Do you avoid speaking English? How?

[flameproof]

Another great topic with taxi drivers is talking about how their English learning is going. They're all supposed to be learning it for the olympics, but....

哈哈哈哈, great idea! I hope they won't learn it, otherwise I will take a bus.

[Lu]

Perhaps when your Chinese is better, they'll respond to you directly.

They don't. When I go somewhere with a huaqiao friend of mine, whose Chinese is fine, but mine is better, they address her even when they've heard me I speak Chinese. She thinks it's stupid, I let it go. Plenty of other people that do talk to me in Chinese.

When something like the cashier situation here2learn describes happens, I usually explicitly look the person in the face and ask 'duoshao ne', or look at the number and repeat it in Chinese while paying. (Or maybe you could friendly ask something like 'Ni bu hui shuo Zhongwen ma?')

[carlo]

A funny thing happened to me the other day in Wangfujing bookstore. I was in a hurry looking for a book, when this girl began calling after me in English "Excuse me!" As she wasn't my type and I was in a hurry, I just muttered "对不起，听不懂" and tried to run away.

Without missing a beat, she said "Chinese? No no! You should study English instead! Parlez-vous Francais?" Eh, I did learn some French ages ago, but honestly most of my brain cells formerly dedicated to French have since switched to retaining archaic Chinese dialect pronunciations. I uttered a non-linguistic sound of despair. "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" "小姐，对不起，我有事要走...." "Chinese! Nooo!" And she finally went away.

I'm sure she was a local language student, though she managed to make me feel like an illiterate migrant worker (which is after all what I am).

[Hero Doug]

Perhaps when your Chinese is better, they'll respond to you directly . Seriously though, surely there are nicer ways to deal with the situation? It's not like the poor fuwuyuan is purposely going out of their way to be rude to you.

This is why I said when it's (my Chinese) better because I know there is an excuse (it may be hard for them to understand me). If it still happens "after" I'm conversational (and I know there is no longer an excuse) I'll do what I can to make sure the next foreigner they speak to doesn't get the same rude treatment. I don't find it happens too much, but I do feel it's rude each time it does happen, poor Chinese or not.

They don't. When I go somewhere with a huaqiao friend of mine, whose Chinese is fine, but mine is better, they address her even when they've heard me I speak Chinese.

This happened to someone I knew who spoke excellent Chinese. He had an Asian-Australian friend who spoke no Chinese and people consistantly looked ot her and tried to talk through her even though she always said "I don't speak Chinese".

[Guest realmayo]

I think it's rarely the case that anyone's trying to be rude here. Most people in China are surprised to find a foreigner who can speak very good Chinese and are more surprised still to find a Chinese-looking person who can't speak Chinese.

So: they expect the foreigner to speak something they can't understand.

And expect that the Chinese-looking person is speaking some Chinese dialect that they need to listen to more closely.

People do hear what they expect to hear and blot out what they don't expect to hear.

Consider, off the top of my head, hearing:

"Henry camed the gun" -- if you're expecting to hear about someone called Henry you'd be puzzled.

If you were expecting to hear about Henrik, no problem!

[Hero Doug]

I agree that it's most likely not meant to be rude; most likely shyness, lazieness, or something similar to that.

Addmitedly it's a bit harsh to "lay into them" right off the bat, but I think one would be within their right to first say something like "I asked you the question, you can answer me". Or have your friend say "I didn't ask you, why are you looking at me?"

While I haven't tried this I still believe (and have heard form someone who has tried it) that there will still be people who would rather slight you (intentionally or not, I feel slighted every time) then grant you the common courtesy of replying to you.

[flameproof]

Do you avoid speaking English? How?

When I think about it, speaking is a choice you do. You can choose to speak, or not to speak. You are not forced to speak at all in many circumstances. It's like asking how to avoid?' - you avoid it by simply not going there.

If you prefer to speak Mandarin speak to people which don't know English. I have doubts that they are hard to find in China. If you have problems finding people that only can speak some sort of Chinese then I believe that the problem is more on your side.

I for my part don't really care what language I use. In China there is enough opportunity to use Mandarin, even if you don't want it.

Hands up, how many times you had a massage and the girl was talking English only, or any English for that matter?

[zozzen]

Recently I finally met a lot of Chinese learners in Kunming, but i think English is still important in their circle.

After reading so many complaints in this forum about "being practiced for English" in China, I intended to speak putonghua when i'm in China, but the response wasn't really encouraging as i thought. I guess more than 70% foreigners I met (some even stayed over a year) still can't handle basic communication, and even lesser people can talk about a little bit more complicated topics.

