[Survey/help] Interaction with Chinese/Asian people.

[BeijingSlacker]

I would like to do a bit survey with the English speakers here. It's part of a project/research I am doing. It is about the tone of voice/politeness issues for non-native English speakers.

If you dont mind sharing your personal experience, could you describe a converation where (1) you were interacting (in English) with a Chinese person who spoke relatively fluent English and (2) what s/he said, in terms of the tone of voice aspect of the English language, made you a bit uncomfortable or is not how you or most native English speakers would say.

Two examples:

[1] John just came back from Toronto to Montreal and his Chinese neighbor,Ming, asks " Why did you come back?".

Ming is not trying to intrusive or nosy, but just to make conversation or curious about why John left Montreal.

[2] A more subtle one: Ming is trying to find some physics book in a huge library. He wants to know where the section for physics is located. So he approaches a young guy who is obviously not a staff member there and asks "Excuse me, where are all the physics books?"

Here one could argue that Ming should not assume the young guy knows the answer to his question and a more polite way to ask can be "Excuse me, I'm just wondering if you know where the physics books are"

To make this more clear( or to further confuse ?), I am also gonna give you an example of a Chinese learner's impolite usage of Chinese.

The Union of TA at my University (a Canadian one) decided to go on strike. I have a Chinese TA and a student from Singapore in my class. The student is a really polite and nice girl when she speaks English and her Chinese is pretty fluent (She is Chinese anyways). In our first lab session after the strike was over, the Chinese TA, the girl and a couple of other Chinese speaking students started chatting about the strike, which had caused the students quite a lot trouble since the whole course schedule was delayed. The girl obviously just wanted to know why exactly the TA went on strike and she goes " 你为什么要这样做？" The TA got a bit angry right away and started explaining, in a not so nice tone, that how it wasn't him..it was the union's decision and he had to do whatever they told him to.

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Thanks folks.

To Roddy: I know this is not the best place for this post. This is really important to me and fairly urgent. Its just that it would be much better to have more people see it. However, I know you have been quite strict on categorizing the posts, so go ahead and move it to wherever you see fits.

[Green Pea]

BeijingSlacker,

Not sure if I can answer your question appropriately, but will give you my thoughts.

1. English learners all use the same approach. They always say: "Hello, what country are you from?" or some variation. I have heard this a billion times and waiting for some originality. There is no faster way for me to discount their level of English (and therefore switch to Chinese) than to ask this. Why? Because it immediately focuses the conversation on differences between the speakers. Good communication usually clinches similarities first.

2. They try to use slang. Like "Oh my God!' or some other phrase. It's usually used incorrectly or said with the wrong intonation and sounds really bad. Worse, they often say it every few minutes.

3. They seem to misuse the word "already". I can't really explain it, but it frequently sounds strange. For example, "Already, I gave it to him."

Hope this helps. I'll try to think of some others. If you want more clarfication, let me know. Good luck on your project.

[BeijingSlacker]

Thanks for your fine observation Green Pea. I couldn't agree more with the "oh my god" thing. Sometimes, it sounds really dumb, especially from guys.

Are those people fluent in English? Maybe I should've put "non-native English speaker" than "English learner". My focus is more on the group of people who already use English functionally and regularly. i.e. Chinese students in the States or employees in English speaking companies.

Also, what I was looking for is examples where non-native speakers are not making any obvious mistakes but what they say definitely has room for improvement in terms of politeness or refinement. i.e in the example two "Excuse me, where are all the physics books?" --> "Excuse me, I'm just wondering if you know where the physics books are"

[roddy]

Directness / Indirectness, I think is the problem for higher-level learners, perhaps because this is often how politeness is expressed and a mistake here can result in offense, not just misunderstanding. Requests / instructions in English would often be phrased as statements - 'I'm looking for the physics books' meaning 'I want you to tell me where they are' and 'The suitcases are packed' for 'I want you to carry them downstairs'. I guess the classic is the 'Do you have the right time?', to which you should never reply 'Yes, I do'.

Examples would be 'You should go to collect your salary now' - 'You can collect . . .' or 'Your money's ready for collecting'.

Thinking about it just now (so this could be wrong) you might say there are four levels.

1) Give facts, hope the other person fits in: 'The suitcases are ready to go downstairs.

2) Request: 'Can you take them downstairs'

3) Advice: 'You should . . .'

4) Instruction: 'Take . . .'

I think Chinese learners tend to overuse advice (like should or had better) at the expense of the 'politer' choices.

That's all been typed pretty quickly, I may change my mind later.

I have met some people though, who'd learnt about the 'indirectness' thing and taken it way too far - The English of one guy I worked for became a mass of 'if it's not too much trouble' and 'i was wondering if it might be possible for you' surrounding his actual point. He did once annoy me (I was already annoyed as he'd missed a 3.30 meeting) this way by looking at his watch, which was pointing exactly at 4pm and told me 'Well, it seems that it now may be relatively four o' clock. '

I mean, relatively four 'o clock?

