how to deal with language battles

[wushijiao]

Having been in China for a year and half and studied Chinese for nearly 4, I actually think it is quite inconsiderate and selfish avoiding speaking English with those trying to learn. You don't necessarily have to befriend someone who only wants to speak English, but indulging a stranger in a simple, 2 or 3 minute conversation, and even assisting with incorrect grammar, is nothing. 95% of Chinese I meet on a daily basis can't speak English, so whats 5% that want to chat it a little?

Very well said.

[abcdefg]

I don't mind the occasional partly-English converstaion with a Chinese friend. I will cut them some slack. But I have very little tolerance for native English speakers who try to talk with me in English because they are too lazy to talk Chinese here in China. (I am not very popular in my school.)

[imron]

It all depends on how the given situation plays out. I'm not living in China at the moment, and there's no way that currently if I saw some random Asian person on the street I'd just go up to them and start speaking Chinese so I could get some Chinese speaking practice - after all, there's no guarantee that they're even Chinese, but even I'd heard them speaking in Chinese I still wouldn't just go up to them and begin speaking Chinese because there's the very real possibility that they are busy with something and don't want to be interrupted by some random local. Likewise, if I was working in a shop, or had some other customer-facing role, I wouldn't automatically speak in Chinese to Asian people that came in to buy something - especially so if they initiated conversation with me in English.

Now reverse the situation to China. If I was busy doing something and some random person comes up to me and starts speaking to me in English without even trying to ascertain whether a) I can speak English, b) want to speak English and c) mind being interrupted, then they're going to get pretty short shrift.

Unfortunately this is how the majority of 'language battles' seem to start in China.

There is a way to approach people if you wish to practice language. Barging up to them and just starting to speak away is not an approach conducive to success (at least if I'm the person they wish to practice with).

[evasiege]

I don't know how to quote, but the last part I think is especially true. I usually don't bother to try and hold a conversation with any Chinese person in English that start with obnoxious greetings. By that I mean, yelling "what are you doing? I want to talk with you!". If approached in a casual manner, I'm usually ok with it. Conversely when approaching Chinese, its usually only when they expect it, and I'll throw in a simple question or comment. If they seem willing to converse, then open it up a bit. If not, then I back off and leave. In my experience, it seems many Chinese have difficult problems with this, recognizing when foreigners are annoyed and want to be left alone. I've had some pretty dull conversations in English while I listened to someone blab away for 30 minutes while sitting on the bus, in a taxi, at a library etc., and I just wanted them to go away so bad, but they couldn't read it at all.

[Scoobyqueen]

it seems many Chinese have difficult problems with this, recognizing when foreigners are annoyed and want to be left alone

There was a survey done which suggested Asians may not read westerners' facial expressions in the same way as westerners do:

Asian read facial expressions differently

[Meng Lelan]

But I have very little tolerance for native English speakers who try to talk with me in English because they are too lazy to talk Chinese here in China.

This seems to be a problem even among Chinese language teachers. Or maybe among the ones in Texas.

Two years ago I went to my school district's staff development and there was a newly hired Chinese language teacher. Of course I wanted to know all about her because I applied for her position as Chinese language teacher four times and never even got a phone call to set up an interview. I thought maybe she had some qualification that she had that I didn't have. I chatted her up in Chinese then midway through the conversation she switched to English. I asked her why. She said, "Oh I'm just too lazy to speak Chinese...."

A few months later I went out to lunch with one of my former high school students who had just returned from a year in Taiwan. He and I chatted in Chinese quite nicely over lunch. I told him about the encounter I had with the newly hired Chinese teacher. He then told me he signed up for an advanced Chinese class at a Texas university but quit because the teacher preferred to speak English instead of Chinese during class instruction. He asked her why and she said it was too much trouble to instruct all in Chinese.

[ma3zi1]

I think it boils down to something like this:

If you study a foreign language long and hard, you want to be respected for it. You want native speakers to respect you for it, and you want them to talk to you in the language in which you worked so hard to acquire fluency. When people label you and come up to you on the street to practice English, it feels like a dismissal all of your hard work learning their language.

