Listening to Chinese

[website]

I am sure this has been posted before, but does anyone else feel like listening to Chinese is difficult?

I think I only understand about 1% of what I hear. Maybe the reason is because I don't know tones. Everything I

hear sounds like "Ni xing xing...ching chong...blah blah."

I can speak, but I have to play 20 questions to find out what

people are saying to me.

Ever have this problem?

[skylee]

The same happened when I was a kid learning English. I couldn't understand a word.

Tagalog and Vietnamese, and even the Hakka dialect, make no sense to me at all, because I have never learnt them.

[Spartan087]

that happens to me when i was hearing any language other than english or chinese (m)

i also have to listen hard to hear amirecan english <_< those stupid ppl, can't even speak english probably

[Lu]

Website, I had that too when I went to Beijing for the first time (two years ago). I had studied Chinese for two years, yet I had a hard time understanding native speakers. It gets better when you have stayed in the country longer, have heard more Chinese, got used to the place's accent, know more words (also slang), know more phrases. When I arrived in Taiwan 3 weeks ago I had no problems at all in understanding people.

[benotnobody]

Maybe the reason is because I don't know tones.

When you learn new vocabulary, say it to yourself, in the correct tone, and memorise it. When you hear the word repeated, you should be able to recognise it without remembering exactly which tone it is.

I think the practice of actually documenting tones in standard Chinese was more to help foreigners than to help native speakers.

[website]

I never had too much trouble learning English, but then again I was born in the USA. I don't have trouble understanding other native speakers like the British, Australians, etc., either.

I am just a bit frustrated that I have been studying Chinese for seven years and my listening skills are so poor. I guess weak efforts really do weak equal results.

All my efforts are not totally lost, however. I was

able to understand a girl at the store today who assumed that I didn't

speak Chinese. She told the clerk, "Ta jiao ni Yingwen.", When I asked the girl, "Ta xuexi yingwen ma?", her mouth dropped and she said "Oh, ni hui Putonghua." I hate it when people talk like I don't exist. This is China. Why shouldn't I speak Chinese?

I was so happy about the exchange that as I walked home the

never-ending barrage of retarded staring, pointing, nudging, whispering, giggling, "hello", "waiguoren", "laowai", "gweilo", 'guizi", "Meiguoren,"

"Yingguoren", or "Jianadaren" I hear everyday didn't bother me too much. I doubt Chinese wouldn't like to be called "Chinaman' and "foreigner" in America to their faces so why do they do it here? Imagine if it was still okay to say "Jap, Chink, darkie, gook, Dago, or Wop"? Even if some people in China are uneducated or mean no harm, I am still offended by their ignorant comments. This behavior is rude in any part of the world.

Maybe this place is getting to me.

Thanks for letting me vent.

http://www.sinosplice.com/~laowaimono/

[Guest Yau]

When I asked the girl, "Ta xuexi yingwen ma?", her mouth dropped and she said "Oh, ni hui Putonghua." I hate it when people talk like I don't exist. This is China. Why shouldn't I speak Chinese?

It happens everywhere except American because they assume everybody should speak english. In fact, do you think you can speak chinese? i wonder.

[weixiaoma]

When I asked the girl, "Ta xuexi yingwen ma?", her mouth dropped and she said "Oh, ni hui Putonghua." I hate it when people talk like I don't exist. This is China. Why shouldn't I speak Chinese?

It happens everywhere except American because they assume everybody should speak english. In fact, do you think you can speak chinese? i wonder.

Actually, I would say that most people in countries outside of Asia do NOT have this sort of racist reaction where they assume that every white (or black or DIFFERENT LOOKING) person is incapable of speaking the local language.

I worked in Guatemala for a few months after I graduated, and I didn't bump into this sort of thing at all. Nobody tried to speak to me in English because I was white. Everbody talked to me in Spanish. Even after answering in my clearly accented Spanish, people stuck with Spanish because that's the local language. My roommate who studied abroad in Germany had the same experience there. People expected him to speak German because... well, he was in Germany!

