Learning Chinese and forgetting the rest. . .

[roddy]

There's a topic on here about getting foreign languages mixed up. Does anyone find they start making a mess of their own language after too long working in Chinese?

I'm finding my English getting more and more Chinese like. I've been known to ask people to 'open a light' rather than turn on one, and frequently have to go back to my office because I've forgotten to 'close my computer' rather than turn it off or shut it down.

I've also made reference recently to a floor comb (floorbrush) and electric tap (plug). These are perhaps most worrying as I don't think they're even correct in Chinese, never mind English.

Roddy

[ChouDoufu]

I think that just happens naturally. If you don't speak your native language enough with native speakers then your level definitely drops. If you said those things in the UK or the states then people would look at you funny.

After a while, when people asked me questions about English I'd just say, "I should know the answer to that, but I don't because my English isn't nearly as good as it used to be."

[Guest Humani]

I do that, without even knowing chinese... I mean I'll say 'you close the computer, or?' instead of 'did you switch off the computer?' 'you put the CD where?' instead of 'where did you put the CD?'even when i can't say that sentence in chinese... we have conversations like that all the time, english words and chinese grammar.. no-one knows both languages properly... (and this is in england). it's a real effort, to start speaking properly when i'm with my family. my mum keeps telling me i've said a strange sentence, and i don't even notice..

when i get around to learning these words in chinese, I hoping the word order will come natuarlly at least!

[Tsunku]

I've been called out on my "Chinglish" more than once. Since I was living in China with a Chinese person (but mostly speaking English) it got really bad. I was supposed to be correcting my boyfriend's grammar and helping it out, but I was worse than he was.

I still catch myself sometimes now that I'm back. What's worse is mixing Chinese into English. My friends probably think I'm trying to be ghetto with all the "nigga nigga." That was one that I *swore* to myself I would try not to import back to the states, but it pops out my mouth all the time anyhow.

[skylee]

But this is what happens to us in HK all the time. We basically cannot say anything without mixing up Chinese and English. I have to make an effort to speak completely in Chinese.

I recall back in univ, there was a teacher who was Taiwanese, educated in the US and taught in HK. He could not complete a sentence without using all three (mandarin, english and cantonese).

[confucius]

I find it mildly annoying when I'm talking to native Chinese speakers and they somehow mix English words into their language despite the fact that suitable Chinese vocabulary exists. It's usually like this:

"Nei ge Feizhou tongxue hen polite; wo xiang qing ta lai women de party."

In my mind I always immediately translate whatever English words were just spoken into the proper Mandarin, sometimes I even interrupt them with the appropriate Chinese word.

[wix]

I find it mildly annoying when I'm talking to native Chinese speakers and they somehow mix English words into their language despite the fact that suitable Chinese vocabulary exists.

confucius, I agree. Foreigners in China are also guilty of doing the same while speaking English. e.g. Let's go out for a few pijiu's and so on. It is really only useful when you are using a word which is difficult to translate or has no equivalent in the other language.

[Guest jekor]

One girl I spoke with in Japan switched between Esperanto, English, and Japanese all within the same sentence. By the end of one day of speaking with her, not only was I exhausted, but I was doing the same thing myself. I wish I had a recording of the conversation we had while I was showing her how to transfer images from her digital camera to her computer...

[pazu]

I find it mildly annoying when I'm talking to native Chinese speakers and they somehow mix English words into their language despite the fact that suitable Chinese vocabulary exists. It's usually like this:

"Nei ge Feizhou tongxue hen polite; wo xiang qing ta lai women de party."

In my mind I always immediately translate whatever English words were just spoken into the proper Mandarin' date=' sometimes I even interrupt them with the appropriate Chinese word.[/quote']

Oh Confucius, for the first time I agree with you totally!

This is something I hate too. I'm Chinese, but whenever Chinese talked to me with too much unnecessary interruption of English words, I just told them if they could speak Chinese well... it's just too annoying. Do you know the pianist Lang Lang? (I forgot his name in Chinese... LONG LONG in Cantonese anyway), he was interviewed on RTHK when he was in Hong Kong, and I wonder what he's really want to tell, e.g. "wo juede zheshi hen... IN'NOVATIVE ,,, hen you CHUANGYI, wo hai shi hen xihuan zhexie MUSIC,,, jiushi YINYUE!

Okay, he didn't use this wording, but I'm just trying to do what he did in the interview.

Oh what the hell he was talking about? Like going in an English lesson, tell you an English word, then come with a Chinese explanation. This is really some of the most annoying thing you can hear.

But of course, I don't mind to put some English words into conversation, but they should be necessary or at least accepted by most people. Like CD, i-cable (a company name in Hong Kong, they have a Chinese name too), NOTEBOOK (computer), MOUSEEEE (computer), etc.

[skylee]

The pianist's name is 郎朗.

[roddy]

I find it mildly annoying when I'm talking to native Chinese speakers and they somehow mix English words into their language despite the fact that suitable Chinese vocabulary exists.

