I'm watching a hindi movie right now, and I don't know what anyone is saying because I'm sitting behind the couch to plug in my laptop and it's blocking the subtitles. But I still know what's going on because a) I've seen this movie a thousand times, and b) most hindi movies are the same (but this one is REALLLY GOOD especially the scene where the man and woman meet in the rain under the gazebo and are dancing and then they see each other's engagement rings and remember that they cant be together and RUN AWAY AHHH its so fantastic!) okay so anyhoo all this reminds me of the fact that I CANT SPEAK HINDI, which is shameful and sad and makes me utterly useless as an intern at SAN. Okay, not totally useless, but strange enough that people look at me with pity when they find out what a whitewashed freak I am, even though I do speak an Indian language (its just inconveniently obscure). I constantly find myself picking up phones and having to run it over to someone who speaks hindi, or just smiling and nodding politely at people who start speaking to me in hindi until they figure out that I don't know what they are saying. So NEW PROJECT! I'm going to start learning hindi piece by piece, and start with all the phrases I need to know to function at work. For example!
Hello
He/ She is not available
Can i transfer you to his/her voicemail?
my name is
what is your name?
Can I take a message?
What is your phone number?
how are you?
I'm good thanks!
Where is the free food?
once I learn these key phrases, I will be totally ready to take on new duties at my exciting job!
Ahhh. I just wrote a post about the same thing. I feel very, very inhibited because I don't speak fluent Vietnamese. It sucks because I feel like I could be doing so much more ;(
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