Breaking chinese friends/coworkers of the English-Only habit?

[here2learn]

Hi,

I'm looking for any little ideas or suggestions, or your experiences with... switching languages? Changing languages?... with someone you've only spoken one language with in the past.

Say you speak english with a chinese coworker for months and then start hanging out outside of work. Well, my worktime is ALL in english, and in my non-work time I want to speak chinese as much as possible.

I can think of 3 people right now I want to break of the english-only habit. At work, fine, but on the 50-min walk/subway ride home that one girl insists on accompanying me on several times a week, it's getting annoying. But she's a nice person and I have no reason to be rude to her. Plus I need to work with her. Actually she tries to teach me chinese but not through actually speaking it, and she's clueless at judging what I know already. After me saying in chinese that I'm tired and hungry but tomorrow I can sleep late, her little "english lesson" for me was, in a slow careful voice, "Do you know 你好？How about 谢谢?“

She spent one whole subway ride making me repeat a poem about a duck. An older couple sitting near us joined in. I'm not kidding.

She needs to be a kindergarten teacher.

And with this chinese guy I like (it's in another thread), well, I WANT to be talking with him, and it's not that he doesn't want to speak chinese, but his english is better than my chinese, and he seems uncomfortable when I speak chinese. It's not because my chinese is terrible. My vocabulary is low, but my pronunciation and tones are fine, in fact MOST people misjudge me and think I can speak pretty well, so they start rattling off in chinese (taxi drivers, shop people). Point is, I know I'm not an ear-sore, that's not the reason.

I honestly think it's just a weirdness factor.

He's ONLY heard me speak english for months, and it's just weird. It's a little weird to me to. But I NEED to be speaking chinese! I'm living in china, darnit, and part of the reason I'm here is to learn chinese!

How far should I push it, and how?

(still being polite)

Thanks

(sorry so long)

[anonymoose]

Lots of people have complained about similar situations in the past, that Chinese people refuse to speak Chinese with them. However, I have never really encountered this as a serious problem. I nearly always speak only Chinese with the majority of my Chinese colleagues. I think one factor is how you establish the relationship. This wasn't my first time working in China, so right from the beginning I spoke only Chinese, and this tradition seems to have stuck.

In your situation it may be a little more difficult, since your relationship has already been established, but perhaps when you start a conversation with your colleagues, try using Chinese. It may feel awkward, but you can make it clear that you are doing so to practice, and then continue to do so, even if they reply in English. Also the other option is just to find new friends outside of work, and speak to them in Chinese from the beginning.

To some extent I have the opposite problem. All of my Chinese friends speak to me in Chinese. Some of them as far as I know can speak English, but they refuse to speak in English with me. Of course this is good for my Chinese practice, but in terms of finding a long-term partner, I'd like to know that they have a reasonable level of English also.

[imron]

so right from the beginning I spoke only Chinese, and this tradition seems to have stuck.

I think that this is they key. I find that usually whatever language I used most when first getting to know someone is the language that we end up mostly speaking to each other. This means that mostly I end up speaking English with Chinese friends I know from when I first came to China, whereas I mostly end up speaking Chinese with the friends I've made later on. Obviously it's not purely one or the other, and there's a good deal of switching that goes on depending on several factors, but this seems to play a pretty large role.

[Lu]

Subway girl seems eager enough to help, so perhaps you could thank her for that, and say that you would really appreciate it if she spoke Chinese with you, and that would help even more. Be nice about it. Perhaps you can suggest a topic, so she can feel like a teacher. And when you've explained that, just keep talking Chinese with her, even if she replies in English. I find that even the best English speakers eventually switch to Chinese if you keep it up. That is, if your Chinese is good enough.

As to the co-worker, perhaps you could explain to him that you'd like to talk more Chinese with him, and then talk Chinese to him. On the other hand, if his English is better than your Chinese, and thus communication would work best in English, and on top of that he's uncomfortable with your speaking Chinese, perhaps you should just leave it at mostly English and make some more Chinese-only friends out of work.

In the end, it's about just doing it: talk Chinese to them. Good luck!

[DrZero]

I don't think you can change the people you already know. There are several reasons.

-Mental barrier on their part, not believing that silly laowai could ever speak Chinese.

-Desire on their part to practice English.

-Their English being better than your Chinese, making communication more efficient in English (and making it awkward to communicate in Chinese).

-Fact that the relationship began in English, also making it awkward to speak in Chinese.

