Foreign languages

I'm now reading The Broker, the latest novel by John Grisham. It's about a man given a last minute pardon by the outgoing president. In the middle of the night, he's whisked off to Italy to "auspiciously" escape his would-be killers through what he hopes is some sort of witness protection program. I haven't finished it yet but we know better, right?

Anyway, while in Italy he needs to blend in so he has to learn the language. Get this, in three days (count them, yup 3) he's learned enough that he can order in a restaurant, get into a train and ask complete strangers to mail something for him. Now that's impressive. I've worked with Italians before(weeks and months) and the only thing I learned was "Ciao bella!" and "Molto bene".

Learning a foreign language is hard but I am determined to learn at least three. In college I was so psyched that we had foreign language electives that I went and signed in for three different ones: Spanish, German and French. Big mistake!

Apparently, you must master one first before moving on to the next. As a result I mix up my verbs, confuse the nouns and struggle with the tenses. The only useful phrases I remember are "good morning!", "how are you?", "my name is...", and "where's the bathroom?" ( Guten morgen! Como ca va? Me llamo... Donde esta el bano?). Happily, when I met Spanish, German and French people, they all told me that what little I could say, I could say with perfect diction. Yey! There's still hope.

Because of the advent of Chinovelas (Chinese tv series) and Koreanovelas (Korean tv series) in Manila, my interest in foreign languages has again been stirred. I'm determined to do it right this time. Mandarin first before Korean. I now listen to Mandarin songs, watch Chinovelas left and right. Next I must find a tutor. I want to be as fluent in Mandarin as I am in English. Make that, I wish to be fluent... right now it's a very remote possibility.

So far, I've learned to say "how are you?" "my name is..." "hey look!" "you idiot!", "are you stupid?" "I love you". Hey what can you expect? I'm being taught by DVDs and CDs!

I wonder how they say "wish me luck!" in Mandarin?