Can Westerners become fluent in Chinese?

[gougou]

you're there and build on it organically.

So does building on it organically have different implications for whether you're fluent than building on it through flashcards? Chinese is harder to learn than English, so you may need flashcards, but I don't think that warrants assessing fluency in a different way. In case you haven't read it yet, you may be interested in the essay by David Moser, Why Chinese is so damn hard.

[Scoobyqueen]

liwei

Those don't sound native to me

You hear (or "here") these all the time in the North of England

Also the "of" that you suggested but that would only be detectable in writing.

[li3wei1]

You hear (or "here") these all the time in the North of England

I haven't heard those, as far as recall, but I do hear 'It were on the shelf' and similar, so point taken. And I'm sure there are various other regions where you hear other mistakes from native speakers.

Makes you wonder how valid the word 'mistake' is. But we're already far enough off-post.

[renzhe]

If you are indistinguishable from a native speaker in all imaginable situations (including a two-hour examination over the phone), then you ARE a native speaker.

[Theodora]

So does building on it organically have different implications for whether you're fluent than building on it through flashcards?

This is less about the fluency than the relative difficulty of the language.

[gougou]

OK, yeah, in that case definitely read the essay.

[Lu]

The reason I ask is that this is the only language I've come across where, for example, an English-native businessman who does business in China and is based in HK and has been actively studying Mandarin for 30 years is STILL working with his tutor twice a week to improve, or, for another example, a guy who has been in China for five years, is married to a native speaker, does business in Chinese and socialises in Chinese STILL talks about his comprehension in terms of percentage comprehension (80-85%), or, for another example, a guy who is of Chinese descent, based in Beijing, actively studying Chinese, speaks reasonable Chinese and is still studying flashcards, or, for another, a guy who is a Chinese major, has lived in China for five years and studied Chinese for 30 years, and is STILL LEARNING.

It depends once again on the definition of 'fluent' of course, but imo you can be fluent in Chinese and still continue to improve it. But yeah 'fluent' does not mean 'without a trace of an accent'.

[realmayo]

This is less about the fluency than the relative difficulty of the language.

I'm not convinced Chinese is a special case. Read what some people say about learning Korean, arguably it's harder than Chinese. And Korean uses an alphabet.

[Theodora]

You may be interested in the essay by David Moser, Why Chinese is so damn hard.

I've read this essay, and love it. Does anyone know whether his views have changed in the >20 years since he wrote it? Can he now, for example, read it more easily?

Read what some people say about learning Korean.

I'll take a look. You might also enjoy Foreign Language Learning, A Comparative Analysis of Relative Difficulty.

[Steingletscher]

How much of the same could you say about Chinese learning English? I have encountered some who despite having been living in America for a number of years, and constantly reading and writing in English in an academic setting, I could still tell quite quickly that English is a second language to them. Many Indians and Africans have a seem to have much better command of the language despite having thick accents.

[gato]

David Moser speaks excellent Chinese. You can see a video of an interview with Moser and his half-Chinese daughter here:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XOTcwNDIyMjg=.html?x

视频:莫大伟和他的女儿（上）

And here is Moser doing a skit:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjgwNzExMg==.html?x

[陳德聰]

What's different, I think, is the disconnect between writing and phonetics that is (almost) unique to Chinese.

I don't think this is the problem at all. It definitely is an added frustration, but the reason it is so hard is that the phonetic information is harder to pin down to a morpheme. Korean and Japanese have the exact same problem, and Korean is possibly more difficult because it uses an alphabet where Chinese characters used to be. Imagine how much harder it would be to guess the meaning of a Chinese word if all I gave you was the pinyin. That is every word ever borrowed from Chinese into Korean.

The reason I ask is that this is the only language I've come across where, for example, an English-native businessman who does business in China and is based in HK and has been actively studying Mandarin for 30 years is STILL working with his tutor twice a week to improve, or, for another example, a guy who has been in China for five years, is married to a native speaker, does business in Chinese and socialises in Chinese STILL talks about his comprehension in terms of percentage comprehension (80-85%), or, for another example, a guy who is of Chinese descent, based in Beijing, actively studying Chinese, speaks reasonable Chinese and is still studying flashcards, or, for another, a guy who is a Chinese major, has lived in China for five years and studied Chinese for 30 years, and is STILL LEARNING.

I still go to school to learn things in English... and would have to skim the Wikipedia article for a word like "Marxism" before I can even hope to engage in any sort of discussion on the topic. Surely that doesn't mean I am not a fluent speaker of my mother tongue. The same is true of my Chinese, where there are tonnes of gaps in my knowledge of how to say the specific name for certain concepts or things, which is precisely why I have bookmarked a Chinese dictionary. I also frequently use an English dictionary... So where does that leave us on the "still learning" or "studying" or "flashcards" (as a lazy person it is my philosophy that the only place flashcards have in my life is when studying for a test)?

