When learning a new language there is always that exciting moment when you get to use it for the first time in a “real world” situation. Yesterday I was calling travel agencies in search of a good deal on a ticket to Beijing. I got the phone numbers from a Chinese friend, so I should have known where this would go, but I was still startled when the person who picked up the phone greeted me with “Ni hao?” I replied in English, but for some reason she continued speaking Mandarin. I paused, gathered all my courage and all the Mandarin I've learned in the past two month to produce: “Wo putonghua shuo de bu hao!” (“I don’t speak Mandarin well.”) She must have understood, since she started speaking slower, but of course this wasn’t going anywhere. I considered asking in Mandarin if she spoke English, but doing so on the spot was too much for me, so I tried my luck with English again. This time she seemed to finally understand me, replied that she spoke English and we continued in English.

Overall, this was less successful than my first “real world” conversation in Finnish, but then that one wasn’t on the phone.