Masozi can say SENTENCES in Mandarin now!

....Well, he does need to have his notes out, and look up or check the words he needs - he's gotten very fluent in the International Phonetic Alphabet now, and has that alongside the word-meanings in Chichewa and the Mandarin characters - and some of the time it still ends up with the grammar very mangled. But, taking that into account. Sentences! 

He carefully prepares a sentence. 

"I think we should practice doing scary things," he says to Wen Ning in Mandarin. (At least, hopefully he's saying a sentence that means approximately that.) 

"...why?" he says, hoping this sounds like a request for information and not a protest.

Masozi has super not prepared his response to that! 

"I need a minute," he says, because he has memorized that phrase in Mandarin. It comes up a lot. 

He consults his notebook. Scribbles shorthand notes on his scrap paper to prepare his answer. 

"I - think both of us are - scared of things that are - important to be able to do?" he tries. "And practice makes things easier?" 

He doesn't want doing scary things to be easier because then he'll have to do scary things.

"...okay," he says.

Masozi has gotten some practice by now at interpreting Wen Ning facial expressions, and that is not an especially happy one! 

"You - now - scared?" he asks, without referring back to his notebook since he just checked all of the relevant words. 

"Doing scary things is scary."

"I know." Another phrase he has memorized. "Want - hug?" Hopefully that's the word for 'hug', at least, he's pretty sure he remembered it right. 

"Yes, please."

Hug! 

It is slightly harder to consult his notes while hugging Wen Ning, but Masozi manages it one-handed. 

"If - talking about it - already scary, we - start there?" he suggests. "While I hug you, so easier?" 

"Okay. What kind of scary things should we do?"

"I think - us do different things?" Pause while he hunts for words. "I get scared of - loud noises. If someone drop something in shop, I scared and hide." (He's allowed to attend shop again now! On Tuesdays, though, which Masozi is still irritated with Lan Xichen about.) "Could practice with - you make loud sound, surprise me, when we study?" 

"I don't... think... I can? Make a loud sound?"

"Because scary?" Hug hug hug. 

"I don't want to bother anyone."

"You bother me? And I ask, so - not bad?" 

"May... be?"

It's scary to tell Masozi no but it's also scary to make loud noises! Probably arguing with Masozi is the scarier thing.

Masozi can tell that he's scaring Wen Ning! But practicing this is kind of the entire point, so he's not going to back off just yet. 

"You are my friend," he says, quietly - he doesn't have to check his notes because he's memorized that phrase too. "I - I want -"

He makes a frustrated noise and flips through his notebook. "- I want you not die. So have to - do things. To not die." This is probably a very unclear way of conveying it but it's easier than tracking down more words right now. 

"I know I need to do things in order to not die."

(He feels the sick sensation in his stomach of being a disappointment.)

"Is - too scary - this?" Masozi tries. "Or - scary but learn from?" 

"I... don't know?"

"...I think enough scary," Masozi declares. And now he should make sure Wen Ning feels rewarded for it. "I so proud of you!" he declares. 

"Really?"

"Yes! I am! I -" words, aaaah, "I - make you think thing? Scary thing? And you - not run away, not hide, not cry? I think if I that scared I hide at table." Frown. "'Under'," he adds in English. 

Masozi has at this point sort of given up on grammar. It takes way too long to have a conversation if he has to carefully plan out each sentence before he says it. 

"No one has ever been proud of me before!"