how to deal with language battles

[gougou]

There's a whole post discussing that here.

[roddy]

Merging - thanks Gougou, was wondering if I could be bothered finding the link . . .

Explain to them calmly and clearly that you are not a native speaker of English and you need to speak Chinese. Anyone that keeps going after hearing that two or three times is probably a bit daft and you're going to have to put up with them. A certain percentage of people are idiots, there's not much to be done about it.

It's also quite possible that some helpful boss has told them he wants to hear them practicing their English with the foreigner.

[imron]

Regarding co-workers (and other people you regularly communicate with), the language used often comes down to habit. If you allow the habit to be English early on then it is difficult to break. Conversely, if you make the habit Chinese early on, then it feels strange for them to speak with you in English. Half and half doesn't really work so well and a habit favouring one language over the other will gradually form and eventually become more permanent.

I've had colleagues who would be speaking to me in Chinese and then turn around to other foreigners sitting next to us with Chinese equal to or above my level and then speak to them in English. Language familiarity habits can be quite hard to break so make sure you set them early on.

Unfortunately for many learners looking to do this, a precondition is that your Chinese needs to be at a level where you can have meaningful discussions otherwise it will be difficult/impossible to form this habit with someone.

[jbradfor]

For the record, I'm not a native English speaker. In fact, my spoken English is pretty terrible and barely understandable because of my heavy accent.

No no no, if you're not Chinese, then you must speak English. If you say otherwise, you're just being modest or want to avoid helping them learn English.

Or so (some) Chinese seem to assume....

[joshglc123]

So, at the moment, I have a roommate in Beijing that is absolutely keen on speaking English with me and trying to learn from me.

I have come up with the following solutions, if anybody has any experience or any comments, I would be very happy to read them!

1) Talk in 60-80% Mandarin and 20-40% English.

By keeping most of your dialogue in Mandarin and little of it in English, you avoid offending the person by insisting to only talk in Mandarin but draw on the hope that he will just find it easier to converse with you in Mandarin and will proceed in doing so.

2) When talking in English, use unnecessarily advanced jargon, sentence structure, and vocabulary.

Do you think this will de-motivate or steer him away from using English? Hypothetically speaking, I think this may help in two ways：

1） It will make you not look like a jerk when using Mandarin as you give the impression that he doesn't understand your English.

2) He may abandon attempts to use/learn English from you and he feels his level is too far below yours. I think everyone has this feeling, when I speak mandarin and sometimes something is too complex for me to understand, I will give up and use English desipte my huge desire to learn Chinese.

In application to my scenario, I am a native English speaker from Canada (I wish I had told him I was French Canadian that couldn't speak a word of English from the start) with higher intermediate level Chinese. I am actually mixed race (my father is from Hong Kong) and I can speak fluent Cantonese.

His English level is probably lower intermediate to intermediate - he can get basic meanings across, but at times he stumbles and takes a very long time to get out what he's trying to say.

So, what does everyone think? I will be trying out these solutions and theories.

Feel free to comment, and add!

Cheers,

Josh

[Meng Lelan]

Were you assigned a roommate? Are you in a program that demands a language pledge? If so then you would be able to ask administration to help with this situation.

[abcdefg]

Instead of all these indirect and probably unuscessful strategies, designed to not ruffle any feathers or step on any toes, why don't you sit down and have a conversation with the guy and lay your issues out on the table like adults? Negotiate it; work it out.

[anonymoose]

2) When talking in English, use unnecessarily advanced jargon, sentence structure, and vocabulary.

Do you think this will de-motivate or steer him away from using English?

I'm sorry, but I really take exception to this. You would readily demotivate someone else just for your own benefit? Don't you think that is rather selfish?

I completely understand the frustrations of foreigners coming to China wishing to learn Chinese only to be spoken to in English. But Chinese people have as much right to speak English with you as you have to speak Chinese with them. Unless you are paying your roommate for his services, then he is perfectly entitled to use whatever language he wishes, and shouldn't have to be faced with you deliberately making your English incomprehensible. How would you feel if he deliberately made his Chinese incomprehensible to you?

If you're not getting any joy out of your roommate, then find someone else who is willing to converse with you in Chinese. It's really not that difficult. Or just do as the previous poster suggested and talk to the guy. Maybe you can come up with some compromise rather than you having to resort to underhanded and selfish means to get what you want.

[jbradfor]

@joshglc123, while I haven't been in your situation, it also makes me uneasy. For example, what if another foreigner comes over and you two speak English together, and your roommate hears how different you talk to that person than to your roommate? It could lead to very bad feelings. [When I had Chinese roommates, for some reason by-and-large they didn't try to talk to me in English, besides a couple of specific questions they asked me, which I was glad to answer given that they were putting up with my Chinese all the time.]

[joshglc123]

Hi guys, thanks lots for your replies.

@anonymoose While I do agree that what I have posted is selfish on the outset, I do not completely agree that it is a selfish act if you look at it in light of the fact that I made many sacrifices and changes just to come to Beijing to learn Chinese. I am more than willing to help him with his English, i.e. if he spoke 50/50 Mandarin and Chinese I would be completely satisfied. Right now it is just the sheer frustration of him speaking almost 90% English, which has led to me finding ways for him to speak more Mandarin. I don't really think that's selfish...