I met the high priests and priestesses of this today. I had a job interview with a translation company, and the tour of the company went something like this . . .

这是我们的translation部门, 这位是Mister张, 这部门的chief. 这面是我们的library, 本来很有用但是现在有internet, 所以. . .

And so on. To be fair I think it was mostly because they weren't sure of my Chinese (justifiably so) but it made for confusing listening.

Roddy

[channamasala]

I find myself referring to words that could conceivably be right in Chinese, but aren't necessarily, in English (sort of like what Roddy said in his OP about a "floor comb") - I've called tupperware "plastic baskets" and a phone an "electric speaker" (would you say that "dianhua" is more "electric speaker" or "electric language"?) and I once forgot the word for oil (the kind you dig up in the Middle East, not the kind you cook with) and said "black water" - I don't think that's right even in Chinese, but one of my students forgot the English word for oil and called it "Yi-ra-ke (Iraq, I presume, I never did learn the pinyin for it) de hei shui" during class discussion.

But see, that's sort of amusing - what really got me when I left China was how I was screwing up English grammar and had to unwind and untangle my sentences every time I tried to say anything complicated, or even not complicated (The guesthouse in street's left side...wait, the guesthouse is on the left), which is a mistake following Chinese grammar. Then there are the times when I start speaking English like my students did - and I don't mean my good students. "I go store to buy many food." "To eat it the food is good." "Hong Kong has the many beautiful architectures."

It got worse when I returned to India - Indian English is my real second language ("You are wearing too much of glitter only!" "Are you having your passport?" "The Am-eeh-ricans always are wearing small small skirt!" "I want you are coming to Bangalore for my son's marriage Miss Janna.") and I started garbling sentences like you wouldn't believe. "The guesthouse in street's left side but that walk very far" became "The guesthouse is being on street's left side only, it is too much of walk!"

And finally, when flustered in China and trying to speak Chinese, especially toward the middle of the year as I was crossing from "Yeah, I don't actually speak Chinese" to "Yeah, I can hold a conversation that is about more than my marriage, my salary, my job or my nationality", I found myself saying the most ridiculous things in two languages. Examples:

1.) "I am so totally hai pa!"

2.) "Look, Wo holding yi bei cha, and if you tui me, I'll spill the cha on you!"

3.) "Qing bie cutting in line." "Jingcha bu zai." (I am amazed that he understood what I said by "cutting in line") "Wo shi waiguoren, na me wo shi jingcha, so f*ck you!"

[channamasala]

Small addition -

Anyone, after being away from native English speakers for awhile, assume unconsciously that no one speaks English save yourself and try to speak really slowly and using simple words to, say, Australians because you've had to do that with every "English speaker" you've met in China for the past six months?

I ask because my coworker and I started doing it to each other without realizing it. "Yeah, I'm really passionate about art. That means that I like art very much." "Jenna, I know what "passionate" means." "Oh yeah, I guess you would, wouldn't you?" And also things like "Let's go get a DVD to watch" became "I want to watch a Dee-Vee-Deeee. Do...you...want...to....buy...a...Dee-Vee-Deeeeee with me?"

[Guest dmbrooking]

I don't know... I do tend to find it annoying when someone speaks in mixed languages - theres a word for people like that -poly... something. I'll have to check.

But what about someone learning a language? When learning a new language with people who speak it, I am always mixing my english with their language. If I know a word in French, for example, I'll say it in french... if not, it's in English. Eventually I am speaking completely in French.

[channamasala]

mixing up two languages that way, specifically if done during the first years of speech (in babies/children of course) when they are exposed to two languages as native languages, is called "interlanguage". However, interlanguage can also be extended to mean someone familiar enough with two languages (ie, a native English speaker whose parents were Chinese immigrants to the USA but whose Chinese may not be very good) who will, in some or all contexts, use words and grammar selectively from both languages.

[Guest dmbrooking]

polyglot.... thats what it is. speaking in multiple languages

[smithsgj]

Polyglot just means a person who speaks a gazillion languages. You're thinking of code-switching, maybe?

[Guest dmbrooking]

Polyglot just means a person who speaks a gazillion languages. You're thinking of code-switching, maybe?

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=polyglot

A mixture or confusion of languages.

[channamasala]

code-switching is right for mixing languages that is not a result of them both being native languages and the mixing occurring as a process of learning them - an Ecuadorian immigrant's children raised bilingual in Spanish and English would use interlanguage as a child, before they could differentiate the two, and it would be code-switching later when both languages are fully realized (however, if they are mixing because they honestly don't know the difference, even later in life, that is still interlanguage). An Indian who has attended an English medium school or come to work in the UK would be code-switching, since the mother tongue is generally not English (although sometimes it can be - I have plenty of bilingual-from-birth Indian friends whose "other" (or one of the other) languages is English.

So says my linguistics textbook from junior year of uni - I came up with the examples but didn't spout all of that out from memory.

[smithsgj]

ok brooking, should have checked first!