a question about your experience of learning Chinese

[buzhongren]

I dont feel lonely I feel challenged. Whatever I know about Chinese I taught myself. My goal is to communicate via email and read the signs in Chinatown or a comic book. Locally everybody speaks Cantonese. I was once told point blank we will help you with Cantonese but not Mandarin. I know someone who will help me with Mandarin and I with his English if we can figure how Skype works and willing to get up early or stay late. There are language clubs but not convenient for me.

xiele,

Jim

[Meng Lelan]

I can understand why the Chinese feel the need to comment on your Mandarin, but please, can we not spend half an hour talking about that?

And thereby forcing me to spend at least half an hour at the beginning of each semester explaining to awe-struck beginners that speaking just a few words of Chinese will garner way too much flattery, attention, excessive praise, ooohs and ahhs, etc etc. Isolation? Never. Too much attention? Yes. I think it's stupid.

Someday there'll be a paradigm shift to the French direction maybe, that'll be the day if I ever live to see it.

[tooironic]

Never say never, Meng Lelan. I still come across the odd Chinese person who barely blinks an eyelid when I speak to Chinese to them for the first time. It's not that uncommon in my experience.

[Meng Lelan]

I still come across the odd Chinese person who barely blinks an eyelid when I speak to Chinese to them for the first time. It's not that uncommon in my experience.

Oh! Whoever it is, I want to meet that person.

[Daan]

I met one once...and that was a remarkable experience. A couple of years ago I was working for the Dutch postal service, doing a delivery round in a pretty rural district. Suddenly a foreign-looking guy showed up on a bicycle and uttered some incomprehensible sounds to me. It took me a few seconds, but then I realised what he said sounded like the Dutch for "railway station" (which was nowhere near), so I asked him if he wanted to me to explain how to get there. From his reaction I could tell he didn't understand Dutch, so I switched to English, which he didn't understand either. "Parlez-vous français?" No, and no German either. So I figured, well, why not, I have one more language on offer: 您會講普通話嗎?

The guy doesn't blink an eyelid and starts talking rapid-fire 普通話 to me...explaining he is, indeed, trying to find to the railway station. I explain this to him in Mandarin and he then says 謝謝，再見, gets back on his bicycle and leaves.

Leaving behind a bewildered postie wondering if this guy thinks it's normal for Dutch postmen in rural areas to speak Mandarin.

[renzhe]

Meng Lelan, You're more likely to meet that guy if you seek out people who are used to seeing foreigners talk Chinese. Many Chinese have met the foreigner who can speak fluently in China, even if they are rare.

I also find that the better my level becomes, the less "wow, you can speak Chinese!!!!1111" I get. Or maybe my Chinese is getting worse?

If you can speak to somebody confidently, fluently, and using cultural references (I usually can't), people are less likely to be shocked and more likely to talk to you like to anyone else. You might get the odd compliment, but generally it doesn't dissolve into "do you know this character? What about this one? WOW, you know so much!!! Can you sing a Chinese song?!"

Also, context is important. People will be less shocked in China, and even less shocked around big universities full of exchange students from abroad who are specialising in Chinese. If you run into someone in Texas and start speaking Chinese, people are more likely to be shocked.

[chrix]

Texas has been known to have universities full of exchange students too, you know (Though it is true that many of them don't like to speak Chinese with non-Chinese all that much)

[renzhe]

I don't doubt that, but I think that a Chinese student will be less surprised if a foreigner addresses him/her in Mandarin in Beijing, than in Texas.

[anonymoose]

Living in Shanghai, I can say that the majority of people I communicate with don't react much to me being able to speak Mandarin. I think Mandarin-speaking foreigners in Shanghai are not unusual at all really.

My favorite part of learning Chinese where I am is that there are no "white" learners of Mandarin around me, so when I go to somewhere where there are Chinese people, I can speak Mandarin and they will find it hilarious or surprising

That's what Shanghainese is for.

Edited February 16, 2010 at 04:31 AM by anonymoose

[tooironic]

Oh! Whoever it is, I want to meet that person.

I dunno, maybe it's an Australian thing, but a lot of Chinese people I meet here in Melbourne react quite normally to me speaking Chinese. Though of course you do get people like those you were just talking about... But I think overall the reactions I've gotten in Melbourne have been very positive.

[Lu]

I also find that the better my level becomes, the less "wow, you can speak Chinese!!!!1111" I get. Or maybe my Chinese is getting worse?

This is my experience too. Was in a TW post office once, sending off a parcel, which was done without a problem. Next to me was another foreign woman, who also attempted to send something, and unlike me, she got the Wow, you can speak Chinese! reaction. It's nice not to be the talking monkey anymore.

[Meng Lelan]

It's nice not to be the talking monkey anymore.

I agree with you. It really is nicer to be way past the beginner level so you don't have the over-praise situation.

[Shi Tong]

That's actually my most unfavorite part of learning Chinese. I do not like it at all that they would find it hilarious or surprising or amusing or something like that. I wish they would be like the French, you know, get angry if I don't speak Chinese or be irritated if I mess up my Chinese. Or expect me to speak Chinese like this is completely normal.

It really is nicer to be way past the beginner level so you don't have the over-praise situation.

ooooooh.. That's why. I'm actually crap at Chinese!!

[catmachine]

I think it's a better choice to practice Chinese with your Chinese teacher (a native speaker will be best) than with friends, Because a teacher is able correct your mistakes, but others may share the same mistakes with you.

Further more, i think you'd better learn more before you practice Chinese with others. More knowledge means more talking topics and more confidence.

[huaxia]

To Daan,

What an interesting & fun story you've shared. I think that bicycle man would be mad if next time he asked for directions or whatever in Chinese and the other person could not understand him.

[Meng Lelan]

I think that bicycle man would be mad if next time he asked for directions or whatever in Chinese and the other person could not understand him.

I agree.

I would love to meet that bicycle man. Too bad he didn't leave any contact information...sigh.