Though I was extremely rusty and more than a little embarrassed, I found that within a few days in country, I could walk up to a ticket window, make inquiries and purchase rail tickets with little difficulty. I gleaned this fact when I traveled to China last August. Fortunately, in my case anyway, it seems that once the initial difficult work of learning the basics of the language have been mastered, the process of reacquiring those skills are not incredibly arduous. It’s common knowledge (at least, conventional wisdom dictates) that language skills are highly perishable, in that they decrease significantly the less you use them. Well, by “rather well,” I mean at a level which would allow me to survive if I were dropped off in the middle of Beijing at any given moment. Years ago, I could read, write, listen to, and speak Mandarin Chinese rather well.
This post is part of my stated goals mentioned here.
