elijah…..thanks…..very true
Dad and Krista…..well said
May 23rd, 2006 at 9:54 am
Ciao andy,
how are you? Yuor blog is as usual very interesting and it reflects in some extent the same kind of problems I had to go through learning english when I came to the States…except for the fact that I didn’t have a teacher to make cry.
Did you have the same difficulties when you were learning italian?
Let me know,
-D
May 23rd, 2006 at 12:02 pm
You were smart to recognize the problem and abort the lesson. Knowing the difficulties involved is the most important thing. Teacher will recover and you will ultimately learn to correct you r mistake. Learning is so satisfying!
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Davide……I didn’t have nearly as many problems with Italian…..Chinese is MUCH MUCH MUCH more difficult and frustrating
Jerome…..correct
May 23rd, 2006 at 9:44 pm
made teacher cry… it sounds frustrated….I want to say, to foreign friends, Chinese is actually the most difficult language in the world, including its pronunciation, spelling, culture…(so i’m lucky, hehe..) After all Chinese and English are much farthest. There’s a saying in China “it’s the first step that is troublesome”, it’s also difficult for me to learn English in the beginning, I was often confused by similar words and grammer as well, but after some time, you will get used to it and find it’s not as difficult as you thought. So Andrew, be patient, take more practice and try to find the knack, you will enjoy learning Chinese.
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:03 pm
Min…..thanks for the advice
May 24th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
hmm, what was the instance that didn’t make sense to you? maybe i can take a stab at it..
May 25th, 2006 at 7:06 am
Bernard….thanks….but I figured it out already (it had to do with saying “the sky was still gloomy”)
June 26th, 2006 at 12:03 am
hey man, trucking it out is the way of the tiger. your story has inspired many great things deep within my soul; one could say that I feel replenished. one love, for bob and andy. its time andy. come home boy.
June 26th, 2006 at 5:06 am
The real jerome…..haha….thanks jeremy
June 27th, 2006 at 12:49 am
its true…guilty as charged