[roddy]

Imagine how much harder it would be to guess the meaning of a Chinese word if all I gave you was the pinyin.

You mean, like someone was talking to you? Not that much harder, is the answer. For every "look how easy it is to understand Chinese characters" example there are half a dozen "WTF, how was I meant to figure that out?" moments. But I went into this recently.

[realmayo]

Agree, I'm still only at a basic stage with Korean but I don't see a big problem there with that element of it. I mean, you could say the same about Vietnamese and people learning that language seem to do okay.

I also agree that the disconnect between script and speech is one of the things that makes Chinese very difficult. Presumably the script itself is just plain and simply more difficult than ABC. Chinese people learn it as children, when learning these things is easier.

[Scoobyqueen]

If you are indistinguishable from a native speaker in all imaginable situations (including a two-hour examination over the phone), then you ARE a native speaker.

I agree with this statement. What happens if someone can do all that but still has a foreign accent? I know a couple of people from Alcace who can speak perfect German but with a French accent. Somehow people think they sound foreign.

[realmayo]

Yes! That's why Chinese is so difficult. Because if you don't sound like a Beijing newsreader then you've failed*. But plenty of French or German people speak extremely good English, perfectly clearly, which native speakers can understand with no strain or effort at all, and yet they can be immediately identified because they have a French or German accent.

* I don't make the rules

[renzhe]

I agree with this statement. What happens if someone can do all that but still has a foreign accent?

I was implying a "perfect" accent too, but this is actually a tricky question.

I have friends from Shanghai, who have a Shanghainese accent. Are they native speakers of Mandarin?

I have friends from Barcelona. Catalan accent, unmistakeable. Are they native speakers of Spanish?

I have friends from Germany who are third generation Turkish immigrants. They have a clear German-Turkish accent. Does this count?

What about African English speakers? Nigerians, Zimbabweans, etc. Native speakers or not?

Let's get even more silly! How about the Scottish accent? It's not an English accent, it's a Scottish one, is Roddy a native speaker? More importantly, is there a difference between Scotland and India in this "native accent" discussion?

I don't think it's clear-cut.

My position on this is that if your pronunciation is correct, meaning all phonemes clearly distinguished from each other, falling into acceptable ranges of how they should be pronounced, correct tones and prosody, then your accent is good enough for all intents and purposes, and any further improvement is cosmetic, but not strictly necessary (I'm assuming that you're not applying to be a speech therapists, radio hosts and stuff like that). Even occasional error does not matter then. People would still guess that you're foreign, but will have zero problems treating you like a native, which means that there is no language barrier whatsoever, which means you're "done" with learning the language as a foreigner.

This is what I aim for and what I'd be satisfied with. I'd still like to nail the native pronunciation for vanity reasons, but I know that they are vanity reasons.

[Scoobyqueen]

You provided a really intelligible response as ever. Thanks. I think non-natives tend to get more uppity about anything other than a received pronunciation than natives do. Natives tend to be more forgiving in this respect whereas the foreigner will be looking to nit-pick. At least this is what I have observed. (ie if a German (or any nationality) hears another German speaking English he might not consider it native-Level if it does not sound like a native English speaker and this means a "received pronunciation" or what (used to be) called BBC English. I have come across this phenomenon often. They can be quite harsh on other learners from their own country).

[Lu]

My position on this is that if your pronunciation is correct, meaning all phonemes clearly distinguished from each other, falling into acceptable ranges of how they should be pronounced, correct tones and prosody, then your accent is good enough for all intents and purposes, and any further improvement is cosmetic, but not strictly necessary (I'm assuming that you're not applying to be a speech therapists, radio hosts and stuff like that). Even occasional error does not matter then. People would still guess that you're foreign, but will have zero problems treating you like a native, which means that there is no language barrier whatsoever, which means you're "done" with learning the language as a foreigner.

This is what I aim for and what I'd be satisfied with. I'd still like to nail the native pronunciation for vanity reasons, but I know that they are vanity reasons.

Well said, and I agree. I have a slight accent, Dutch speakers can hear I'm Dutch, but Americans think I'm British or from some unspecified former colony, so I'm satisfied.

But I'll never be a native speaker of English (or Chinese), imo your native language is what you spoke with your parents when you grew up and/or the language you are more at home in than any other language.

[Scoobyqueen]

your native language is what you spoke with your parents when you grew up and/or the language you are more at home in than any other language.

I also think you can lose that language. I have people from my supposed native country telling me I speak quite well for a foreigner...

You forget words, you ask what a particular idiom means, you are surprised by some of the constructs and the accent changes (in my case)... So i actually believe you can adopt a new mother tongue.

What is the difference between having spent the first 14 years of your life in one country and the next 20 in another. Which is going to be the most fluent..? Which is your mother tongue - the one in which you grew up intellectually or the one you used for playground stuff?