The expression “A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing” is more or less where I am with my very partial understanding of Chinese. I can read things on the street and understand a character here and a character there but the full meaning evades me. Sometimes however I will understand half of the characters and it feels as if things are improving. This is precisely the moment I have to be cautious and make a distinction between understanding for practical action and intellectual understanding. For the former anything tends to help and rough and ready is better than not at all. With the latter however, the illusion of understanding, even if only partially, can send the customer off into a world of their own.
There is a huge difference between what I have learnt from study books, CDs and exchanges, and how people actually speak. I was expecting this to be the case but that knowledge does nothing to alleviate the gap. Basically I have learnt a few words and expressions of sanitised Mandarin and I can go back and forth with those words fairly well. If everyone in Xiamen spoke with a vocabulary of 200 words I would be just fine. That is not the way it is of course so I just have to persevere. When I was an English teacher in Paris back in the mid-90s I had to pleasure of seeing some people progress from speaking in a baby language, like I do, to the point of being able to hold a conversation. Not so many made this leap but some did so I know it is possible.
