Insult and injury

I got a call the other day from some company trying to sell me something. After letting me humiliate myself in worse-than-pidgin Mandarin the woman at the other end stopped me to say: “Your Chinese is terrible”.

It’s really come to something when people cold-call you to say how bad your Chinese is. But such is my life.

I think my poor teacher is completely fed up of me. I seem to forget words quicker than I learn them. Of course, I should practise more but every time I try even the simplest conversations I’m struck completely dumb – in every sense – by the person’s incomprehensible reply. “Ting bu dong” I say – I don’t understand.

Then, to make matters worse, more often than not they don’t even understand what I’m trying to say when I say I don’t understand.

The sooner I teach China to speak English the better.