It's only Chinese, Japanese and various other Asians I've run into who will be racist enough to assume that:

1) every person of a different race is foreign

2) NONE of them can speak the local langauge

3) they ALL must speak English

4) even if the foreigner speaks your language, it's fine to answer in English

You have no idea how much grief this kind of thinking has caused my white Argentinian classmate (who does not speak English). Every time he goes out to eat, some bozo Taiwanese guy will try to speak English. My friend will say he doesn't speak English, and the jerk laoban just won't be able to accept it and will continue speaking English.

The truth is, if a 7-11 clerk or a waiter in N. America, Australia, England, or hell most of Europe, REFUSED to speak the local language with a customer because the customer looked different from most of the locals, people would call it racist. In Canada, at least, I think there's a good chance the clerk or waiter would lose their job.

Quote:

When I asked the girl, "Ta xuexi yingwen ma?", her mouth dropped and she said "Oh, ni hui Putonghua." I hate it when people talk like I don't exist. This is China. Why shouldn't I speak Chinese?

[Quest]

A white person in Germany is different from a white person in China....

[skylee]

I think Chinese people in China speaking English to foreigners are just trying to be accomodating rather than racist.

And it is English because it is the most popular foreign language.

[roddy]

I think Chinese people in China make assumptions about whether foreigners can speak Chinese based on their past experience, which is hardly suprising.

Here in Beijing, staff in city center restaurants / cafes where they serve mostly tourists and business people are pretty sloppy and I've caught them saying stuff in front of me they would never say in front of anyone they thought could speak Chinese. That never happens up in Wudaokou where most of the foreigners they see will be foreign students with a decent level of Chinese.

Refusing to speak Chinese to a foreigner would be pretty rude, but people do ruder things than that to me all the time, so I don't mind too much

Roddy

[xuechengfeng]

My listening skills got better as time went on, but there would still be dialogues I would be listening to and they were speaking so fast I couldn't even catch the word.

Luckily when you can hear most of the words you can grasp the sentence and try to formulate an answer, but unfortunately sometimes that/those word/words you've missed are vital.

[benotnobody]

Website - you stated that he had difficulty differentiating or distinguishing between tones. I found this site which I think could be helpful; it's a Mandarin "tone drill". (Yes, link shamelessly stolen from zhongwen.com.) There are 73 voice recordings of Chinese words, and you have to state which tone the word is. Maybe it will be helpful; then again, maybe it won't. I think the more speaking practice you get, the better your tones will become. This certainly worked for me.

I wish they had a Cantonese one...I find Cantonese tones infinitely more difficult than their Mandarin equivalents. Any hints?

[website]

I like the weather, the girls, and the cheap prices here, but

sometimes I'm annoyed by some of the customs here. Even

if people are trying to be polite, I don't like it when I speak Chinese

and people answer in English. How can I practice my listening skills?

Thanks for the link. It seems that tone doesn't always matter too much because of the regional dialects, though. People seem to understand me pretty well or at least pretend to.

[Lu]

I don't know why but I never have any problems with people refusing to speak Chinese to me. (Yeah, except one friend, who prefers English as he thinks that avoids misunderstandings as his English is better than my Chinese.) Maybe you can ask them to speak putonghua to you? Or just stubbornly refuse to speak English yourself and reply in putonghua?

[CBC]

I'm a chinese girl now studying in Australia.

As a Chinese, I could understand people speaking english to foreigners.

It has nothing to do with racism! Only those who looks down upon other nations can be called racist. I think they don't know your Chinese proficiency. They don't know if the next word or sentence will be understood.

"You don't understand our language!" In English speaking world it is a shame that you are there but don't speak their language.

In China people take for granted that people from outside this country don't know our language---it is noting to be blamed of ,isn't it?

However you are treated here, people do not look down upon you because you don't the language.

But I do hate people see foreigners as if they are monkeys in the zoo. I think they are uneducated and feel the distance with foreigners.

[amperel]

racist? guess you've never experienced "real" racist behaviours before...