Free Web NovelChapter 517: Chapter 429: Internet Slang, Exceptionally Strong Hypnotic Ability
"Ah?"
Lucas was still digesting the messages in the group. When he heard this, he was totally bewildered.
"Learn Chinese?"
"You all?"
"Everyone?"
When this group of beauties entered the room, they had a look as if they were catching him in the act, making him think he had done something wrong.
And now they’re telling him they’re here to learn Chinese?
Isn’t this a joke!
"Yeah, is there a problem?"
"We think learning on the internet doesn’t work as well, it’s faster if someone we know teaches us."
"Language, after all, needs a teacher to guide; self-learning leaves you clueless on where to start and it’s easy to make mistakes."
"The audience in the videos all say your Chinese is good, you surely have your own secret method, that’s what we want to learn."
"The two new Great Xia People can’t speak English or French, so there’s no way to communicate with them, and we can’t go to the chef to learn, he’s too busy."
The women were talking one after another, practically elevating Lucas to the heavens.
Never had Lucas received so much praise from so many beauties, and for a moment, he felt like he was floating, feeling as if he were up in the clouds.
"Sure, learning Chinese isn’t too hard. Speaking takes a few weeks for simple communication, but writing and recognizing characters are more difficult, nearly the hardest language in the world."
"Though difficult, Chinese is also one of the world’s most beautiful, meaningful, and ancient languages, which you can only truly appreciate by learning. You won’t understand that through mere words since adjectives in French and English are too few; there’s no feeling."
Agreed, but Lucas had never taught anyone before, so he needed to think carefully about how to teach.
"Great, as long as you agree to teach, you probably only have free time every afternoon, right? It’s too late after dinner, we’ll discuss the specific time later?"
"Okay, isn’t it about time to head to the restaurant now?"
"Yes, we were just on our way and stopped by to ask you."
Since the restaurant staff grew, Lucas no longer needed to be involved in dinner service and could work and rest in his room unless he wanted to shoot some material.
"Dinner doesn’t seem to need that many waitstaff, right? Lin cooks with two helpers, only one server at most to help serve the dishes."
Upon hearing this, Elsa, Su, and Nicole exchanged looks, seemingly understanding something.
"You mean, one person works while the rest start learning Chinese right away?"
"I’m just making a suggestion, you should still communicate with Lin, since he’s the boss, lest you get accused of skipping work or something."
Not only them, but Helena and Lucinda were also showing interest.
Dinner doesn’t require two head chefs simultaneously. Typically, one group of customers is assigned one chef.
Even if both head chefs work, one waitstaff is enough for serving dishes.
In theory, as long as the person working in the restaurant agrees, Helena and Lucinda could also stay for the lesson.
"So the question arises, who should work?"
The women exchanged glances, communicating through eye contact for a moment, then they reached a consensus.
Dais had just edited the notification message in the group, and soon after, received a private chat from Helena.
[Dear, we’re currently with Lucas, and after a discussion, we unanimously believe the most efficient way is for one person to handle dinner service each day, while the other five use the saved time to learn Chinese]
[Since you’re already at the restaurant, to celebrate your promotion to manager, could you handle tonight’s dinner for us~]
"...?"
Dais’s mouth twitched a few times, suddenly feeling the urge to bite someone.
To celebrate her promotion, they "reward" her with handling the dinner service alone?
Thanks a lot, guys!!!
After a moment of silent ranting and calming down, she had to admit, this method was indeed the most efficient.
Including Helena and Lucinda, there were six waitstaff in the restaurant, meaning each person only needed to work one night a week and could use the remaining evenings to study Chinese.
This way, while the pay might drop a little, there were hardly any tasks during dinner initially, standing around watching the chef cook was unbearably dull.
Especially for those accustomed to being busy, having nothing to do during work hours was quite uncomfortable.
She got up and went into the kitchen to talk to Lin Chen about it.
"Ah?"
Lin Chen was somewhat skeptical, thinking these girls were incredibly efficient.
Just suggesting hiring someone who knows Chinese, and they’re already on to learning?
"Who are they learning from? Lucas?"
"Yes, they think self-study won’t be as effective as learning from Lucas, as Lucas is originally from Romantic Country and managed to learn Chinese quickly, he definitely has a unique method."
"...Is there a possibility," Lin Chen raised a finger, "he learned quickly because he studied abroad in Great Xia, surrounded by people speaking Chinese?"