In a cafe I had smalltalk with a group of Chinese, Vietnamese, Canadian and American, the chorus of "shenmen? ni shuo shenme?" was fairly annoying. We gotta explain a Chinese word almost every 3 mins. Then the conversation was often switched back to English to make us less exhausting. Teaching Chinese English is exhausting, and vice versa.

[anonymoose]

CASHIERS - there's one girl in a store near me who says the total for everyone but me. Even though I ask how much, and answer "meiyou" when she asks if I have a card (before she realizes I'm white) when she looks up and sees my face she gets dead silent and turns the display toward me and hits it with her hand to show me the total, not saying a word.

This can be annoying, but depending on where you are, there is a very good way to deal with this situation. As I'm in Shanghai, I'll just say something to them in Shanghainese, even if it's only reading out the total. Either the cashier is Shanghainese, and will be so surprised that I'll get an interesting reaction, or the cashier is from out of province, in which case they'll be embarrassed that the laowai can speak Shanghainese, yet they can't. Either way, it's a win win situation.

[here2learn]

flameproof-

I agree with one thing, and disagree with one thing you said:

When I think about it, speaking is a choice you do. You can choose to speak, or not to speak.

Agree. It helped me to hear that so simply and bluntly. I often speak english with someone because I feel some obligation - that isn't really there - i just feel like they've hardly had a chance to speak with foreigners, so i sort of feel bad, and speak english. But I'm in china. And i CERTAINLY have a right to speak chinese if I choose. I'd expect a person in the US to speak english, and only cater to their language if they needed help. A french or german or british person in their countries will probably *first* speak to a person in the country's language, and switch to another only if necessary. That's what I want to be treated like here.

Anyway, I'll remember your words, that it's my choice, and be more firm.

But this:

In China there is enough opportunity to use Mandarin, even if you don't want it.

I don't feel that's the case. I mean, sure, shopping and taxi rides. Or 'emergency' things like looking up "diarrhea" before going to the pharmacy, then talking to the pharmacist. But my job is all in english, and because everyone there is used to speaking with me in english, my rides home or potential friendships or meals with coworkers also end up in english (though I'm pledging to be more brave about that)

And at home there's no one to talk to in chinese..

I guess I just need to get out more?

I feel my free time is so limited.... I'm often lazy and spend it at home. Thanks to a lot of you here on this board I'm going to try to get out more, into chinese activities.

[DrZero]

Marry a Chinese man. You'll get more than adequate speaking practice with his immediate and extended families.

I went to a hair salon place that does head massages and the staff were quite talkative in Chinese. The real key is to spend time with people who do not have a college education, or at least who majored in something besides English. That of course accounts for the vast, vast majority of people. I'm not sure how that is best accomplished.

[here2learn]

Yeah, DrZero, you just helped me realize I'm also in a funk partly because it's winter. I've been staying in a lot. When I lived in my last apartment I'd go to the park and old ladies would randomly talk to me sometimes. Ok, let me think... where can I go like that now in the cold....?

Oh yeah:

Marry a Chinese man. You'll get more than adequate speaking practice with his immediate and extended families.

Ahhhh...... (daydreaming)....

Well, if whatever I'm doing with that chinese guy is called dating, or will be, maybe I'll get more practice. I will remember what all of you said and START NOW speaking some chinese with him. We do have an established relationship of only english, but it's at work.... meeting outside work is a new thing.... so there's still hope to establish THIS PART of the relationship in both languages! I'm feeling better, now I need to stay brave when I'm actually talking.

Oh, I did well at Subway tonight (the sandwich place):

I made some small talk with the guy making my sandwich, and even though he often quickly kept changing back to english I kept trying to use chinese as much as possible. It wasn't bad, about 50/50. One thing I noticed was this:

When he'd say something in chinese and I didn't get it the first time, instead of repeating himself in chinese (which would have been enough) he switched to english. I didn't even have a chance to say anything, he just saw a hint of uncertainty on my face and switched to english. This happened 3-4 times. I realized I need to work on how to quickly talk about language; like tell the person to just say it again in chinese, not switch... or afterwards say it again in chinese... no problem.... that's my next lesson for myself.