Hope this helps. Let me know when it stops being urgent and I'll move it.

Roddy

[BeijingSlacker]

Directness / Indirectness, I think is the problem for higher-level learners, perhaps because this is often how politeness is expressed and a mistake here can result in offense, not just misunderstanding.

Oh man, this is exactly the kind of things I am looking for. If you have more examples or stories, that would be great. btw, what would you say in that Why-did-you-come-back-to-Toronto situation?

Also, you guys are more than welcome to post any of your questions or stories regarding the tone of voice/politeness issue in Chinese.

Thanks for letting the post stay here a bit longer.

[roddy]

I think a 'Why'd you come back' would be fine among friends. A more indirect way is to make an assumption and see if it gets confirmed or denied - 'So, did you move back because of your job' (when you actually know it was because they got dumped)

I'll see if I can think of any more real-life examples - to be honest though, find someone who teaches high-level students at the ESL Dept of your university, if there is one. I've been out of the English teaching game for over a year now, and never really taught that high a level.

Roddy

[in_lab]

I got an email from someone requesting some documents from me. He said I should "just do it." I think it was supposed to mean that I don't need to worry about other considerations, but it came off a little rude.

As far as hearing "should" and "had better" too often, my experience is the opposite. I always hear "could" and never any definite advice.

People often ask "Are you from America?" I don't mind the assumption in the question, because their guess is correct. It is tiresome that it is always the first question. However, one guy started a conversation with me by saying "Where do you teach English?" I can't remember if I was teaching English at the time, but it annoyed me a little because it seemed like he was starting in the middle of a conversation.

I too find the phrase "oh my god" (pronounced "oh my ga") to be grating.

In Chinese, "ni yao shenme?" doesn't sound very polite to me. And when I offer something to a friend and he responds "bu yao" I get the same kind of feeling. I understand that they are not impolite, but that's just the feeling I get when I hear them sometimes.

I took a test ride on a scooter and then the shop owner asked me how I liked it. I think I said "wo bu xihuan." I think my Chinese friend was a little surprised by the directness of the remark. But I didn't want to beat around the bush--I thought it drove like a piece of junk, and it was the second junker in a row that I had tried.

[BeijingSlacker]

I got an email from someone requesting some documents from me. He said I should "just do it." I think it was supposed to mean that I don't need to worry about other considerations, but it came off a little rude.

Thanks.Really nice example. so what would you say instead of "just do it"

In Chinese, "ni yao shenme?" doesn't sound very polite to me. And when I offer something to a friend and he responds "bu yao" I get the same kind of feeling. I understand that they are not impolite, but that's just the feeling I get when I hear them sometimes.

"你要什么" does sound a bit impolite. I guess "您要什么" is more commonly used. (Well, it depends on where you go)

"不要" can be both--impolite and polite. It depends on how and in what kind of situations they say it. I could write an essay on it but a simple way to tell is if your friend only said one 不要, or a couple of them in a row, like 不要不要不要。 The latter can be polite.

I took a test ride on a scooter and then the shop owner asked me how I liked it. I think I said "wo bu xihuan." I think my Chinese friend was a little surprised by the directness of the remark. But I didn't want to beat around the bush--I thought it drove like a piece of junk, and it was the second junker in a row that I had tried.

Honestly, that is not too polite. Its like a slap on the shop owner's face althogh its piece of crap. Guess you don't have to be exactly direct to get the message across.

我不喜欢 －－》 不是特喜欢 or 不是太合适我

These two are still very direct, but sounds a bit better

[BeijingSlacker]

I wonder if the Chinese learners, like you guys, are concerned about the the same thing--tone of voice/politenss ??

What do you think of the example I gave above, the one about that innocent girl offending the Chinese TA by using 为什么 and being too direct. Have you had similar problems or real-life examples?

[trevelyan]

The TA was probably defensive because the question was indirectly critical of the union, not because it was badly-asked. The question implicitly put the TA on the defense (the need to explain HIS actions rather than his grievance) and so a cop-out answer was probably natural.

I honestly don't think ESL students have trouble being polite at all. The worst you could probably say is that some students don't deal well with inflection -- and ask questions in monotone.

I think the issue in the example is understanding/mastering the way language carries meaning about your own assumptions. If the Singapore student in your TA didn't want to see offensive or critical, for instance, she could have asked "what was the issue with the strike", or "what were the union's grievances".

All are legitimate and polite ways to ask the question. Each carries a laden set of assumptions about which actors are in the right. An analogous example is how ESL learners have difficulty seeing the difference between "Is that John" and "Isn't that John?".... because they tend to view the language literally.

But hey, English is tough....

[BeijingSlacker]

The TA was probably defensive because the question was indirectly critical of the union, not because it was badly-asked. The question implicitly put the TA on the defense (the need to explain HIS actions rather than his grievance) and so a cop-out answer was probably natural.

Don't know if you are a native Chinese speaker, but I would say most of the mature Chinese wouldn't ask "wei shen me" in that situation. (The girl and the TA didn't really know each other)