It was a long day

I am too tired to do today justice.

We studied introductory phrases and numbers today. I find number morphology fascinating to compare across languages, and today had me bouncing in my seat. I also learned that 6, 8,  and 9 are lucky numbers. People often want these numbers on their license plates or in their phone numbers. Given my birthday, I have concluded that this makes me a very lucky person by Vietnamese standards. 7 and 13 are unlucky, however. Understanding the complex pronoun system is an ongoing process. The idea of having a respectful 'you' and a familiar 'you' is not unusual. In Vietnamese, however, there are not just two 'you's; there are several, dependent on gender and age/social rank. Moreover, your gender and relative age/rank affect the first person pronoun, so there are different 'I's.

It was sunny today! All day! I didn't know this was possible. This anomalous weather was fortuitously paired with a two-hour lunch break (twice as long as usual). This amounted to good wandering and some good photos and trying on some heels, confirming that my feet are just the right size for most of the shoes available here.

When we got out of class we were confronted by possibly the worst traffic we have seen yet. Believe it or not we managed to hail a cab in the midst of this mess, and literally walked into the middle of the street to get into it. Don't worry, though, our walking pace far outstripped any vehicle caught in this jam. Still, that didn't keep the cabbie from inching forward while we were trying to get in.

Possibly the most exciting thing about today is that I am starting to understand things. I can now identify a few menu items and ingredients. Even better, I understood an eavesdropped (very short) sentence. I guess it's true that when you start at zero every step up yields discernible results. Here's looking forward to tomorrow's results.


P. S. Don't forget to check out today's photo at http://vietnamsm.tumblr.com/