If you are fortunate enough to have people to speak in to you in Chinese, then consider yourself lucky!

For some reason... since I've just moved in on Monday, I don't really feel to compelled to have a serious talk with him. I'm afraid it may come off hostile, or too serious, or just generally anal... I don't know

As for the topic of deliberately using incomprehensible English, I do completely agree - it is rather degrading and unnecessary. Just an idea... !!

Well, anyways, some good news - had a game of basketball last night and went for dinner - I tried to speak as much Putonghua as possible (figured out that would be my best chance of getting him to speak some more Mandarin). I nearly spoke about 90% Mandarin the whole time. And, interestingly enough, he actually spoke back in Potunghua quite a bit! I think this was all in the interest of efficiency. Since there are a lot of phrases and things that he can't really say in English, I think he just found it a bit more efficient to speak in Mandarin sometimes. So this is really good news, although I don't mind speaking English with him in the future, I really hope that as my Mandarin improves, he will just find it easier and more efficient to speak with me in Mandarin.

I also really tried to drill in the fact last night that I was from Hong Kong, speaking exclusively in Cantonese when one friend called me at point, and telling him all about Hong Kong things and me always using Cantonese. Hopefully this will help my case....

Josh

[joshglc123]

I meant to say, "i.e. if he spoke 50/50 in Mandarin and English"... haha

Josh

[branniganslaw]

Hello folks,

I'm new to the forum and I was hoping some of you could provide some feedback on my attempts at conversation with native Mandarin speakers. My problem is that I'm struggling to get any kind of feedback from native speakers when I attempt to practice Mandarin with them. For instance, I work at a hotel and I had some guests stay with us from China and I tried to speak some of their language in attempt to make them feel at home and they looked at me as if I was crazy. They didn't even acknowledge that I was trying to communicate with them in their native tongue while away from home in the US. And any other time I've tried to break the ice with any other Chinese person I'm met with the same indifference: no feedback at all. I feel like either I'm horribly butchering it or they just feel like it's no big deal for someone to speak Mandarin. I'm inclined to believe it's the latter since my college Mandarin instructor (who is Chinese) always told me I was really good at pronouncing the language. What's the deal? Have I just met a few unsociable people and that's it or is there some type of negative opinion the Chinese have of foreigners speaking their language? From a Chinese perspective I can understand if they would think "hey, we have the most speakers of any language in the world, of course you should speak Mandarin!" What do I have to do to find native speakers who want to encourage foreigners to speak their language?

[imron]

merged.

[abcdefg]

For instance, I work at a hotel and I had some guests stay with us from China and I tried to speak some of their language in attempt to make them feel at home and they looked at me as if I was crazy.

Maybe the hotel guests were Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong.

[amandagmu]

This reminds me of a fyl.com post last year in which someone said they were at the Golden Gate bridge and an "Asian" family was posing to take a picture so this guy motions and says "you....want....me....take picture?" to which the guy holding the camera responded "thanks a**hole, I think I got it"

[jbradfor]

Funny. Yeah, in / near San Francisco, assuming an "Asian" family can't speak English is pretty stupid.

[rezaf]

Instead of all these indirect and probably unuscessful strategies, designed to not ruffle any feathers or step on any toes, why don't you sit down and have a conversation with the guy and lay your issues out on the table like adults? Negotiate it; work it out.

Although I'm not an English speaker and my rusty Chinese is better than my rusty English, I have been trying to negotiate it for 3 years with my wife with no success. Whenever she promises to speak to me in Chinese(for example in return for me cleaning the house or cooking), after 2 minutes the conversation will become in English again. I always speak to her in Chinese but the way she makes the conversation in English really makes it uncomfortable for me to use my Chinese. There are some Chinese people who simply can't speak Chinese to foreigners. My advice for people who want to improve their Chinese is that they should avoid such people and also avoid people who use lots of English words when they speak Chinese(which is very trendy these days) as there are many Chinese people who can't speak English and don't want to learn English. Don't get me wrong. It is good to make friends with all kinds of people and help people with their English every now and then but as a learner it's better to avoid them as much as you can because there is no way you can change them or make a deal with them!

[Meng Lelan]

Was she like that before the marriage and her native language is putonghua?

[Tiana]

Was she like that before the marriage and her native language is putonghua?

It's also a matter of habit and psychology: the language you both used when you first met or used in the first stage of the relationship will stick. Later on, if you switch into a different language, you may feel a bit strange, as if you're talking to a different person.

(Speaking from expereience )

[rezaf]

She is from northern China but has grown up in Shanghai and is fluent in northern accent and Shanghainese. Her family is also partly Shanghainese partly from the north. Her northern local dialect is reasonably close to putonghua and believe me I will be more than happy if she even uses her local dialect or Shanghainese with me. And yes she has always been like this, even when I first met her about 3 years ago I always tried to use my Chinese on her and my Chinese wasn't that bad at that time. The funny thing is that most of the time she uses Chinese when she is speaking with me on the phone so I guess it's because of my foreign face.