Language Pledges

[roddy]

Sudden bout of curiousity: How many of you out there have at some point made a pledge to only speak in Chinese, even to other foreigners? How successful was it? Did you manage to stick to the pledge, or was it only when you were being observed? Did you wind up having fewer and less complex conversations? How did you cope with people who just spoke to you in English? And does posting on English-language forums constitute a breach?

It's not something I've ever done. However, a couple of obviously foreign girls did stop me once and ask directions in Chinese for a local cafe. I replied in English, and only later realized I'd probably caused them to break a language pledge. So if you're out there, sorry, and I hope you enjoyed your sandwich.

[xianu]

I've done language pledges. They seem to work really well for the most part, although it is really tough for the beginning students to do it. The more advanced students tend to do a lot of helping out with vocabulary. I think if people aren't super totalitarian about it, and some Chinglish is allowed, it can work well, and everyone's language improves. What I found was that even though for the most part we spoke English once we left the school, the fact that we all engaged in a Chinese environment together made it easier to slip into Chinese outside of the language pledge area. Whereas it sometimes feels awkward to speak a mutual second language with people who also share your first language, because we had the pledge, it was actually kind of natural.

[FSO]

Roddy, in my program (basically CET, but all one-on-one instruction) we observe a language pledge to speak only Chinese during the school day (i.e. from 0800 until 1500). That includes lunch and breaks, so we students (all gringos) spend a considerable amount of time speaking to one another in the target language. We are all fairly advanced students, so I agree with Xianu's point about things probably being a bit more difficult for new beginners. The language pledge has been particularly helpful in improving my casual speech - something I was sorely needing when I began the program.

I think common sense is the key to observing language pledges. My colleagues and I go home to our families every night, so we don't speak Chinese there. Also, when dealing with non-chinese foreigners, we use whatever language is most appropriate. You don't want to cheat yourself or your colleagues, but you also don't want to take the pledge to the point of absurdity. Anyway, that's my view of it.

[crow610]

I just try to hang out with non-English speakers which is actually really hard when a lot of the Chinese students are so eager to practice their English, and it seems apparent that they don't want you to speak Chinese with them. With my English speaking friends, we usually speak English but if there is a non-English speaker among us then we just stick to Chinese out of respect. It's especially hard at times when you can tell the other person is so eager to speak English that speaking Chinese might break their heart..haha

[redmini]

interesting topic, ive definitely tried a number of times before to have language pledges with my english speaking friends and originally they all probably lasted only for two seconds.. we tended to have long silences when the parties involved were trying to construct what they wanted to say in their heads, and then out tumbled half english half chinese grammatically incorrect sentences that were met with confused looks and head shakes. then because no one understood, it was an all too natural reaction to switch to english to explain.

getting a lot better though.. the pledges are lasting up to days now

[adrianlondon]

I'm also curious to know if it worked.

I recently spent a semester living on campus in Beijing, learning Mandarin. I had quite a few Chinese friends, and we'd spend some time chatting in English and some in Mandarin. However, this wasn't a formal arrangement.

When I was chatting with my flatmate and his friends, all Indonesian, at the beginning we'd try to use Mandarin, but I soon discovered that most of their tones were wrong and I was scared that I'd end up learning the wrong tones. From experience, once you've learnt the wrong tone it's very (very) hard to relearn it. So from that discovery on, I decided to chat in English with other foreigners unless they were totally accurate in their tones. Limited vocabulary was no problem, but bad tones scared me

Was I right to have done what I did?

[heifeng]

My first six months plus out here I was super strict in my own personal language pledge:

- no English, (only exceptions lost tourists asking for directions)

- no English tv channels or movies

- no mandarin dubbed movies (too unnatural and not enough background noise)

- limited English news reading

- no falling into traps, thus avoiding any type of English teaching/ tutoring, 'teach me English' psuedo friendship scenario.

- If it wasn't Chinese it was silence. (This will make you pretty proactive to go find a local Chinese to chat with otherwise risk insanity.)

Then after the first year in China, I had a Chinese network and could relaxed the pledge a bit.

[Ge-lin]

I din't think a language pledge is important if you have the will to learn--you'll end up speaking the language. Why force it upon yourself? If I were to do such a thing, though, I would break if for the foreigners that look really lost (I have saved a few from serious confusion); that's just a kind thing to do, I think. Usually everyone in Taiwan outside of Taipei naturally speak to me in Chinese (in Taipei they always speak English first)... If they do, and it annoys you, you could say, "bu hao yi si, ke yi gen wo shuo zhong wen ma? Wai guo ren you bu yi ding hui jiang ying wen.." (and that way you don't have to lie about not being able to speak English, just give them a hint) or something

anyway, that's my two cents

[<<恒心>>]

I've done it, and I think it worked very well. After getting my B.A. in Chinese, I spent a year and a half at Beida and took a no-English-ever approach from the outset. When I arrived, I was given a choice of roommates, so I picked a Japanese guy from Nara. He had studied English of course, but he was too embarassed to use it, so we had no choice but to communicate in Chinese only. I soon entered his circle of (Japanese) friends and with them as well, English was not an option, either.

