This morning, I went for the first time to a Chinese-language church service. It’s the first time I’ve been to church on Sunday for a while, because half of my family is Christian and half Jewish. The church service was both encouraging and a little discouraging.

It was encouraging how much I understood and how I was able to talk with the people. Mandarin is a tough language for English speakers, and I’ve still got a long way to go before I’m really proficient.

It was a little discouraging how much I didn’t understand. First, everyone talked fast, but that was expected. Second, the readings (from the Bible’s Book of Esther) were projected on computer screens at the front. Chinese can be written either horizontally (left to right) or vertically (top to bottom). The readings started out horizontal but then unpredictably switched to vertical, back and forth. For someone like me who was already struggling to read the text, it was hard to keep up.

Another hurdle was that Chinese can be printed in either simplified or traditional characters, and the readings were printed in traditional characters. I only know simplified characters. Fortunately, about 80 percent of the characters are the same in both, but the other 20 percent tripped me up a lot. Most of the Chinese people around my city are from Taiwan, which uses traditional characters.

At least the minister spoke loudly and clearly, so he was relatively easy to understand. Dress was very casual; the minister and I were the only ones wearing ties.