English is almost seen as obligatory for many educated people of the world. So, there is this nagging feeling that the people who come up and talk to you in English are not passionate about English the way you are passionate about their language.

One often feels that for those seeking to practice English, English is seen as a job skill they need to improve. For you, the language you bothered to come to their country and speak is a real passion. There needs to be some respect for that.

Many people are passionate about English too. I've known several: a Taiwanese doctoral student in English literature at my undergraduate institution, a Quebecois who watched every episode of Seinfeld before he came to the U.S. for his post-doc, etc...

The fact is though that most people are not passionate about it, and the resulting disrespect and dismissal of your own passions is the problem, however unintentional it may be.

[anonymoose]

There may be lots of reasons that one feels annoyed about it. After all, one cannot deny one's natural psychological reaction. But I feel its very self-centred to use these reasons to legitimise one's insistence on speaking Chinese, and speaking Chinese only. If you want to do that, then do that and just admit you're selfish. At the end of the day, however you break it down, Chinese people have just as much right to practice their English with you as you have to practice your Chinese with them.

[Scoobyqueen]

If you study a foreign language long and hard, you want to be respected for it. You want native speakers to respect you for it, and you want them to talk to you in the language in which you worked so hard to acquire fluency. When people label you and come up to you on the street to practice English, it feels like a dismissal all of your hard work learning their language.

I dont think one has the right to expect to be respected for it. If you turn the example around: There are many Chinese people/students who have come to the US for example who also worked hard at learning English. Are they respected for being able to speak English?

[roddy]

When people label you and come up to you on the street to practice English, it feels like a dismissal all of your hard work learning their language

That's more your perception than anything else - they can't dismiss something they don't know you've done.

[imron]

At the end of the day, however you break it down, Chinese people have just as much right to practice their English with you as you have to practice your Chinese with them.

Whether in China, or Australia, I typically follow this rule:

Speak the language of the country I'm in until the non-native speaker decides they'd rather switch.

What this generally means is that in Australia I'll speak English unless I'm speaking to someone who for whatever reason chooses to speak Chinese to me. In China this means I'll typically speak Chinese unless for whatever reason I'd rather speak English.

If that's selfish, then so be it. I just think there are plenty of better ways to practice language skills than harrassing strangers on the street.

With close Chinese-English speaking friends, it's a slightly different story, and it's likely that conversation will switch naturally from Chinese to English and back again depending on the topic.

[jbradfor]

I've heard people say that Americans are egocentric and narrow-minded for going to other countries and expecting everyone to speak (American) English, and now I'm being told I'm selfish if I go to China and expect to not speak English? :conf

[ma3zi1]

I dont think one has the right to expect to be respected for it. If you turn the example around: There are many Chinese people/students who have come to the US for example who also worked hard at learning English. Are they respected for being able to speak English?

Well, no one said anything about rights. We are talking about feelings, and specifically how our feelings are hurt on some level when we are labeled or typecast by our faces. Especially when we are harassed in the middle of our daily routine as the object of someone's desire to practice English.

Turning the example around, I think the answer is a definitive yes, at least here in the United States. If your English is good and it shows through your eloquence as a speaker or your fluidity as a writer, it garners respect. It certainly garners my respect.

Like you said, no one has an inalienable right to that respect. However, after working so hard to achieve something tangible, one would hope that the results of those efforts could inspire a bit of admiration. That is just a hope though, not a guarantee.

That's more your perception than anything else - they can't dismiss something they don't know you've done.

In response to this I would say, "but they sort of can dismiss something they don't know you've done by never even giving you the benefit of the doubt". Now, I'm an American and maybe it's a result of my own multi-cultural upbringing, but my default language in the U.S. is English no matter what you look like. If in the course of conversation I can pick up the hint of an accent, I might ask where the person is from. This might lead to a language switch if there is mutual interest.

If, however, I run into a friend who happens to be having a Chinese conversation with their friend, I will just speak Chinese to the both of them. Since, clearly that is the language the two of them are the most comfortable speaking to each other. However, here at home I would never make the assumption based on appearance alone that someone is anything but an American, it would be rude.

