The WOW Effect

[sm_sung]

A recent event got me wondering: What WOW ratings does one get when one manages to learn a foreign language vastly different from one’s native tongue? To me, it seems to depend on one’s race.

Here’s an example:

First, let me introduce TIM. TIM is your typical American-monolingual, satisfied being monolingual, and thinks East Asian languages are impossible to learn.

Suppose Quest, skylee and I (Chinese who speak English and Chinese) hopped on a plane and flew all the way to the States where we strike up a conversation with Tim.

QSI: Hey, Tim guess what, we can speak both English and Chinese! Isn’t that just fabulous?

TIM: And the point is…..For heaven’s sake you guys are CHINESE!

QSI: Did we forget to mention we can also read and write in both languages?

TIM: Oh my, you guys are so full of yourselves. Get a life!

Next, let’s bring in the NCEA team (non-Chinese East Asians who speak English and Chinese)

NCEA: Hey, Tim guess what, we can speak both English and Chinese! Isn’t that just fabulous?

TIM: Not bad at all. But aren’t all Asian languages related in some kind of way?

NCEA: Did we forget to mention we can also read and write in both languages?

TIM: Hey, come on, everyone knows that all Asians use characters to write. What’s so surprising about that?

Now let’s replace the QSI team with the RDW team: roddy, dmoser and wix (Whites who speak English and Chinese).

RDW: Hey, Tim guess what, we can speak both English and Chinese! Isn’t that just fabulous?

TIM: Wow, that’s fantastic! How’d you guys manage to do that?

RDW: Did we forget to mention we can also read and write in both languages?

TIM: Read and write? Really? *gasp* Your last names wouldn’t happen to be Einstein now would it?

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Disappointed, the QSI team flies to China, where they meet LIN. LIN is a Chinese city-dweller, proficient in Chinese and constantly trying to improve her English.

QSI: Hey, LIN guess what, we can speak both English and Chinese! Isn’t that just fabulous?

LIN: That’s good, but I know someone who can do the same. I can speak some English myself.

QSI: Did we forget to mention we can also read and write in both languages?

LIN: So can I.

The NCEA team follows suit

NCEA: Hey, LIN guess what, we can speak both English and Chinese! Isn’t that just fabulous?

LIN: That’s QUITE impressive. But hey I can manage a little Japanese myself so it’s no big deal.

QSI: Did we forget to mention we can also read and write in both languages?

LIN: Did I forget to mention that I can read a little Japanese (thanks to kanji)?

Lastly the RDW team.

RDW: Hey, LIN guess what, we can speak both English and Chinese! Isn’t that just fabulous?

LIN: Wow, I hardly see foreigners who speak fluent Chinese!

RDW: Did we forget to mention we can also read and write in both languages?

LIN: Read and write? Really? *gasp* You must be related to that big mountain guy (Da Shan)!

See what’s happening here? The Whites will ALWAYS get a better wow rating, whether in China or the US! What do you people think?

Please note that TIM and LIN are just hypothetical people I created to facilitate in describing the situation. I’m not trying to make any sweeping remarks regarding any racial or national group.

In any case, whether you belong to the QSI, NCEA or RDW group I wouldn’t recommend starting a conversation with “Hey, XXX guess what, I can speak both English and Chinese! Isn’t that just fabulous?” It’s just wrong!

[林彪]

When people see a Black basketball star, they are not impressed. When people see a Chinese basketball star (e.g. Yao Ming), they're impressed. A Chinese NBA star is something out of the ordinary, like a White guy who knows Chinese. It's the same logic. Not that I condone the judging of people based on the appearances, though.

[林彪]

P.S. I also think that people like TIM (and in my experience, the general public) have a subtle, unconscious belief that East Asians have an ingrained genetic superiority in the type of intelligence that is needed to learn an East Asian script. (Which may or may not be true)

[confucius]

What about ABC types (Australian or American Born Chinese) who can not speak Chinese. I like to WOW them with my fluent Mandarin, even though I'm an ABC too (American Born Caucasian).

You must factor in fluency level when discussing WOW in China. If you have mediocre Mandarin then urban Chinese will just WOW and ask if you know how to use chopsticks as well. If urban Chinese find out you are really proficient then be prepared to recite Tang poetry and perform xiangsheng as they will be determined to see just how fluent you really are. The inevitable Da Shan comparison soon follows.

Rural Chinese are another story. Go to a post office in the countryside and surprise everybody by writing Chinese postcards in front of illiterate peasants. Soon you will have a crowd of Chinese farmers crowding around you to observe the amazing laowai calligraphy exhibition.