[Maqqie]

Hey,

I am currently studying chinese in China (Shanghai) and have met a few friends (through my other friends whom I study with back in Australia). Most of them I haven't actually met in person as yet, I've just been introduced to them online (through QQ) or chatted a bit on the phone. I have arranged to meet a few of them to celebrate christmas and new years but one thing I've noticed is that a lot of them like to speak in english or add in a few english words whilst talking.

This really bugs me because I've purposely come to China to learn mandarin so that I have the advantage of being able to practice my oral chinese often but most of the time I am speaking english.

Now granted even though my chinese is probably at the intermediate level, my oral and listening abilities are more elementary - intermediate. They are the areas that I struggle with the most. Speaking chinese and getting my message across is not an issue (even though my speech is probably ungrammatical) but when I am spoken to in chinese, I can understand the basic message but anything too elaborate and I struggle.

I am trying to think of ways to get them to speak in mandarin more, preferably all the time in every circumstance but the only excuse I've come up with is "my teacher has told me that I am not allowed to speak english whilst in shanghai". I know I could just ask them to speak chinese but then they'd say they want to speak english...

Anyone have any ideas?

[Meng Lelan]

This is a very major issue with many learners of the Chinese language. I would almost think your post is going to be merged with one of the many threads here dealing with this issue.

[calibre2001]

I usually just keep on speaking in chinese and responses come back only in chinese. If i don't understand then I ask them to repeat. Usually they rephrase itin a way more suitable for 6-7 kids (ok that's embarassing but hey..) in chinese. In a meanwhile you have to really keep working on your listening skills which I feel is tricky.

[imron]

Merged.

[Maqqie]

thanks for the replies, sorry about the repost.

[linlinwang]

Definitely 3， my boss was doing that to everybody who want to practice English with them, no more than 1 week he found all of them changed to speak Chinese to him.

Now my boss speaks quite good Chinese and are very proud of being doing that.

[anonymoose]

Just persist in speaking Chinese yourself, if you can. If they continue to speak English, well, fair enough, they have as much right to use English as you have to use Chinese.

[vertox]

I think firstly it depends on the level of English of the person speaking to you. My closest friend has incredibly good English & it's perfectly natural for us to speak in English because of his English level (virtually native) compared to my Chinese level (intermediate). However, his personality, and confidence with English, means that he is perfectly happy to speak Chinese with me if I start speaking Chinese.... depending on my mood at the time this can last for as long as I want it to last. However, conversely another of my Chinese acquaintances, who lived in the UK, refuses to speak Chinese with me. His English is British accented and his vocab is fairly good, though he won't get subtle turns of phrase, analogies, metaphors, most humor etc..... however, the point is that after asking him on many ocassion to speak Chinese with him he won't. I tried number 3 with him one day and it had no effect - in fact number 3 will not have an effect if the English level is good enough and personality of the person is such as my acquaintance's is. Number 3 - speaking Chinese regardless - is a hapless task, and quickly becomes an unnatural thing. In my experience, this type of exchange is a terribly useless & disjointed affair. the only time it can be useful is if the other person is speaking chinese and you are simply practicing your listening. speaking is not such a 1 way street.

Anyway, I guess the stronger meaning of this post is randoms coming up and yapping at you in English. I do number 4 all the time, ALL THE TIME. It's always worked, don't shout it, just say it normally, 1st time shen me, if they say it again give it another shen me, or a shen me yi si. They WILL change to Chinese. Interchange with ni shuo shen me? , shrugs, bu dong.

The first question is usually where are you from....... before I used to answer in Chinese ying guo, 但是很快发现了他们还是用英文问我东西。So as I saw that just didn't have an effect - they were more often pleased that their English could be understood and I would just answer the same mundane questions in Chinese, which is often equally as mundane, and in my opinion inifinitely more annoying when the person doesn't switch to the language of the country you are in.

That last bit should be the point. We are in China and the de facto language should therefore be Chinese. i've used this in response to people asking why I won;t speak in english to them....我想提高我的中文程度，而且这里是中国，那应该说中文是不是。repeating the 是不是 until u get the desired response is also kinda good.

finally,

re: the cashier not speaking to you because they have this preconceived idea that u won't understand them...... that's easy..... i do it in walmart loads. 1. just stand there, with your wallet half open , look at them and raise your eyebrows, if they still don't say anything, ask duo shao qian ne? in the instances when there's still nothing just a little (不用付钱啊，那太好了，谢谢你。。。i have walked off before with a drink doing just this because she wouldn't answer. technically theft, but i guess u have half a chance of pleading your case,,,,,, er, she didn't say nowt your honour ...