Perhaps it‘s this cultural divide that is so off-putting to me when it comes to this whole issue. In China, as anonymoose has mentioned in the past, a Chinese-speaking foreigner has the entertainment value of a talking dog. You can walk like them and talk like them, but you'll always be 外國人.

[Meng Lelan]

I keep wondering if the phenomenon of language battles is limited to just Chinese? What about language like Arabic, Spanish, etc? are there language battles too? Here in San Antonio the Spanish speakers are just thrilled if you even say a few words in Spanish to them and they are just absolutely ready to conduct the whole conversation in Spanish if you're ready to do so.

[alkahez]

I understand your situation. It is frustrating. It can sometimes challenge your identity and confidence. It is a struggle if you are Chinese. People assume that your ethnicity dictates the language you speak. If you look Chinese you speak Chinese, if you look Caucasian you speak English or some other European languages, etc.

I grew up in an environment with many languages English, Cantonese, Fuzhou, Hokkien, and Malay. My parents do speak some Fuzhou, Hokkien and English but most of the time we communicate in English. But the community we lived in speaks Cantonese, some Mandarin, and some Malay - totally different from my home languages. We do have English speakers but some prefer to speak in their ethnic language. So to start with, Cantonese was totally strange to me. But incidentally I picked up Cantonese, Mandarin, Malay, bits, here and there. Another turn came when I went to a Malay national medium school. And so, my Chinese was limited to much extend. Definitely my Chinese is limited compared to those who attend Chinese-medium schools. And so the language battle starts. I would say my English and Malay, conversational wise, was average but much better than my Chinese(s). And those who speak Chinese often have a hard time in English and Malay. They have a term "chicken and duck talk" (people communicating to each other in different tongues). So, much of the relationships are superficial and sometimes relationships get strained without one knowing cause people used the wrong words, say differently, and understood differently.

If you start speaking a language and people start speaking at a higher level, can you still get the same understanding? Someone once said he didn't want to begin speaking to natives of a language he can only speak superficially. It is common here to start a conversation by asking about our ethnic and language backgrounds. It can get repetitive and frustrating sometimes.

[aristotle1990]

If you study a foreign language long and hard, you want to be respected for it. You want native speakers to respect you for it, and you want them to talk to you in the language in which you worked so hard to acquire fluency. When people label you and come up to you on the street to practice English, it feels like a dismissal all of your hard work learning their language.

At my university in the US, I'm friends with a bunch of Chinese people. If they're non-native speakers, they often don't speak English as fluently as I speak Chinese, and so usually we end up speaking Chinese. Some, even those without very good English, will insist on speaking English with me, and while this frustrates me a bit, I'm generally fine with it -- we are, after all, in the US, and as part of the reason they're here is to learn English, I'm okay with letting them choose what language we speak. I remember how annoying it was when Chinese people would refuse to speak to me in Chinese in China.

But what really irritates me is when we're in a group where I'm the only white guy, and one person insists on speaking English to me when everyone else is speaking Chinese. When they're not speaking directly to me, they'll switch right back to Chinese. This is aggravating to no end. What's even worse is that I'm only now realizing how patronizing it is to be on the receiving end of this sort of treatment -- in China I must have acted like this in mixed company to a Chinese person at least once.

[Meng Lelan]

But what really irritates me is when we're in a group where I'm the only white guy, and one person insists on speaking English to me when everyone else is speaking Chinese. When they're not speaking directly to me, they'll switch right back to Chinese

It's happened to me, I give that offender a weird look like "what do you think you doing?!?" and ignore what that one says to me and let the others translate into Chinese for me what that one was saying in English.

[yersi]

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[gato]

If someone still insists on speaking English, I say "don't speak English to me". I know this is rude, and flies in the face of common decency and etiquette. But I simply don't have the time to deal with these knuckleheads that CANNOT understand that just cuz I'm white it doesn't mean that their broken-ass English is the most effective way of communicating with me.

If you had a chance to practice a foreign language with a fluent speaker of that language, wouldn't you take advantage of the situation? ;)

[yersi]

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