Dais was stunned, blinking her eyes, suddenly realizing the chef himself was in the same situation.
The Head Chef seems to not have been here for very long, just a few years at most, but there’s no communication problem, just a bit of an accent.
If that’s the case then...
Forget it, learning slowly is surely better than not learning at all.
Inside the hotel.
Five girls are either sitting or leaning around the bed, with clear, beautiful eyes staring directly at Lucas, looking eager for knowledge.
Lucas scratched his cheek, suddenly a bit unsure of where to start teaching.
"Ahem, uh, before we start, let me first check exactly how much you know about Chinese."
"Tell me all the Chinese you know."
"Crab crab~"
"Nee hao~"
"Morning oyster~"
"My name is Elsah~"
"..."
"That’s it?"
"Good to eat good to eat!"
"...Alright, I have a rough idea now."
Lucas irritably scratched at the back of his head, instinctively turned around, only to realize there’s no whiteboard to write on behind him.
After thinking for a while, he suddenly clapped his hands and said: "How about this, let’s borrow a conference room, there’s definitely a whiteboard in a conference room, it’s empty anyway."
He didn’t bother asking the reception, just directly called Lin Chen, asking him to see if President Wang would let them use a conference room.
The whole hotel belongs to President Wang, nothing’s more effective than getting his approval.
Upon hearing that the beautiful restaurant waitresses actually wanted to use dinner time to urgently learn Chinese, Wang Ziqin became interested, agreed without a second thought, and gave them a small conference room.
These conference rooms are mostly vacant, rarely used except when some business partners come for discussions or for internal monthly meetings.
Even if there are meetings, they use medium and large conference rooms for grandeur, small conference rooms are usually left unused.
When Lucas brought the group of girls to the upstairs meeting room, he immediately saw Wang Ziqin sitting inside with his legs crossed.
"You’re here? Sit anywhere."
"Uh..."
Lucas suddenly had an ominous feeling, tentatively asked: "Why did President Wang come personally?"
Wang Ziqin nonchalantly waved his hand: "Don’t worry about me, I’m just free anyway. I heard you have a knack for learning Chinese, wanted to see how you do it, broaden my horizons."
"If they learn quickly, maybe you could run a class for hotel staff to learn from you, and we’d give you a bonus then."
Audience???
Lucas almost turned to leave, this is too awkward, isn’t it?
He’s not a Chinese teacher, just a foreigner who speaks Chinese, never taught before, how could he have any teaching secrets to share, let alone have a Great Xia person and leader come to listen in?
It’s like a new intern teacher discovering the principal himself sitting at the back during their first lesson.
Even if Wang Ziqin did nothing but sit there, Lucas felt like his mouth was sealed shut, unable to speak.
Seeing Wang Ziqin in the restaurant before, he never felt this way, but changing the setting made a huge difference.
He suddenly regretted being lazy and asking Lin Chen to borrow a conference room from Wang Ziqin, it would have been better to just ask the reception downstairs directly!
Since they’re here, he couldn’t very well make Wang Ziqin leave, so he could only brace himself to start the lesson.
Fortunately, these girls had no foundation whatsoever, so the first lesson just needed to cover pronunciation, which was relatively simple.
Lucas picked up the marker pen and randomly wrote a few rows of letters on the whiteboard.
"Chinese pronunciation mainly consists of these few parts..."
The five women present all mastered two languages, French and English, with some of mixed heritage also knowing a third language like Italian, Portuguese, or Japanese.
With these language skills as a foundation and the quick thinking required for their waitress jobs, they learned quite efficiently, grasping the basics of pronunciation logic in just half an hour.
Lucas’s requirements for them were simple – being able to generally communicate was enough, no need to master writing and reading.
It’s not just them; even Lucas himself was not great in these areas, not knowing many characters and unable to write them, let alone teach.
"Let’s take a break now, organize your notes yourselves, we’ll continue in ten minutes."
Since it was his first time teaching, without any prior preparation, Lucas covered everything he could think of and started the break after that.
He also took advantage of this time to search online for what else he could teach.
At this moment, he suddenly remembered the Great Xia person sitting at the back, should he ask if President Wang has any suggestions?
Lucas looked up, and from this angle could clearly see Wang Ziqin dozing at the conference table in the back.
"..."
"Guess I’m doing a good job of teaching!"
