Linguistic Accomplishments

Some changes that I've noticed in my language abilities...

I can read magazines! I purchased a copy of the Chinese equivalent of Time magazine, and found that I could understand at least 80% of it. Granted, my reading speed is still pretty slow, but I definitely could not read newspapers or magazines before this summer.

I use Chinese to chat with and e-mail friends, teachers and family members. Unlike before, it no longer takes me forever to write a response, and I don't stress out about using Chinese either. (tip: Google Pinyin is awesome! It lets you type the pinyin for entire sentences so that you don't have to select a word every few seconds. Also, based on your sentence structure, it'll choose the correct “de” and other words for you.)

I understand song lyrics, both listening (on the bus, passing by shops, etc.) and reading (while singing karaoke, of course!). I think a person's ability to process song lyrics really reflects his/her mastery of the language, since the pace is pretty fast and singers often slur words.

I sometimes express myself better in Chinese than in English! While most of my life this summer has been China-centered, a very important part has been English-only: my med school application essays. With each passing day here, I find myself wanting more and more to use Chinese terms, which are often more precise and concise than the corresponding English term, to express my thoughts. Needless to say, using Chinese isn't possible on med school essays, so it has been quite the struggle writing those essays.

My English has gone down the hill (This is not an accomplishment per se, but it shows how much Chinese has seeped into my life). I sometimes find myself, when struggling to find the appropriate English term, trying to translate from Chinese into English. Most noticeably, I really like run-on sentences now, since Chinese sentences often go on and on and on, phrase after phrase, comma after comma without a period in sight...