In recent taxi trip to airport, I met a chatty taxi driver. Sometimes I do want to just enjoy the ride, but there are times I don’t mind to chat.
Started by normal question like whether I’m going for holiday because I have 24” luggage but it’s not that heavy. I said it’s a work trip just that I don’t have smaller luggage and it’s too much for cabin sized luggage.
Next question about where I’m working came up, I mentioned the current place I’m working, and he immediately knows it. I was surprised, because usually not many people seems to know (ha!) until I explained the brands.
He was working for FCMG companies in the past, went to Guangzhou at some time. Then his brother in law was working in Beijing in top position of luxury car company. His brother in law retired at one time, went back to Singapore, offered a management position by one company in Singapore but didn’t like it and decided to go back to China.
That chat actually made the 30 mins ride feels not as long as it feels.
But I think sometimes it’s probably the language barrier that not all are able to converse well in English. Some are still using Chinese and we also have dialects speakers.
Fast forward to few hours. I landed in Narita Airport for 2h transit. Although I had my meal, I felt hungry again. I couldn’t make up my mind, all food suddenly looks good. Anyway, I decided to go with Ippudo ramen. I tried to place order in Japanese, the cashier replied me in English, oh well, maybe I don’t use it the way native speaker is using it.
So yes, I guess understanding the language is one thing, but how you use it as local is another thing.
I still hope one day I can make Japanese as one of language I can speak like English. (Incl reading novels and stuffs too)
It’s easier when you have the purpose to learn. My motivation to learn Japanese was to be able to watch drama without subtitles. I can understand Doraemon (:p) but for drama with lots of terminology like finance or crime, I’m still not able to understand it. So I guess time to upgrade my mission purpose.
This is this week thought ramble. Are you a multi language speaker too? Did you learn it at school? Or were you growing up in multi language environment? Or were you learning it outside?
