Dealing with English language attrition whilst living in Taiwan?

Beer time. I earned it.

I was reminded of this thread while reading Eat, pray, love. The version I have is in Spanish, a Taiwanese friend bought it during a business trip to South America and for her it was too tiring to read, so she gave it to me. Even though that kind of literature is not my cup of tea, I accepted as I rarely have access to materials in Spanish and in recent years haven’t read a whole book that did not have to do with pet care or other practical things, like decorating for a small space.

See, my brain is fried from translating all day, switching between 3 languages -English, Chinese, and Spanish- and it gets worse if Japanese or Taiwanese gets in the fray. Anyways, the story is that this version, though bought in Colombia, was actually edited in Spain, which means it is Spanish like Jesus speaks… So now I am the one who finds it tiring to read, given the localization of the language. And being me, I skipped the whole Pray chapters, skimmed through Eat and basically only focused on Love. :smiley:

Maybe you just aren’t resting enough?

I hit my head and couldn’t speak for a few days. I was texting a friend for help and could only write homographs ‘rough’, bough’, ‘cough’, which is a strange bunch of words for my head to come up with. My ability to understand Chinese can back quickly, as did my English, but my spoken Chinese was much slower and I’ve been working with a tutor to get it back up. I get confused saying simple things. Sometimes my English goes that way too, if I’m tired, but it’s largely back to normal.

Editing and writing crap for money does a number on your neurons, for sure. Same with only talking to EFL students, learners and EFL teachers. Understimulation is as bad as overstimulation.

We had been warned by one of our translation instructors: do not do this daily, do not exhaust yourselves. He used to warn us we could end up as a colleague of his, with a little sticker on his chest saying my name is Fulanito de Tal and I live in Chicastemango.

damn, thought I was the only one.
Also I noticed that my slang / short english has changed to the same grunt sounds my chinese friends say to show agreement, etc.
Freaking turning into a mandarin caveman here.

Dear all:

Find a way to listen to NPR or the BBC. It’s good for you.

That is all.

[quote=“Hokwongwei”]Dear all:

Find a way to listen to NPR or the BBC. It’s good for you.

That is all.[/quote]

Ah, shortwave BBC reminds me of my childhood. Great way to learn English. :slight_smile:

NPR reminds me of TOEFL tests. :stuck_out_tongue: :smiley: