Fall has come rapidly to Yantai, as if the weather is trying to match our textbook’s explanation that September, October and November are autumn. It’s beautiful here, although it’s strange to feel fall and be going back-to-school on the other side of the desk.
I was teaching Susie this morning, and we were looking at pictures and trying to match the scene with the dialogue. Basically, the lesson shows a typical exchange between parent and child, or customer and shopkeeper, or two friends, and so forth, and the student must identify that the mom is more likely to say “Go to bed,” than “Here’s your change”. A lot of my students like to guess at random, so I thought I’d prep her by asking what she thinks each person is talking about.
I showed her a picture of a shopper with a basket of food and a shopkeeper at a register and asked what they might say to each other. Susie gave the very Chinese answer that the shopper was bargaining, because the seller had tried to charge too much money. When I pointed out that both people were smiling, she suggested that maybe they had already reached a good price.
