Mandarin conversationalist wannabe

I am officially depressed.

Not depressed depressed, but sad kinda depressed ‘cause I just tried to conduct a casual conversation 30 minutes ago with my Mandarin teacher entirely in Mandarin and it sort of fell apart. It was so pathetic, worthy of an instant FAIL if that was an oral test, that I wished I could just wither on the spot and disappear.

Part of the conversation went something like this (when she asked about my backpacking trip to Laos) (I’m doing this in hanyu pinyin for those who can’t read Chinese, trusting that you similar bananas can understand my amazingly poor Chinese):

Me: Wo zai ren de jia zhu zai, bu yong gei qian de.

Teacher: Eh, wei shen me?

Me: You yi ge wang zhan.. couchsurfing.com. (Pause very long wtf while I contemplate how to answer) Ni xie chu ni de profile.. ran hou kan others de profile.. you testimonials.. ta men xie chu ta men de jing yan zhu zai na ge ren de jia.. ran hou ni kan na ren hao bu hao..

Teacher: Zhen de bu yong gei qian? Hai shi yao zuo yi xie dong xi?

Me: Er.. yao.. (Pause again thinking “Wtf is that word for washing plate”) sai tip la (Cantonese wtf, that word just came out before I could stop myself)

T___T Jesus Christ I’m a hopeless Mandarin conversationalist after using both English and Cantonese to explain what the eff I’m trying to get across (actually I think my choice of words and grammar might be wrong as well so feel free to correct me oh Mandarin masters wtf). Actually maybe I suck at talking in general in whatever language you throw at me.

And why this is a huge let-down and a dampener is because my Book 9 is ending soon (which I’m struggling with like hell by the way), followed by Book 10. My fellow classmates asked what comes after Book 10 and my teacher replied, “Du bao zhi la (Read newspaper)” wtf.

That’s it. I shall start speaking frail, brittle Mandarin to my friends no matter how god-awful if may sound (or whether they’re willing to listen or not), just for a chance to practise wtf.