You must do one or both of two things: a.) Get some new friends whose English level is below your Chinese, b.) get your Chinese so good it's better than their English level, making it absurd and awkward to communicate in English with them. I know, it's harder to do when they won't practice Chinese with you, but there are many other ways to study besides talking with them.

[trevelyan]

You might want to try steering the conversation towards something (1) they care deeply about, (2) they can't adequately explain in English.

[self-taught-mba]

I think you said it best yourself,

"my worktime is ALL in english, and in my non-work time I want to speak chinese as much as possible."

So you should just say to them: "my worktime is ALL in english, and in my non-work time I want to speak chinese as much as possible, would you be willing to help me with that?"

If they say no then you know what kind of friends you have.

[DrZero]

How about we start with the premise that communication should be first and foremost about exchanging ideas and information, and not about somebody practicing a language on another? If I ask someone how many people are in their family, and I actually could care less but just want to practice the sentence I learned today, then I'm being a little disingenuous.

So, it seems reasonable to use the language that allows this exchange of ideas to occur most efficiently. To do otherwise is to impose an unnecessary barrier to communication.

So, if your Chinese is better than the other person's English, yet they insist on using English, then they are doing a disservice to communication. They may have mental barriers to a laowai speaking Chinese (which may make them a less than ideal partner for conversation). Or they may be seeking only to use you as a prop for their English practice -- to my mind, kind of being an a**hole.

On the other hand, if their English is better, yet you insist on using Chinese, it could be that you're being a bit of an a**hole yourself ...

The obvious response is, "If they don't let me practice my Chinese, how can I improve?" There are a lot of ways -- classes, watching dramas, hiring a tutor, chatting with people who don't know English.

But forcing Chinese in a situation where the "path of least resistance" for communicatiuon is English is not the best way.

[simonlaing]

I think sometimes this needs to be eased into.

Espicially if the others want to practice their English . You could say let's try and speak Chinese at the beginning. Speak a little slower and I will keep up. If we have too much trouble we can go back to English.

Another way is to make some Chinese friends who can't or don't like to speak english much at all. Sports are a good way to do this, volleyball, soccer. When you interact with them they will like just having a western friend and won't mind being patient with you in speaking Chinese.

Some Chinese can't fathom westerners speaking Chinese. (Other than Da Shan)

It's just a stereotype,

good luck,

have fun,

Simon:)

[msittig]

Hire a tutor? And try your hardest not to turn into a language rapist.

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2005/07/07/talk-talk

[here2learn]

Firstly, thank you to EVERYONE who responded (or still might). I'm new to this site, and I really feel good here. It seems like a sane, useful, encouraging place. And friendly. So thanks.

Second - I'm not a 'language rapist', I'm not worried about that! If anything I'm the one getting 'raped' and not speaking up enough in chinese. (I'm too nice sometimes)

I think with Subway Girl it's what some of you said about not being able to fathom a foreigner speaking chinese. Hence the "Do - you - know - 你 - 好 ？" after I just said some complete sentences. What I imagine replying (but of course, didn't) was "Do - you - know - HELLO?" (heehee) Don't worry, I wouldn't be rude, that's just a silly in-mind-only response. I think the only thing I can do with her is speak chinese as much as possible, so she can see what I know and either help me usefully or at least relax into some normal combination of english/chinese. That's the plan.

Some of you said if we're genuinely friends, language choice shouldn't matter - I mostly agree, and my last subway ride home was with a different girl, and it was mostly english. But I didn't mind this time, because she was talking about her upcoming vacation/WEDDING, which I felt so excited for her about.... it didn't matter which language, I really enjoyed talking to her, period. But I still would prefer at least 50/50 relationships, and will try to establish them like that from the beginning from now on. I am in china after all, I'm allowed to want to speak chinese.

Next we have those of you who said that once the relationship has been established in a language, it will probably be difficult to change. *sigh* I think that's the biggest problem, and why the chinese guy I like feels awkward. But there may be hope there. He actually asked me, "how's your chinese coming?", and I told him some things I said here, about not having much chance to speak chinese. He suggested what simon said - get into some activities. I said I don't know of any, and he offered to help me out... we'll be getting together this weekend!! He'll be teaching me to play some card game in chinese, then maybe next time we can play with his friends!!! We shall see how it goes.... I'm REALLY looking forward to it! (I hope his friends don't speak english, haha!)

