What is the general level of Chinese literacy among foreigners these days?

[vellocet]

I just got back from a short trip to the interior of China to a lower-tier city. The kind of place that barely any foreigners live.  As I navigated around town, I was somewhat nonplused by how little reaction my Chinese got.  None of those 你的中文说得很好 remarks I get all the time even here, on the east coast. Nobody reacted at all when I spoke, nobody tried to speak English to me (except one darling little girl in the airport line)  and  it was all completely normal. 

It got me thinking, back in the day, speaking Mandarin was something that Chinese people never expected foreigners to do. What's it like today? Do more laowai speak Chinese than in the old days(i.e. approximately  2000-2020)?

Where I live I haven't noticed any improvement among the foreigners, it's always the same, most don't, a few can poorly, a small number are quite good.   What's it like out there?

[Tomsima]

I'm going to guess its your Chinese that has improved rather than everyone else's I think these days if a foreigner speaks good enough Chinese in China most people seem to respect that, hold back on the comments/questions and just interact with you as usual. Either that or the pressure of modern Chinese society and a cooling in relations with the West is dampening the general enthusiasm.

[anonymoose]

There are obviously many factors that lead to this situation. I think probably one of the more important ones is the advent of smart phones and social media. It used to be the case that the only exposure to Chinese-speaking foreigners you could get was Dashan on CCTV, so to see a foreigner in the flesh speaking Chinese was still a novelty. Now that practically everyone in China has a smart phone, and a countless number of foreigners showing off their Chinese on social media are only the press of a button away, there isn't much novelty any more. Furthermore, people are generally more interested in their playing with their smart phone now than engaging with the world around them. Striking up conversations with the foreigner used to be a good way to kill time on the train or bus. Now people would rather just play with their phone.

[Jim]

I don't get many comments these days either, and if I do they come later in the conversation, but my son who's not yet five and a native speaker does. We did a local flea market where he had a little stall selling off his old toys so he can buy some new ones and he drew a massive crowd of clucking grans. Very good for business

[abcdefg]

On 11/30/2024 at 2:22 PM, anonymoose said:

Now people would rather just play with their phone.

 

I've noticed that too. Used to be able to strike up a conversation with someone sitting next to you on a bus, but not any more. Disappointing! 

[vellocet]

Point taken about the flood of laowai on Douyin harvesting those likes for speaking well. 

I maintain the other part of the question though, what do you see regarding the general Mandarin level of foreigners these days?  Do more people speak it, and do they speak it better?  I remember back in the day a buddy of mine in Hangzhou said universities were cranking out little Dashans at a furious rate. I haven't really noticed myself, though.

And boy, Dashan, I haven't heard that name in a while.  I miss that guy like a toothache.  

[Meng Lelan]

On 11/30/2024 at 2:22 PM, anonymoose said:

t used to be the case that the only exposure to Chinese-speaking foreigners you could get was Dashan on CCTV, so to see a foreigner in the flesh speaking Chinese was still a novelty.

I almost forgot about those days when Dashan was widely known.  I was there in the 1970s and 1980s but not after that, so I wasn't around when social media became popular. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I came back there and spoke Chinese, what the reaction would be this time around. Then again I wonder if everyone is that immersed in their smartphones nowadays, but like I said, I've not been back there since the 1980s. 

[889]

It was a scene repeated time and again in China.

 

You'd walk into a store or someplace and there'd be giggling and jostling behind the counter.

 

“你跟他说英语吧!"

 

That's pretty much gone now. These days, folks in China just seem to assume you can speak Chinese. Much like folks in America or Britain just assume anyone there can speak English.

 

It's a very noticeable change.