Posted by andreas from dtm2-t4-1.mcbone.net (62.104.210.70) on Sunday, January 19, 2003 at 2:58PM :
In Reply to: Oh, but posted by Sadie from D006170.N1.Vanderbilt.Edu (129.59.6.170) on Sunday, January 19, 2003 at 1:28PM :
: You know, what's even more weird is that my 1st language was Chinese (Mandarin), thanks to one of my babysitters, but I can't remember a single word of it now. Apparently, when I was little, my parents would take me to Chinese restaurants & I would converse with the Chinese waiters, & when my parents would ask me what I wanted to eat at home, I would respond in Chinese... forcing my mother to call the babysitter & ask her to speak with me on the phone so that the babysitter could translate what I was saying for my mother. Kinda funny, isn't it?
+++ Nin hao ma? (Howdy) Hope you're not kidding me ....
+++ What a strange coincidence!
+++ Due to special circumstances I got a Chinese nanny from 1 year on till the age of 8 or 10 (?), I believe.
+++ The setting: Southern Germany- Bavaria/Switzerland with its 4 languages (German, Italian, French, Romansh).
+++ The nanny Liu was positively encouraged to converse with me in Chinese (Mandarin & later Cantonese) cause my parents thought that would be better then her teaching me any distorted German and I learnt German in my family anyway.
+++ After a short black out period (family moving to Near East etc) I lost contact but re-detected Chinese at 16 and from that age on I have constantly been using it in my everyday life. T'was also my first language I got my translator's certificate for.
+++ Sadie, so what have I become ... ?
-- andreas
-- signature .
Follow Ups: