Refusing to speak english: success rate

[dalaowai]

Fantastic AdrianLondon, I think that it's great that you speak to them in Mandarin. It shouldn't matter where they're from, we're all in China, so let's speak Chinese.

[adrianlondon]

Actually, I'm living, working and eating in central London, England :-)

[muyongshi]

Well depending on who you believe China will one day rule the world and then England will be a small little piece of the greater Chinese Empire :twisted:

[adrianlondon]

Living next to some University of London and LSE dorms it seems to have gone that way already!

There are many many more mainland Chinese studying in London this academic year than there were last year. It's very noticeable. Unfortunately, apart from occasionally saying "清借过一下" and watching their bemused faces when I need to get past in the local supermarket, I've not managed to interract with them ;)

[md1101]

so... it sounds like no one has really taken it on themselves to completely rule out English then? it's not a question of speaking ONLY a little English here and there. THE reason you would want to rule out English is no different say from completely ruling out coffee or beer. a little beer here and there never hurt anyone but some like to wipe it completely off their list to ensure they don't ever start drinking a lot. and same with coffee. and if you claim its because you dont like the taste then you're not worthy enough to have an opinion.

So the idea of giving up English is to refuse it to the extent that you hopefully even stop thinking in it! At least thats my idea behind it. If i speak a little ill probably speak a little more and little more again until im speaking lots of english. which is indeed what usually happens. i guess if anyone is actually adhereing to a no english rule then they're not allowed to read these forums.

in 2nd year chinese here in sydney uni one of the teachers was an american bloke maybe late 20's early 30s and he had great chinese (our uni certainly wouldnt hire him otherwise). we asked him how he got so good and he said did everything he could to never speak english. even dyed his hair black (dont know why he thought that would help)....

i believe it makes the difference between those who become very very good at the language and those who simply achieve a level of communication that lets them have day to day conversations but still sound clearly foreign to the chinese.

i think you need an extremely high expectation of yourself to master the language and of course huge will power. we've all met the blokes in bars in china who claim great chinese when in fact they've been fooled by all the very polite chinese around them who are just happy to hear a foreigner utter some comprehensible chinese words. i was one of them. the only difference now is i no longer believe ive got great chinese.

i think dalaowai has the right attitude. i don't think he's angry at the people for not speaking mandarin so much as he's just annoyed it keeps happening in so many situations and makes it harder to keep up the 'only chinese' thing.

[muyongshi]

Here's something though that I just find ridiculous about this whole no English thing...

I ONLY speak Chinese with Chinese people. No English period. But my two friends here that are other foreigners' (small city=few foreigners) Chinese is worse than mine (read between the lines...) and if I speak to them in Chinese we would never communicate. And the reason my Chinese is better is because I spent more time with Chinese who couldn't speak English (that and the fact that they were getting married...) That simple. Also the other foreigners in the city are at even worse than them (very little contact though...they are all teachers) and there is no bloody way in hell if I run into them that I could use Chinese with them.

Do you see the absolute implausibility of your idea? I understand what you are hoping to achieve and to a degree it will work, but go ask that teacher if he ever spoke english and I will bet he spoke english a good amount. You cannot become fluent in a language (a normal person anyway) in 6 months or a year. It will take years of hard work and speaking a little English will not destroy that hard work. The more I learn the more I speak but at the same time I have never changed the amount of English I speak and it has no effect...

[md1101]

well muyongshi, quite simply you're someone who would never want to do that! and thats fine. whatever you think works for you. if you're happy with your current rate of progress and like the idea of a chatting away in english to your mates of course thats fine. thats what all of us in china do really! but i certainly think the less english the better. the less english speaking mates very much the better as well. the less associated with that 'little bit of england/australia' or wherever you're from then the more chinese will be taking over. there's not really any arguing in this! anyway i think it seems apparent that no one really has acheived this but its interesting to know if anyone has none the less.

