2. when you no longer play air guitar but instead write chinese characters with your finger in the air.
3. When you setup a new forum to accompany ChinesePod.
4. You post on said forum when you should be in the pub with your colleagues
5. When speaking Spanish/French/other languages, you end every question with "ma".
6. When you stay up until 2am just to find out what the new lesson is about.
7. When you loudly recite chinese words or dialogues while walking the streets or in a bus.
8. When you start to speak chinese to your pets.
9. When your pets speak back in Chinese, and you understand them.
10. When your I-Pod is filling up and you have to decide Jenny or Sting? Not even tough.
11. When anytime Jenny speaks to you, you expect her to repeat herself three times.
12. You start teaching peopel Chinese yourself, whether they want to learn or not.
13. You can remember the Chinese word for something from the last lesson, but can't for anyhting remember what the English word is...
14. When you speak Chinese in your dreams.
15. When the highlight of the day is your commute because you are going to listen to a new Chinesepod lesson.
16. When you watch a 14-episode soap opera in Chinese that you wouldn't go near if it were in English.
17. When you answer in Chinese no matter what language anyone speaks to you in. Even if you were born speaking that language/s.
18. When you phrase an English sentence using Chinese grammar: I today afternoon went to city's best restaurant eat lunch.
19. When you wonder around your house with a vocabulary list pointing and naming things in Chinese.
20. When4 you3 ab1sent4-mind1ed1ly4 write2 your2 En1glish4 sen3tenc2es2 to1 re4flect2 your1 in1ton4a2tion4.
21. When you speak Chinese words in English sentence.
22. When you burn your hands on the oven tray, twist your ankle or kick a radiator really hard and shout 哎呀 AIYAAAAAA!!
23. When you revert to Chinglish infixes:对不effin'起！
24. When you're currently reading your whole Chinese dictionary in alphabetical order.
25. When your acquaintances from other activities start calling around to check that you're still alive.
26. When you try to speak French but can't because you've somehow forgotten ALL the tones.
27. When you were busy negotiating the price of peaches in Chinese, take a call from an English-speaking friend and can carry on the two conversations without finding it strange to be speaking two languages at once.
28. When the person selling your train tickets forgets to turn their microphone on but you still manage to come away with the right tickets by lip-reading.
29. When you have a nightmare about being asked to do your Chinese banking by phone and try to argue that you can't because your Chinese isn't good enough, but you realise that you are arguing your case in fluent Chinese. (no I haven't talked to a psychiatrist recently!)
30. When someone is speaking the European language you studied a bit in your youth, so you go up to chat and welcome them in their language (at least that is the intention), and they respond in perfect English "Are you Chinese?"
31. When you try to look up english words by their radical...
32. When you not only write your honours thesis on Chinese, but start doing a PhD on it, even though you're still learning it... (yup, I'm still a geek... see geek/nerd discussion)
33. When your adolescent children tell you to put your iPod away and pay attention (i.e. not the other way around)
34. Whenever someone asks a question, to which I just happen to know the Mandarin response, I answer in Mandarin, followed by English. My friends are getting annoyed with me.
35. When you start blocking out class discussion to whip out a Chinese magazine and start writing the pinyin next to the characters you know and trying to make sense out of the article... people reeally begin to eye you weird ;P
36. When solicitors call... you don't just hang up... oh no... Actually... You use it as an opportunity to annoy them back by speaking Chinese to them, and the longer you keep them on the line, the more points you get!
37. When you only want to work at Chinese food restaraunts (I work at Panda Express... my third job in Chinese food )
38. When you talk to yourself in the shower or at night in Chinese, trying to form coherent sentences... eventually driving your parents mad
39. When you fill up your Ipod with Chinesepod, then your friends don't want to ride with you in the car anymore because they are forced to listen to another useful lesson
40. When you start handing in homework/other class assignments with Chinese hanzi scribble all over it... ya, true... my teacher actually underlined my hanzi in red and said "cool.... I hope this isn't about me!"
41. When you make your cell phone message in Chinese... even though only maybe 1 or 2 of your friends can actually understand it
42. When you, yourself aren't religious... but your Chinese friend invites you to Chinese church and you accept. I go every sunday
43. I could go on forever with this stuff ;P I'll add more later... I am too obsessed, lol
Even better, I'm going to leave for vacation later today on a flight from NY to Frankfurt with Singapore Airlines. That's going to be exciting: 8 hours to spend listening to Chinesepod, Chinese in flight movie, chatting up the Stewardess in Chinese ...
.. and getting kicked off the plane by the tone police.