[pazu]

My Japanese friends always WOW at my ability to write Kanji, Katakana and Hiragana...

[smithsgj]

> The inevitable Da Shan comparison soon follows

And there was me thinking the guy *was* Da Shan!

[Taibei]

... belief that East Asians have an ingrained genetic superiority in the type of intelligence that is needed to learn an East Asian script. (Which may or may not be true)

Surely you're not serious in suggesting that East Asians may have a "genetic superiority" in intelligence.

[pazu]

I think he was just kidding, never mind.

But it seems to me many Asians I've met could manage to speak at least two languages... or is it the same for all non-English speakers? Haha.

[geoffkhan]

I'm in the RDW team! Woohoo!

Actually I think it's all mythology about Chinese being "so hard" to learn. You get the hang of it eventually.

If you want a hard language, learn French.

[shibo77]

I think Chinese is not a myth of being very difficult, especially the characters. I think that French is a myth of being difficult.

[Lu]

I found French a lot easier to learn than Chinese. It helps if you already speak one or more European language.

Problem was that all my French was gone after studying only a few weeks of Chinese.

[geoffkhan]

I took 3 years of French. The verb conjugations are horrible, and there are SO MANY tenses.

And then I stopped and started Chinese. Ah, relief.

The characters are mainly just memorization, but because they are graphical, they are a lot easier for me to remember. They look so graceful, too, and it's fun writing.

[高可文]

French is impossible. There are far too many tenses that don't make any sense. But for a really impossible language, try Russian.

[geoffkhan]

Lol, I was just talking to someone the other day, who said that Russian is easy and logical (he's learning Russian).

It does seem like a difficult language to me, though.

[高可文]

I don't believe it about Russian. I know only a very little myself, and have forgotten most of it, but it's not easy. On the other hand, I always talk about how easy Chinese is to people who take French or Spanish. I love their reactions when they hear about the utter lack of conjugations.

[高可文]

I don't believe it about Russian. I know only a very little myself, and have forgotten most of it, but it's not easy. On the other hand, I always talk about how easy Chinese is to people who take French or Spanish. I love their reactions when they hear about the utter lack of conjugations.

[geoffkhan]

Or tenses.

I don't wanna start a discussion about that, though. We had the poll thread a while ago for that purpose.

[Hammer]

Try learning Polish, the word changes depending on who you are addressing. I am studying chinese and polish and I had a vocab test for Polish and at the end of my polish test without thinking i said xie xie when I wanted to say dziekuje (thank you in polish) *duh*

Cheers

hammer

[Haoqide]

I gotta chime in about Frency myself. I took 5 years of it in school (2 in Junior High and 3 in High School), and I was pretty good. BUT, the conjugations and tenses, the regular and irregular verbs, the genders of nouns....it's all so ridiculously complicated. Give me Chinese any day, even Cantonese or another dialect with umpteen tones, and I'll gladly choose it over French or some other European language. I've learned more Chinese in the last year than I did French in probably 3 years. Of course, I'm sure some of it has to do with the amount of motivation I have now versus school, even though I really liked French.

[shibo77]

Interesting...

I took 8 years of French, studied 9 years. I think the hardest is memorising which noun class each word belongs to. It is quite irreguler. The verbs were difficult when you see it for the first time, but after a few months, it becomes easier. Alot they don't use, or use very little. One day I tried to teach myself some Spanish because I heard it was similar and it was on my "to-learn list" but I looked at it, and it seemed more difficult than French. English and French have lots of similar words so it saves time, but Spanish words brought in too much Arabic loans. Spanish had more tenses, and each tense had more different endings than French. French usually have either 1st sing and 2nd sing having the same endings or 1st sing/3rd sing having the same endings. The endings are nearly the same for alot of the tenses. Spanish have totally different endings for all number and person. Then I started Arabic, and in comparison, French was much easier. I wouldn't go on studying a language like Chinese. I looked at Japanese textbooks, and there are too much homophones, even with tones like Chinese, Chinese have alot of homophones. This is what I thought.

Also, about the "wow-effect", I think it is because there are much less English-speakers studying Chinese, than Chinese-speakers studying English. Hence the "wow" being imbalanced, because the chances of seeing a non-Chinese/non-Chinese-looking person speak fluent Chinese is very low. While a Chinese person speaking fluent English is very easy to find. In this way, alot of Chinese people abroad try to study several languages at once(French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, German...) to achieve the same degree of "WOW"! In the end, it doesn't really matter much.

-Shibo