If I was on campus, I hung out with them, and if I was off campus, I hung out with Chinese friends. I made friends with the employees and managers of the local internet cafe, and they were all non-English speakers. Since most people figured I was a non-English speaker myself (rumor had it I was German or something) the whole question of speaking English just never came up that much.

My Chinese got a lot better, faster, than my English-speaking classmates, and I also picked up a fair amount of Japanese in the process, too. Also made friends with a lot of great people that might not have otherwise.

[crow610]

Arg...maybe I'm just too nice but a majority of the people I meet on campus are ones who are eager to learn English! Even when I speak mostly Chinese they will usually respond in English. Now those of you who have this "pledge", how would you avoid this situation?

I actually sometimes prefer talking to the 服务员cause a) most don't know English and B) they're not constantly talking about grades/school/finding a job..bla bla....

[venture160]

I've done a language pledge as well with CET Harbin. I thought it worked VERY well, but I did it for 12 months straight and afterwards it took about 2-3 months to get my english back up to speed, and even longer to fix my writing skills. But it helped to improve my spoken chinese, and we avoided the pitfall of only speaking to Americans in Chinese by having Chinese roommates. Also, it was a great way to avoid the english langauge tutoring, just tell them if you speak english you get sent back to the states.

For the past three months I have been in the states taking classes here, and besides my classes, I have been under a self imposed language pledge. I have chinese roommates, and when i go between classes its nothing but radio shows I have downloaded onto my mp3 player. 80% of the news I read was in Chinese. I am on spring break taking some time off from this, but I"ll prob return to this mode in a few weeks.

[crow610]

So those of you who are on this "pledge", do you also think in Chinese?

[venture160]

I did thinking, dreaming and counting in Chinese.

[kdavid]

Someone a few posts back mentioned being approached by other non-native Chinese speakers. I've found a good remedy for this problem:

Whenever I'm approached by someone wanting to practice their English in the streets, in a restaurant, etc., I just tell them I'm Czech and can't speak English (in Chinese). If they continue to try and speak English, I just make a confused face and walk away. It's actually quite entertaining.

[xianu]

I am surprised by how adamant some of you are about refusing to speak English, and coming up with little background scenarios for dealing with it. I didn't mind meeting and speaking English with people, Chinese or foreign. I made some great friends from many different places, and I like to think I helped a lot of frustrated travelers gain an appreciation for China (rather than be all bitter about it).Perhaps because I am ethnically Chinese (ABC) I never had an issue with people randomly trying to practice English with me, or with non-Chinese randomly singling me out to help them communicate/translate. I have always wondered how my ability to "pass" affected my experience. Any other ABC's, for whom Mandarin was definitely a foreign language care to comment on this?

[Meng Lelan]

I did what kdavid did, tell them that I couldn't speak English and act confused if they kept on trying to speak English to me. This worked because I would tell them it is because I have a severe hearing impairment (which is true, I have to wear hearing aids to hear). You do have to be very strict with yourself if you want to self-impose a language pledge and you want to improve your Chinese. Otherwise those pseudo "teach-me-English" friendships (heifeng put this into words very well) will drag down your Chinese level very very quickly. Those of us who are in China to learn Chinese well will self-impose the pledge (maybe this comprises one percent of all the foreigners who come to China). Those of us who are in China to not learn Chinese well are going to keep on speaking English to the locals and the foreigners (this would maybe comprise the other 99% of foreigners who come to China).

[xianu]

I always found that friendships with these "teach-me-english" types, if they actually were with likable people, turned into great language exchanges, and I learned a lot of vocabulary and especially the more colloquial verbage, plus lots of culture from them. Partly because they had attained a certain level of english proficiency, and were obviously interested in American or Western culture, there were things that we could talk about that would improve both my Chinese and their English. Though of course, you have to weed out the puds from the nice folks. And that's when making up stories about your past can be a fun and entertaining way to live.

[Stefani]

Well, I was much younger then, but I had a language pledge to speak English as much as possible. I had learned English in Indonesia, but my expressive skills were lacking. A friend who lived with other Indonesians said that it took her 3 months before she was comfortable speaking & writing English, and she was very smart.

I did not want it to take that long, so I forced myself to speak English as much as possible and asking other Indonesian friends to do the same. As a result, it took me a month before I was comfortable speaking, and started dreaming in English. Like any languages, the more time you spend in a particular language the better your skills will be in that particular language.

It was difficult, but it worked very well, but one's language skills have to be quite high already (I don't think it will work well with beginners, my English was probably intermediate / upper intermediate at that time, especially for the receptive - reading and listening - portion).

[Long Pan]

This article from China Daily, is about the Chinese program organised in Beijing by Princeton University which has a language pledge; Students “must pledge to speak no other language than Chinese for the duration of the 8 weeks to two semester program, at risk of being expelled”. Does not say if they can read English or not. Quite impressive !