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The Chinese Language Part 2 Part 2 You see, a Standard 6 (12 years old) Chinese school dropout in Malaysia is able to write messages to the local Chinese magazines and get posted. But in contrast, a university graduate here could hardly write an English message to be posted in the local English magazines. And I’ve been arguing with someone who said Chinese language too, had its grammars. What type of grammars? I asked. She said like chair- noun, small - adjective, run-verb. Whut? That’s it? ‘Yes, that’s it’, she said. My goodness! So elementary! I'm not an expert, so I don’t know if those could be called grammars or what. So, I explained the English grammars were like say, the word ‘shake’ (your bob-bon, a verb). So there went shakes, shaking, shook, shaken, and shaky, shakier, shakiest (adjective). Translated into Chinese, it’s ‘yao’. That was it. (And not to mention the phrasal verbs that would confuse her entirely, like shake down, shake off, shake out, shake up). So, dearest ‘lao wais’, you all don’t have to worry much. To learn Chinese, speaking, writing or reading, one could just MEMORIZE them. And the probably the hardest to memorize are the tones. And unlike English, NO intellect, or using of the brain power/ability is required. So, how I ‘smart aleckily’ know all these, for I was Malay educated (studying in national schools, using Malay language as medium), and hardly knew to read a word of Chinese? You see, my mother tongue is Guangdong hua, a common Chinese dialect. So a few years ago, I took the initiative to learn to read and write Chinese (in Guangdong hua, and not Butong hua) on my own. (I couldn’t afford to pay for the classes). It was difficult, for only 2 lousy Guangdong hua-English and English- Guangdong hua dictionaries available here. So, I had to also equipped with Chinese (pin yin)-English and English-Chinese (pin yin) dictionaries. Seven, all of them! So the process took about a year before I could read Chinese newspaper. But what happen now? I’ve FORGOTTEN a big HALF of the Chinese writings and reading I had painstakingly learnt! I had been very ill with all those Eating craps and the Leader, Depression, had made me losing interests in everything. Hence, I dumped away all the Chinese newspapers and magazines.....to hell with them. And together to hell with my energy, sweats and time I spent! Regrets, regrets, regrets. But what to do next? Well, just revisions, if I want to read Chinese newspapers again! Picture: Chinese of the aristocrats, learning the Chinese. Source: Myths and Legend of China, by E.T.C.Werner PUTERI AYU 
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And by far the most important thing? You are writing again - and well too. Some light must have shone into your world. TG
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