Practising Chinese with native speakers abroad

[Meng Lelan]

Just out of curiosity, is Zhou-Blow the equivalent of 'Joe Bloggs' or 'A.N Other' in English? Is it perhaps close to 老百姓?

Me being an American, I decided to convert Joe Blow (the pseudonym for any American guy off any USA street) to Zhou Blow (my pseudonym for any Chinese guy off any USA street). You know, like Joe is a common guy name in the US just like Zhou is a common last name among the Chinese. In other words it's invented terminology on my part, it's not something you're gonna find in some dictionary.

Anyway I figured a 中国通 like anonymoose would figure that one out pretty quick. nice job anonymoose.

[xianhua]

Anyway I figured a 中国通 like anonymoose would figure that one out pretty quick.

This somehow makes me feel stupid.

[Meng Lelan]

Being or not being a 中国通 is not an indicator of intelligence. Anyway go look at anonymoose's post, it has explained the made-up term a lot better than I could. Anyway we hope that our suggestions are going to help you with the situation you posted about in the first place.

[Jamoldo]

Imron, it used to really annoy me too when people would just speak English to me, or spit back English (particularly when it was not good) if I said or asked something in Chinese, whilst in China. The butting in thing would get to me too.

Then I remembered something. I had a passport, had traveled quite a bit and had the ability to get to CHina in the first place, whereas the majority of people who did such things probably would never have such a chance and were trying to make the most of a limited opportunity, so I let it fly (I'm sure it would still annoy me).

To the original poster, I think I would try to assess how good the other person's English is. If it's good, then I would just ask politely if you could practice in Chinese. Do so respectfully. Most people will be happy to do so for a few phrases/sentences at least and the use of Chinese should gradually increase. If the person's Chinese is bad or they are literally right off the boat, then you might be able to sneak it in. Why? Because as imperfect as your Chinese may be, they get to speak their language, which may remind them of home and thus they'll just be happier to do so (this has happened to me more times than I can think of). I know that when faced with a potentially longer term situation (few days/weeks - I'm spoiled) of not having anyone to speak English with, it was nice when someone popped up who could do so, regardless of their ability.

You'll do fine. Good luck!