[zozzen]

even dyed his hair black (dont know why he thought that would help)..

that may work. some minority of china is a caucasian and if you dont speak english, people may assume thay you are a part of them. but i wonder if a learner keeps complaining the locals refusing to speak mandarin to him, he obviously stay in a 'wrong place'.

most chinese i met hardly speaks any english except hello and goodbye. keep yourself away big shopping malls, great hotels and universities and you should have some different experience.

[madizi]

As in many cases, it depends on where you are situated in China. In Beijing and Shanghai there are more chances to speak English with Chinese as in other places (inland China, for example).

I met just a few people here in Changsha who really master English, so I have many opportunities to speak Chinese. I work at college where there are students from all China, so I also have a chance to practise my listening ( as you know, every place in China has different ways of speaking putonghua). And I'm the only foreigner at college (for now, because one teacher from Australia is coming to college this month and my boss wants to employ two more foreign teachers from my country; the latter will be BIG minus for my Chinese and English, as both of them are not my mother tongue). When in class, we only speak English and use Chinese just in case if there is no way to explain in English. Outside the classroom, I normally speak Chinese. There are, of course, some people who want to practise English. I tell them that I want to practise too. Chinese, of course. We then agree that I speak Chinese and they speak English and after few minutes the other way round (I speak English and they speak Chinese).

As you see, English is unavoidable for me, but there are still chances to speak Chinese. And I don't see why I should not practise/speak English. It is most widely spread language in the world and to master it is a BIG plus. But I also understand, of course, that the situation of native speakers is much different than that of non-native speakers. Even if they completely drop English and use only Chinese, they will still be able to speak fluently after few years.

There was a debate about waitress speaking English. It think that this is a policy called "customer is king". There are probably many foreigner whose Chinese is not good or they even don't speak Chinese at all. So owners of a bar want to adapt to this people by employing waitresses whose English is good. But if someone wants to speak Chinese, then I don't think that there is any problem at all. And even if she is Phillipino and doesn't speak Chinese... well, I think that it is more worthy not to complicate and get beer faster.

[lilongyue]

I was relatively successful at not speaking English for a few weeks, and then my Chinese wife rebelled and insisted that we speak English at least twice a week, haha. I don't currently have many English speaking friends, and already told my English speaking classmates I'm only speaking Chinese this semester, so I'm probably speaking Chinese about 75 percent of the time.

[heifeng]

Success rate can be 100 percent if you really want it to be. I was successful at this for a total of 6-8 months when I first came to China even though I was in a big city.

It's very very simple: step 1) Don't befriend foreigners that speak English. You can be polite, but you don't have to go out of your way to hang out with them, and then that solves that problem of getting into the English rut. Step 2) you just don't talk to locals that speak English to you and this also conveniently eliminates the problem of dealing with people that are after you for xy and z reasons anyway. In my no English phase I'll ignore lil kids and anyone who would speak English to me. It's quite easy to keep walking, really. You don't believe me, just try it. Foreigners tend to be too polite and actually acknowlege someone when they talk to you. Once you learn to react like a Chinese waitress does when you ask for anything, you'll discover the beauty of ignoring people.

It's sounds quite cold, but it works. I can honestly say I only befriended 1 native English speaker during my very first year out here. I am sure I mentioned this somewhere,(here it is) but if you do this and establish your China contacts, you can be more lenient about letting yourself get away with English or whatever your native language is later...plus you might have to practice your native language once or a while b/c you definitely begin to forget it...

Anyway, it's not really necessary to not speak english super long term, but I would think it is quite helpful in the beginning..

Lastly, worse comes to worse with the waitress situatuation, you just say you don't understand English. I do this when I don't want to deal with someone's English. It works for me because people just think I'm Russian anyway, so who am I to argue with them:mrgreen: grab someone who can speak Chinese to me or I'll just write what I want on their lil' notepad myself. win win situation.