How would you know if you are actually having bilingual conversation with yourself?
1.  When you struggle to find the right words in order to express yourself in the second language.
2. When you ask others the meaning of certain foreign words in your native tongue.
3. When you start asking how to say things in a foreign language.

Unfortunately, people stop working after their first questions are answered. The learning stops abruptly and the subconscious mind that first urges them to find out about things turns to another path of work. The conscious mind that translates thinking, from the subconscious mind, into physical activity is not needed. In other words, the process of acquiring a new language is interrupted. This in turn tells the subsconscious mind to stop telling us to think about the matter. When this happens, the whole process of bilingual conversation comes to a nought.

How can we prevent this from happening?
Start using the new words by writing or speaking them everyday. Writing and speaking are physical activities that are prompted by the conscious mind. The conscious mind needs tools to get us to speak and write. These tools are found in the form of books, cds, tapes, stationery and videos. To use these tools, we use our hands, mouths, ears and eyes.

Is there any other way to have a bilingual conversation  without actually doing it yourself?
Yes. You can by using an interpreter or a translator. The result of this is that the person you employ as the interpreter or translator becomes more competent in two languages, as one would expect.

If you turn to any page in a Chinese dictionary for names in Mandarin, you may not come across a name like Sugiarto or Gunawan. Honestly, it may not even matter to you now because you will never come across them in your part of the world, say the United States of America or Ghana.

There are many Chinese people around the world that are recognised by their races and faces that they are Chinese. Yet their names certainly do not sound anything Chinese. In fact, you might think they are adopted! For instance, the Chinese surname Lim is spelt as ‘Liem’ amongst Indonesian Chinese. This had been the case for many years when the Dutch administrators had tried using the Dutch spelling and pronunciation conventions to translate Chinese names. So you might have heard of the famous Liem Siew Leong, Liem Siew King and Kwik Kian Gee (Indonesian coordinating minister of economics and finance 1999-2000; minister of national development planning 2001-2004).

Do you know that David Beckham has Chinese characters inscribed on his body?

To be recognised as Chinese and not having a Chinese name can be a big deal for people in Asia. Those in Indonesia had never been allowed to speak, study or even display Chinese characters, cultures or traditions in public or even within their own private dwellings during the dictatorship of ex-president Suharto,. So from this group, emerged generations of Chinese Indonesians, who neither speak nor read Mandarin. To a certain extent, they have become quite creative with their names so it can be spelt and easily pronounced with the English alphabets.

Do you know that David Beckham has Chinese characters inscribed on his body?

It might also interest you that Chinese people who have embraced religions such as Christianity and Islam, have also adopted either Christian and Muslim names. John, Richard, Rickie, Anthony, or Desmond will be followed by the Chinese surnames. Or Mohammad Amin Teo or Azhar Tan. In Singapore, these Muslim converts are registered with the Majlis Ugama Islam and they carry with them an identity card bearing their Muslim names. So don’t be surprised when you meet a Chinese person who introduces himself as Mohammad Hassan or David Setiawan.

Conversely, many non-Chinese who are studying Mandarin, married to Chinese or have interest in learning the language, have the urge or need to translate their names to Chinese writing. At kindergarten, my teacher had already given me a Chinese name which I continued to use for more than 16 years throughout my education. The name was inscribed in awards and certificates wherever it was related to Chinese, like the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Singapore. My Mandarin name was also used in a newspaper article.

It is not as easy to translate names into Chinese names. There are millions of Chinese characters and each has a meaning and meaning is value. If you pick the wrong one, you might end up being mocked and misunderstood. After many years of using the same Chinese name, I realised mine is a funny one. See the first character of my Chinese is ‘Ha’ which literally means laugh. Students started calling me Ha Lao Shi which means Laughing Teacher or Teacher who laughs (like a lot.) It is nice, I get lots of laugh everyday thinking about it. I have started using a different though as they couldn’t pay attention in class everytime they have addressed me. Well these are pre-school kids, and I have lots of fun teaching them.

If you want to learn to speak a foreign word, you must LISTEN FIRST. You must have a native speaker to help you to pronounce the word correctly but he is not your dictionary. You still have to do the work yourself. Listening is a very important part of your language development.