I did have a friend a while back who didn't speak english, and it was great! He didn't even care to learn. I surprised myself at how many topics I could talk about (though only lightly) with my limited vocabulary. I have no clue how many words I know, but say I know 1000 words... I got quite creative with rearranging the same small words in new ways to describe how I felt about religion or society or music.

I'll do what self-taught-mba said and just outright say that in my off work time I try to speak chinese as much as possible, and I'll do this with all new people. That's my plan for new people. Tell them that (like a warning, haha) then I MUST stick to it!

And LASTLY, yes I am learning in other ways, I take a class but it's only a few hours each week, and I watch dvd's, in fact I STUDY them, rewinding, writing down sentences, etc.... but these things are not natural conversation. I feel like in class I learn stuff, and it should be preparing me for the real world; then I want to go out and USE the stuff I learn in class. I shouldn't have to pay to speak a country's language in that country.

Thanks to everyone up to this point!

[atitarev]

Some people already mentioned it but I'll repeat. If you want somebody to speak to you in Chinese - do it yourself. I start a conversation in Chinese about some topic, or even say:

我要练习一下。怎么说。。。啊。好的。

你知道吗？。。。

If they keep speaking in English, you keep trying and speak Chinese as much as possible, usually, Chinese speak to you in English because they are not confident you are able to understand them. If you convince them, they may speak more Chinese with you. 很简单！

[CapnKernel]

And try your hardest not to turn into a language rapist.

Aka, "zhongwen bandit". You come in, "steal" all their chinese, then run away! :-)

[wannabeafreak]

It took me 9 months to get 50% of my colleagues to speak to me in Chinese all the time. Still there are the 50% remaining who insist in English, however, I work in a MNC so if I want to keep my job I just accept.

How fluent and advanced are you? What type of topics can you talk about?

Now-a-days I have enough fluency to talk about software and server migrations, though will encounter about 1-2 new words per conversation which I don't really like because it makes me feel like I'm out of control. Being a manager is not good to show weakness to your team.

It took me 1 year to get my wife to speak 100% Chinese to me all the time. The problem is vocabulary and people don't like to waste time explaining, speaking slowly or being misunderstood. For her I was rude, I just refused to acknowledge any of her English until she would just give up.

I told my colleagues directly that I can understand the majority of their Chinese when they speak and I would appreciate people not translating back into English because they are wasting my time and their time. I told them directly to not speak to me in English while I'm not in the office as I would rather listen to my MP3 player instead. I stopped going to lunch with them as they initially saw me as an English tutor, and now they only speak Chinese to me at lunch if I accept their invitations.

People don't like to be YOUR Chinese teacher either. So if the majority of your conversation (99.9%) isn't about new words or explaining the meaning of a new word, then you should consider them. Also people don't like to tone down their language for you to be understood... perhaps my wife will find lots of words to describe 1 complex word that I may have not learnt yet, but my colleagues will go directly into the advanced words which sometimes I feel pressured to understand in a business environment.

[here2learn]

HAPPY LITTLE UPDATE

But first, to wannabefreak,

for some reason I didn't see your last post until now... thanks for sharing your experience. You said, "People don't like to be YOUR Chinese teacher either. .... Also people don't like to tone down their language for you to be understood..." Yes, I agree, but I am usually toning down my language for THEM when we speak english, so when that's the case, I feel we can/should be doing 50/50. Fair, right? My level is still fairly low, but it's enough to talk about basic normal things.

MY SNEAKY GAME

One person I mentioned earlier... the guy I like... I got proactive about it. I suggested a little game to improve both our languages (and sneakily get to know each other, heehee)! We email back & forth one very short thing each day - "you answer the question, then ask me a new one, all in both languages, and we correct each other". We keep it short so it's not a burden, and it doesn't feel like work. It's more like a fun little game. So by now, he's way more aware of my chinese level and he's been writing other parts of emails to me in chinese too, not just for learning purposes (we don't correct everything we write, just the game part or some other huge mistake if necessary). After spring festival when I see him I'll be curious to see how it affects our conversation. Now that he has an idea of my level and he's been seeing me write a lot of chinese, hopefully he'll break out of that "I've only heard her speak english for 6 months, this is creepy" thing.

We shall see....

[zozzen]

I recently found a strange situation. I met a group of western students who study Chinese in China. When they speak to me, they always speak in Chinese, but when two or more of them chatted together in a cafe, they switched back to English channel all the time, although only a few of them are native English speakers, others are French, Catalan and Polish. They seem to feel embarrassed to speak Chinese with westerners. Is it true?

