Time transcripts of Wenhao's Narrative [00:00:00.01] [ Wenhao: ] Hi. I'm Wenhao. The date's April 29th and this is my literacy narrative. [Interviewer:] So Wenhao [00:00:05.05] are your parents literate in more than one language? [00:00:08.10] [ Wenhao: ] Both my parents speak Mandarin. My dad speaks [00:00:10.98] a dialect tha's from Henan province, the province I'm from. [00:00:15.37] My mom usually speaks Mandarin, but she can also speak [00:00:19.53] the dialect that's common to the Shang Hai area and she understand but not speak [00:00:24.36] Cantonese. Which is the dialect they speak in the Hong Kong area. [00:00:27.78] I on the other hand cannot understand any of it. [00:00:31.89] Because in Chinese it's a tonal language and if you were to [00:00:35.96] screw up the tones you could say completely different things. [00:00:38.60] In some regions of China, instead of having four tones it sounds like they have two. So they sound like [00:00:43.62] donkeys. [ laughter ] [Interviewer:] So what about you Wenhao, are you literate [00:00:48.29] in more than on language? [ Wenhao: ] I [00:00:51.28] wouldn't consider myself literate in Chinese because in order to read [00:00:56.63] Chinese you need to know a little bit over a thousand characters. [00:01:00.34] I probably know a good five to seven hundred, so [00:01:03.77] if it was a really simple thing, like everyday instructions or [00:01:08.36] something I might be able to read it. But if it were say like a newspaper or a road sign, I would be completely screwed. [00:01:12.30] Because they would be using characters that you don't usually see everyday, and it'd be [00:01:16.20] the formal version of like English. [ Interviewer: ] So are you able [00:01:20.54] to speak Chinese then? [ Wenhao: ] If I were to go [00:01:24.80] to China people would be able to understand what I say because I don't talk with an accent. [00:01:28.39] However, if I were to go to a region in China and just speak Mandarin [00:01:32.36] they would realize that I probably am not from here. Because they would be all speaking [00:01:36.13] the region's dialect that they would be accostumed to. [00:01:39.24] And for that reason I also probably cannot understand what they're saying. [00:01:43.37] Because, as I said before, Chinese is a tonal language. So if you were to change the [00:01:48.24] tones you would be saying completely different and not make any sense. On that note, [00:01:52.35] My cousins who I do visit them every other year in China, [00:01:55.64] sometimes will speak in the language or in [00:02:00.59] the dialect of Chinese that is common to their region. And sometimes I have [00:02:04.40] a lot of issues with that, because I can think they're saying one thing but it could be something [00:02:07.42] else. Also Chinese has a lot of, I guess you would call it idioms, which is always [00:02:13.42] [00:02:13.47] four letter each. If you don't know the idioms you might be able to understand it [00:02:16.98] from knowing each of the individual characters but [00:02:20.85] sometimes they just have completely different meaning from what you expected. [00:02:24.57] and you can get really confused. But if I'm talking to my cousins they [00:02:28.48] take English at school. [00:02:31.85] And if I can't figure what they're saying in Chinese we might decide that [00:02:36.86] English might be a little bit less painful and I'll try to figure out what they're saying for once. [00:02:40.70] [ Interviewer: ] So when you do visit [00:02:45.16] China, is being illerate reading [00:02:48.63] the language a difficulty for you? [ Wenhao: ] If you're illiterate in China [00:02:53.07] it's a pretty big difficulty. Because if you [00:02:56.16] don't look like a foreigner people expect that you'll able to read and write. [00:03:00.40] And if you can't they'll think you either have a learning disability or you're just [00:03:04.73] really strange. One time I went to get ice cream [00:03:09.21] down, from my grandmother's apartment. [00:03:13.40] And they had a sign with all ice cream and cost. [00:03:17.39] So when I asked the vendor how much the orange [00:03:21.02] thing costs, she looked at me like she was really confused. Because [00:03:24.57] I was probably, 15 16 then [00:03:28.92] and she just told me "Well, there's a sign up there I don't understand why you can't read it" [00:03:33.20] So I just told or tried to explain to her, Well I'm from the United States [00:03:37.62] And I can read English fine but since [00:03:41.29] it's written in Chinese I'm not really used to seeing a lot of those characters cause they're not really [00:03:44.95] I mean, nobody actually uses the word kiwi in everyday language, so you can't really [00:03:49.44] read that. So that was a little awkward [00:03:52.96] but eventually I just got it. She just told me what the price was, cause I can still [00:03:56.70] communicate fine, so it's not as big of problem as it could be. [00:04:00.23] [ Interviewer: ] So have you taken steps to become literate in Chinese? [00:04:04.87] [ Wenhao: ] I used to go to Chinese school when I was really little but [00:04:09.04] I stopped when I got to highschool because I started playing football. [00:04:14.25] And that took up a lot of time. [00:04:17.12] During that break you kind of just forget everything that you've learned. Since if you don't use a language you're going [00:04:20.80] to forget everything, kind of like any other skill I guess. [00:04:25.16] In highschool, my junior and senior year [00:04:29.98] I dropped French and picked up Chinese, since it just started being offered. [00:04:34.04] But it wasn't really helpful, since [00:04:37.70] it was mainly catered to beginners. And I was the only [00:04:41.92] actual Chinese person there. So the teacher would give me, like individual work [00:04:46.23] to read and write, but it wasn't as helpful as could be. [00:04:49.66] At Ohio State I finally started taking [00:04:53.90] Chinese classes again for the first time. And [00:04:57.97] I started off on a 300 level course. [00:05:02.21] But it was only writing, which I guess is a nice fit. [00:05:06.40] Because I can speak it and understand perfectly fine. And now [00:05:10.18] I'm in a 500 level course and it's a lot more difficult. But I think if I put the time into it [00:05:13.96] I can do pretty well in the class. I also think that I might want to get [00:05:18.20] a minor in Chinese here, just because I just need maybe [00:05:21.92] two or three more classes and that's about it. [00:05:24.46] [ Interviewer: ] So do you have anything else to say about literacy in other languages? [00:05:30.46]