Remember the ridiculousness

photo of head bust print artwork

It’s a shame about your face

I learned Mandarin at university for about 9 months. I have since forgotten upwards of 99% of what I learned, but there is one phrase I still remember.

Ni de liao zao gao.

’It’s a shame about your face.’

In all honesty I’m not sure if this sentence is grammatically correct, but it did help me remember the phrase for ‘it’s a shame’ (zao gao).

Things that are memorable are by definition easy to remember. Ridiculousness, for the most part, is memorable. If you’re not hurting anybody by doing it, and if it can in fact help you learn, be ridiculous.

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Sakata City, Yamagata, Japan 

tim@timbunting.com

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