Dinner Table Conversation Post TESOL Final
One of the advantages of having to take a TESOL certification exam for TFC is the ability to insert gems such as the following at the dinner table (Those who understand Chinese will better spot the following mistakes made by me, but I will try to explain to the best of my abilities so that they're clear to even those with no Chinese background).
Mini-lesson on Identifying Interlingual vs. Intralingual Errors
Earlier in the evening, when my mother asked me about student loans, I mentioned that there was a six-month grace period before interest rates kick in. In Chinese, I said something to the effect of "六月后就要还了". Since 六月 (liu yue) corresponds to "June" or, literally, "six/sixth month" in Chinese, this created the misunderstanding where my mom thought the grace period ended after June. As she corrected me later, I should have phrased it as "六个月后" for it to mean "six months later" rather than "after June." The 个 (ge) is a general measure word that indicates an amount is being said.
During dinner, while mentioning photos that were taken during Wellesley's Baccalaureate ceremony, I said that my friends and I were wearing our graduation robes but not wearing our tams. Here I made the mistake of saying "没有穿帽子" instead of "没有戴帽子". 穿 (chuan) and 戴 (dai) both translate to "wear," but the former is used for pieces of clothing such as shirts, pants, and socks while headgear like hats or tams generally use the latter.
After these mistakes were pointed out to me, I followed up the conversation by mentioning that the first was an example of an interlingual error (made by transferring the rules/inferences from the native language, or English in my case, to the second language or Chinese). I directly translated "six months" to 六 (six) + 月 (months) in Chinese without realizing that in Chinese I needed to add the measure word to clarify that I am saying "six months" and not "the sixth month or June". The second was an example of an intralingual error (made by overgeneralizing a rule in the second language). Because I knew that 穿 can be used to mean wear in Chinese, I overgeneralized by applying it to all instances where I wanted to say wear, including wearing a hat, despite the fact that in Chinese I would need to use another word for wear, 戴, when referring to hats.
