老外在中国：有个会中文的女儿是什么感受_其他

老外在中国：有个会中文的女儿是什么感受

And my spoken Chinese is multiplications better than my character proficiency.

我的中文口语能力比书面表达能力好太多。

I can converse about, say, (basic) economics but with grammatical flubs, tone errors and a funny accent. The second two are common among native Chinese with less-than-perfect Putonghua (standardized Mandarin).

我可以谈论基本的经济学，但是有语法错误，声调错误，口音滑稽。而后面两个问题在普通话不标准的中国人中也很常见。

There’s a theory that language shapes how we perceive the world.

有一种理论认为，语言决定了我们看待世界的方式。

I’ve observed, for instance, that after using only Chinese for a period, two things happen.

比如说，我发现，在讲中文一段时间后发生了两件事。

First, I start to think simple thoughts in Chinese. I notice because I sometimes talk to myself. Say I’m traveling and haven’t spoken English in days — I’ll mutter “Wode shouji zai nali?” rather than “Where’s my phone?”.

第一是我开始用中文来表达一些简单的想法。因为我有时会自言自语，所以注意到了这点。比如我在旅行时几天没说英语了，我会嘟囔着“我的手机在哪里？”而不是“Where is my phone”。

Second, I think about the world differently in such ways as, in my mind’s eye, “opening” rather than turning on the light — a direct translation into English that retains the Chinese language’s conceptualization of the phenomenon.