how to deal with language battles

[gegehuhu]

I'm sure everyone who has lived in China has experienced what I'm talking about.

You're a foreigner living in China looking for opportunities to practice your Chinese with actual Chinese people.

But you often find that the Chinese people you find yourself talking to do not speak to you in Chinese, but instead in English.

You keep talking in hopes they will switch to English. You speak Chinese, and they compliment your Chinese in English. It's kind of like you're talking over each other.

If you're like me, you might get frustrated. You understand why many Chinese people want to learn and practice their English. But you feel that in China, Chinese should be the default language (when in Roman, do as the Romans do).

If you're really impatient you might actually tell your counterpart that if they keep speaking English you're not interested in talking to them. Saying this directly makes you feel like a jerk so you try to drop hints instead.

How do people deal with this situation?

Is it selfish of me if I prefer to speak Chinese with my Chinese friends instead of English?

Should I feel guilty if I don't allocate half of the time to Chinese and half to English - a mutual study session?

The problem with this is my Chinese is already in the upper intermediate range. I can speak quite fluently about any number of topics. In other words, my Chinese level is considerably higher than the English level of most of the Chinese people in my city (Kunming).

I get bored with the same old conversation topics that people often want to talk about with me in English. I prefer deeper, more substance-filled conversations. This I can do to some extent in Chinese, but it's difficult in English.

I feel somewhat guilty, and recently I was accused of selfishness by a Chinese friend when I expressed reluctance to speak only in English for an evening.

Curious what others feel about this problem

[anonymoose]

Your frustration is understandable, but to put it simply, it is selfish to insist on speaking only in Chinese.

Now, if you don't mind being selfish, then you can persist in speaking Chinese, even if the other person speaks in English, and hope that eventually they'll just switch to Chinese.

The other option is to find some friends who are not interested in speaking English. Most of my friends here speak to me in Chinese, and indeed many of them cannot even speak English.

I think you'll find that when you reach a certain level of fluency, the majority of people will just naturally speak to you in Chinese.

[ma3zi1]

I agree with anonymoose. Feel free to steer yourself away from interactions with people who press you to speak English with them. You didn't come over there to help other people speak English. If that was what you came to China for, then you'd be in one of those schools teaching people English (and getting paid for your services).

The truth is, and I'm making an assumption here, you came over there to improve your Chinese. People should respect that.

It may sound harsh, but if people really want to speak English with you, feel free to arrange for them to pay you. Otherwise, what benefit is it to you?

There is another tact (although it might be too late to use it), just tell people you are from Russia or Germany or Poland, or anywhere they don't speak English - this works for me a lot.

[adrianlondon]

The truth is, and I'm making an assumption here, you came over there to improve your Chinese. People should respect that.

And they didn't stay in China just to teach foreigners. Unless your Chinese is pretty good, it's hard work for them; so to say you must be paid for teaching them English but they must teach you Chinese for free is unfair.

It's all about give and take.

[Yang Rui]

My top tip is to speak to Chinese people who don't speak English.

[gegehuhu]

Haha,

Pretending to be Russian or Polish is a good one.

Actually I've thought about it before, but never actually tried it out.

If I'm going to try it, I probably need to rehearse something in advance.

The hard part would be trying to fake a Russian or Polish accent, and then have speak Chinese through that accent.

I think this might be difficult to keep up. I've got an American accent and most Chinese people are familiar with American accents from TV and movies. Also, most Chinese people guess I am American just based on my appearance. I'm not really sure why. There are dozens of countries in the world with white people. I could be from any one of them. Maybe its just a numbers thing.

I should perhaps add in response to some who imply my desire to mooch free Chinese lessons off Chinese people without giving them English lessons in return is selfish. I'm not really looking for Chinese people to actively *teach* me Chinese (and thus expend the energy that it takes to teach). I'm just looking for people to converse with. The learning part is my responsibility, not theirs. And my Chinese is good enough that Chinese people can understand what I'm saying. It doesn't take "a lot of work" as one responder said.

[ma3zi1]

And they didn't stay in China just to teach foreigners. Unless your Chinese is pretty good, it's hard work for them; so to say you must be paid for teaching them English but they must teach you Chinese for free is unfair.

I respectfully disagree. They are not actively working at teaching you anything, they are just talking to you in their native language, in their own country. It's not like you come running up to them on the street trying to speak with them (like they do to you if they think you speak English). You are just living your life, working at whatever job you work at, speaking the language of the country you are currently living in.

The way I see it, and this is just an opinion: Just like an average Chinese citizen has every right to ignore you because you are a foreigner and they expect your Chinese to be hard to deal with, you have every right to reject them for only approaching you to speak English.

[Erbse]

There is no law which says in which language people have to interact. From observation I think, that people naturally tend to use the language in which the communication is most fruitful. Your best bet is to look for people whose English is worse than your Chinese.

[aristotle1990]

If your Chinese is better than their English, the chance that they're going to insist on speaking English with you is very, very low. I'm not saying your Chinese is bad, but...maybe try impressing them with some 成语 or something?

[Meng Lelan]

My top tip is to speak to Chinese people who don't speak English.

Love that one, a green rep to Yang Rui.

Really, try staying with those who don't care about English at all. The ones who are older, more established in China (have families, careers in China, not interested in using English to advance their careers and interests etc) would be good to try and seek out.