[wannabeafreak]

They seem to feel embarrassed to speak Chinese with westerners. Is it true?

Well I myself being a westerner feel embarrassed to speak Cantonese in public to another westerner. So many people look and stare like its a circus act or something. Two months ago, a Morman approached me and spoke super fluent Cantonese on the train. Everyone on the train was staring at me and I felt embarassed.

[atitarev]

I felt embarrassed before but not anymore. I do speak some Chinese with my Chinese coworkers or my new friends I share the ride with. I get occasional looks from both Australians and Chinese but I don't care. I don't think I would be too embarrassed to speak Chinese to a white person - which happened with my classmates. We got stares, all right. Come on, if you learn it, use it! I also think it's quite beneficial to try and speak more with your classmates in the language you learn because you can help each other to break the communication barriers.

Some people ask where/why/how I learn Chinese and we strike up a conversation. This week one guy ask for advise, he is going to work in Beijing.

Reading Chinese books on the train has created new unexpected opportunities for me - Chinese girls/young women (not only women, of course) start talking to me, which is fun.

Anyway, I have a long history of using public transport to learn languages, never felt embarrassed to read in German, Japanese or Chinese I only feel different if it's Arabic, the perception to Arabic learners is known and I don't know what they think, the first thing they think, I am a Muslim, perhaps, I am a terrorist, whatever. Nobody ever asks me but you can sort of feel their looks...

[here2learn]

Yes, it IS strange to be 2 foreigners speaking chinese to each other. I do it in small bits, but not very often. Why does it feel so weird? Chinese people have told me they also feel weird talking to each other in English. I tell them to get over it and just do it! Yet I myself feel the same awkwardness.

If we were in North America or Europe or Australia, would we think it was strange for 2 Chinese people or 2 Indian people to be talking to each other in English? Not at all! It's normal! That's the country they live in, OF COURSE they're expected to be speaking its language! In fact in the US they'd get more stares for speaking anything BUT English.

How about 2 Asians in France/Germany speaking French/German? (I can't answer that one, my point is if it's not the high-&-mighty-English) etc... So why do so many of us foreigners in China feel strange speaking Chinese with each other here? I think it must be partially the expectations of us. Everyone EXPECTS us to be a certain way, so if we're not that way we feel uncomfortable? Maybe?

And atitarev,

Speaking Chinese with Chinese people isn't too bad, I find. Maybe some people look for a moment, and want to hear the foreigner speak Chinese, but it's NOTHING compared to foreigner/foreigner Chinese! People seem like they're thinking, "Why the heck are you two speaking some other language to each other when you KNOW English is easier?!?" It's as if we're standing in the burning sun digging a ditch for no reason when we could be sitting in the shade with a cool drink. Like, "Why are you doing such a bizarre thing when you don't HAVE to?"

I agree reading on the subway/bus is great. I have something to study in my bag at all times, and if I have a seat I usually pull it out. Some people look, and if I'm feeling sociable and the person next to me seems friendly, I'll even ask them some random question about what I'm doing. Just something simple, like how to say a hanzi. I've had conversations with total strangers (Chinese, in Chinese), and I love it.

Oh, sometimes I want to automatically say a small thing to a foreign stranger like "duibuqi" or "xiexie" and I catch myself stopping and switching to English for that one stupid word. I should just SAY IT in Chinese, like it wants to come out! I'm stupid.

(no I'm not really stupid)

(just sometimes)

(in little ways)

[monto]

Hi, here2learn,

Welcome to Beijing.

I know you are a teacher, I guess you are a teacher of English here. That is a ideal counter-party to practise my English with.

You should know that there are so many people in China who are eager to have a chance to improve their foreign language (mainly English) through talks with the native speakers.

I think that counts for Reason No.1 for you current situation;

Secondly, I think, your fluency in Chinese counts. My experence with foreingers here may be a clue to understand my point.

Living in Beijing, I also often encounter with foreigners. I would try both languages at first if there is conversation. And after a few trials, and if there be further conversation, the ratio of Chinese over English used will be throughly equal to the ratio of my fluency in English over their fluency in Chinese I feel or guess, though it's not pupposely done (I think I am not the hungry one for practice of English).

My advice is :

No warry, time will gradually solve the "problem" as you make progress in Chinese day by day. There is a Chinese saying : 心急吃不得热豆腐。

"shifting of the habit" may be better, rather than "breaking" it.

wish you pleasant stay in Beijing.