Reading in Chinese

I was riding in the car with my husband's mom, dad, and sister yesterday. My sister-in-law said to me, read to me what you are able to off of the signs around us. So I did.

"Very xx xx xx xx" from one sign. Were those last four characters representative of "Jesus" and "Church?" It turns out they were.

"Today" from one enormous sign with lots of words, "device" and "car" from another which together - it turns out - means motorcycle, "noodles" "xx xx four people" on the side of a taxi cab. But what about four people? I wouldn't have known unless she told me, "that says the car can seat four people."

You get the idea.

In a very large sign full of mysteries of the Chinese language I read two characters from one part, not recognizing any characters in a long sequence I skip ahead to the next one I know. I'm corrected, of course, because I'm told the next word is a different word that I didn't say. Well, I knew that, but I wasn't reading the whole sign, just the parts I know how to read.

And of course, my Chinese lessons are full of repeating vocabulary about the school being behind the swimming pool and where are you going and when and for how long. So the impressive length of the paragraphs I read in Chinese from my textbook are a little misleading because of how often expressions are repeated within the text: "Today I will go to class, tomorrow I will go to the library from 10-12 to read a book. Does your mom cook food? Yes, but not well. My dad cooks good food." It really is not like what you would find naturally occurring in people's speech. But it's still helpful because the repetition helps concrete the grammatical form and make the ideas flow off my tongue readily as needed.

I wonder how Chinese ever are able to read and write and speak in their own language! More and more I am truly impressed by the ability to read a long document and understand it in a glance.