[roddy]

If your Chinese is better than their English, the chance that they're going to insist on speaking English with you is very, very low. I'm not saying your Chinese is bad, but...maybe try impressing them with some 成语 or something?

Agree with this. I wouldn't look at chengyu as dropping those into your average initial interaction is unnecessary. But if you can step back and look at your Chinese objectively for anything that might make Chinese people think it isn't as good as you think it is, or that might make it harder to interact with you in Chinese, you might find something to work on. Number one candidate is probably poor tones and pronunciation in general.

You also need to be specific about the situation - if you're asking for your usual cigarettes in a shop and you're getting English back, something's wrong. If you're talking to a colleague who has been hired on the basis of having good English and who has been assigned to your office for this very reason, different story.

[kdavid]

John over at Sinosplice wrote a superb article on language power struggles. I hadn't seen anyone take an academic approach to this topic before I read his article. I highly recommend anyone interested in this take the time to read that post.

It's been mentioned above, but every time someone approaches me and speaks English I give the a puzzling look until they repeat whatever they said. I then say, very politely, "不好意思，我不会俄语。“ (I'm sorry, but I can't [speak] Russian.) To which they generally respond, in Chinese, "Uh, I'm not speaking Russian, I'm speaking English." To which you respond, "Oh, well I can't speak English either." This has been fool proof.

[GuoDongXing]

the sinosplice article is awesome.

as for me, if I didn't know them I would, as suggested above, feign ignorance. "No m'entiendo. Yo no hablo ingles" "什么?!"

If I knew them I would say something to them. If they want to practice english, I think it's fair to do a 50/50 split.

[Meng Lelan]

Wow the Sinosplice article is good. The main point of the article even confirms what Erbse said. And I was thinking just now how in the 1970s and 1980s those language struggles didn't exist because so few people were English-crazed like they are now.

[daofeishi]

I agree with many of the above in that you have not gone to China to be a study tool for everyone else. Give and take is important, but if someone is getting angry at you for not wanting to speak in English, I would say that it shows that they do not respect you as a friend and might even just be (ab)using you for your English speaking abilities. I would certainly never force any of my French or German friends to speak to me in French or German for a whole evening, especially not while in the US. When you find someone who is clearly not just trying to get to know you for your English speaking abilities, then I think it is fine to help out with his/her English once in a while, like friends do.

[wushijiao]

Why not come out directly and say that speaking English has absolutely no appeal to you, and is boring (没意思)? I think there's something to be said for communicating the "why" behind why you don't want to practice English 101, and having conversations about inane topics.

With that said, I always felt that it was fairly easy to win "languages battles" in the Mainland, because you can simply choose not to "fight", and just speak Chinese with one of the 95-9% of the population that isn't conversant in English.

[Brian US]

I'm going to go with the give and take. One of my best friends is a Japanese guy I met here in Beijing. Although we normally speak Chinese and he doesn't push English, I sometimes use English one on one. I see it as helping him in the long term.

Now, when it comes to random people on the street I have a different view. The students that come up to me in the library bother me, because I know some go after every foreigner on campus. However, if a small shopkeeper wants to throw a few English lines at me I don't mind as it:

1) Rarely happens

2) The conversation is brief and basic

3) I want to set a good example if I'm the only foreigner they will ever talk to B)

[lockdoc]

Hey man, just tell them u dont speak no english (of course tell them in chinese), thats the way it works to me. Even when I am at the bank for example, as soon as they see me, they get someone who speaks english and I tell them 听不懂 and that I dont speak no english. Not every laowai speaks english and I have asked many chinese people if they can hear when a foreigner speaks chinese if he is using english, french, spanish, german or whatever accent, and the cannot. I have the same impression. I came here to improve my chinese, not to practise my english (im not a native english speaker), so I never tell no nobody that I am able to speak english. Might be selfish, but if u don't watch u end up speaking english with everybody here and thats of no use.

[jasoninchina]

I frequently tell people that I don't speak English. If they ask where I'm from, I admit that I'm from America but that I've forgotten how to speak English. If nothing else, it's been a funny way to break the ice. I teach English, so I have definitely drawn a line on how much I'll practice with someone in English. There are many people who want to make use of me, but teaching is my livelihood, so sometimes I have to make it clear that it has to be a give and take relationship. To practice English with every tom, dick, and harry can literally take food off my table.

[gegehuhu]

While most of the time I prefer not to get into boring conversations in elementary English with random Chinese people who approach me to practice, I agree that there are certain times and places where I'm more charitable than others.

In the city of Kunming, I'm not so charitable with students and those who study English in school or professionally and are just looking for opportunities to practice. Unless its a friend of mine, and a friend who also speaks Chinese with me, in which case I'm willing to do some give and take.

But if a Kunming taxi driver or small storekeeper wants to try out a few lines in English, I'm happy to go along with it. At my favorite juice/milk tea store, I've recently begun teaching the cute girls there a few English phrases to use for when they get a laowai who can't speak Chinese.

But when I travel to small towns and villages in Yunnan province outside of Kunming, I'm generally happy to indulge the school children who are amazed to see a laowai in their little town, and honor the handful with the guts to actually speak to me in English with some pleasant banter. I figure these kids don't get many chances to speak to foreigners in their life, and I'd be a grinch not to give it to them. Of course, they can probably just speak a few sentences, after which I'll switch into Chinese.

Hadn't come across John's article on Sinosplice until now,

but it was John's (and Jenny's) podcast on this very topic on Chinesepod.com that inspired me to start this post