中文 Chinese Language

I had planned to tell you all this informative stuff about Chinese language, but really, you should just read the wikipedia article if you're interested.

I will tell you that we love studying and using Chinese. It's a high priority to continue making progress in language acquisition. To us, the impetus for learning Chinese is:

1. Functioning more naturally and independently in China.
2. Forming deeper friendships with Chinese.
3. Drew can do a MA in China.
4. Helping Titus and Michael through the Chinese school system.


A month ago we asked if you'd please uplift Drew as he prepared for the Chinese Language Level Exam (HSK - Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi). He scored a 4, which is ok. He's hoping for a 6 next time around. Drewbs needs to do well on this test in order to do a MA in China. That's our dream!


Here's a lesson I studied recently. It's about a bike trip to a book bazaar. Drew reads texts that are incomparably more difficult than mine. He started studying Chinese as a freshman at Emory University in 2004/5. I've been working on Chinese informally for less than two years. So even though this text may be incomprehensible to you, it's actually beginner-level.



Finally, I thought you might like to see our Chinese names. You can see that the first character is the same in all of our names; in China the family name comes first, followed by one or two characters as the given name. All of us have Chinese names with a pronunciation similar to that of our English names. Look at the beauty of each character.

艾安祝

Drew: Ai Anzhu
means Fragrant Grass-Peace-Blessing

艾睿秋

Rach: Ai Ruiqiu
means Fragrant Grass-Having Foresight-Autumn

艾泰德

Titus: Ai Taide
means Fragrant Grass-Great-Morality


Mike: Remains undecided! Open for ideas.




If you want any suggestions for your next Chinese-character tattoo, let us know.


-Rach

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