This is big news: Speaking Mandarin saved me 25 cents today.
I was at a well known food establishment today (I won’t say the name, but it rhymes with “McFonald’s”). I am practicing my Mandarin (week two of lessons, yeah!) and asked them “How much?”. Then said, “Lower price, is it ok?”. Of course I knew they would say no, after all, it was “McFonald’s”. They were so happy I was speaking Chinese that they actually gave me a free meal upgrade. An upgrade of two MOP, or 25 cents USD. I feel very rich today.
On a sidenote, someone is encouraging me to take a video each week as I study Mandarin to show what I can say. I’ve done one minute videos the first two weeks, and it’s very embarrassing. But you’ll probably see them posted here soon because I think it’s very funny to watch myself try and speak Mandarin. I’m learning to write Chinese too. Fun stuff! (Though I’m admittedly very bad at it).
Post one soon – it will be great encouragement for those of us
who are trying to learn another language and are shy about trying
it out publicly!
Ni Hao
Zàijiàn
xièxiè
… and therein lies the extent of my Mandarin language acquisition. (And I pronounce none of them correctly, but I’m told “It’s cute.”)