If you are self-learning from an online language website or have purchased a software, it would be great if it offers transliteration service or on-line community that encourages members to make contact easily. It may look something like this:

There is usually a little speaker symbol on the screen. If you click on the symbol, you will hear the recorded voice of the native speaker.

HOW TO COMMIT THE NON-NATIVE WORDS TO MEMORY

The most effective tool to use is to have a biological clock as our friendly reminder. We accelerate our learning process by applying more of our senses during the learning process.

So what we want is a method to recall our knowledge which can tick you brains and not become an added burden to your already hectic personal programmes. A passive reminder like a time table will get ignored after a period of time. A learning programme like language is not a “one-time I am done thing”. You need someone (like) your mum to nag at you but someone who does not turn you off, like a romantic love song, pretty eyes or sounds of beach surfs. Sights and sounds that you can carry with you all the time.

The answer for me is the mobile phone, ipaq, ipod or itouch. The reason these works is because the mobile phone has at least 4 basic features: alarm, calendar, notes, portability, dictionary, camera and most importantly a sound recording.

What you have to do is to enter the words you want to learn for a week and set the alarm to remind you to tune in to your word on the phone. Use a jingle or soft bell tone and set the alarm at your most convenient but focus time. The exercises that have been described only takes 2 minutes to practise.

One of the features you should have on your phone is a translation feature so you can immediately switch to the foreign language you want instantly. If you are committed to learning, you will start using the foreign word immediately. (Remember that you have chosen the words that are important to you. So it is only natural that you will get to use the word quite immediately.)

Replace the native word with the non-native word each day until you complete the entire set.

1. enter the native word
2. replace each native word with the non-native word
3. your must record YOUR own voice on the phone
4. set the alarm
5. keep replacing texts until all are translated and recorded.

Check out the product below, you should be able to see that they have the transliterator service embedded on the software. Use the mobile phone as an added tool.

When we live in a non-native environment, there are so many things we have to adapt to – the new environment and way of life. Our attitude has to change also.

If you are coming from a developed nation, and found yourself posted to work in a less developed country, you will find people do things far less complicated and sometimes wonder why the hack you need modern conveniences anyway. Things like coffee maker, microwave oven, vaccuum cleaner, kitchen blender or electric kettle are useless in some developing countries because these appliances threaten to increase domestic spending on utilities. Stove cooking is the way to go.

When the system of living is simpler or less automated, people are less hurried to get things done. Why? Because for one simple task such as boiling water, they have to listen to the whistle of the kettle when water is boiled, and then turn the stove off. If you have an electric kettle, you may never turn the power supply off even after the water is boiled.

Our domestic staff came from the rural villages Java, Indonesia. They have never used most of the modern conveniences we are so used to. One of them is the vaccuum cleaner. They use brooms for sweeping the floor. Carpets are cleaned with a broom that is made out of a bunch dried stems of coconut leaves. It is called ‘sapu lidi’, sapu is broom and lidi is a stick. It has no wooden stick for your hand to handle. You have to wrap your palm around the end and just sweep.

Sapu Lidi, for domestic use. The industrial ones have a pole stuck through the middle of the bunch.

Ok, you have an idea of what I am saying I hope. There are simpler way to get things done which means thoughts are minced into bite pieces. What happens is actions slower, gentler and unhurried. When your actions are gentler, the senses become quickly responsive to the impressions of your muscular movements. On the contrary, when your actions are loud, the force of your energy returns more than twice its force back to your senses.

This sublimity of actions and responses to muscular movement of senses is very vital if we want to be communicate with people who we do not share a common language or lifestyle. Fast action fast response communication skills will never get things done, unless you have a translator for both sides.

Here I describe how learn to communicate with the cook. When I gave instructions for grocery shopping, I would come to her with grocery list and money. When she sees the concrete objects, money and grocery list, she knew what I needed her to do. I did have to clarify the name of the items which were written in English language, not popular brand names like McDonald’s, Coca Cola and Milo.

There are many overseas expatriates who easily learn to speak a foreign language in this manner. So I am no exception. The difference is I created a system of learning to become more proficient. No textbooks and dictionary, just work with the environment straight away.