how to deal with language battles

[abcdefg]

I've seldom had the original poster's problem in Kunming. Not really sure why.

Excellent Sinosplice article, by the way.

[Shi Tong]

I simply suggest relaxing. You may even want to say "I really need to practice my Chinese, can we speak Chinese?" if you really want to insist. If they say "I really want to practice my English, can we speak English", suggest he speaks English and you speak Chinese.

Make light of it.

It's not like it's the end of the world

[bakhtinjali]

I simply suggest relaxing. You may even want to say "I really need to practice my Chinese, can we speak Chinese?" if you really want to insist. If they say "I really want to practice my English, can we speak English", suggest he speaks English and you speak Chinese.

I love this approach. I used to hate having to deal with speaking English when I had at least upper intermediate Chinese and came from a language program where I wasn't allowed to speak any English for an entire semester. When I asked a Chinese women on a train about it she mentioned that I sounded a little bit selfish about the whole issue. Language really is about sharing, and like Shi Tong mentioned sometimes just insisting that you would like to learn Chinese is a simply, relaxing way to get your point across. I found at least in Beijing people were very willing to help me learn and speak Chinese when I was honest about it, rather than just persisting to speak Chinese against their English which becomes exhausting very quickly.

[natra]

I used to hate having to deal with speaking English when I had at least upper intermediate Chinese and came from a language program where I wasn't allowed to speak any English for an entire semester. When I asked a Chinese women on a train about it she mentioned that I sounded a little bit selfish about the whole issue.

I can't say I agree.

I am a white American studying in a Chinese university (not in a 对外汉语 college with other foreigners, but with Chinese students). People frequently criticize me for speaking Chinese with my classmates, as I am American and should provide them with an opportunity to practice English. However, if I were to do this, I would also be criticized for my ignorance of Chinese culture and an arrogant sense of western cultural superiority.

I don't know if it is just another instance of xenophobia, but no matter which language I use, I am always going to viewed negatively for it by some. It makes me inclined to just not pay so much attention to it.

[ma3zi1]

People frequently criticize me for speaking Chinese with my classmates, as I am American and should provide them with an opportunity to practice English.

This is such a weird idea to me. I cannot imagine being critical to any of my Chinese or Taiwanese colleagues in the U.S. because they refuse to speak to me in Mandarin.

[Lu]

Often it helps to just speak Chinese, if your Chinese is better than their English, they will often continue in Chinese. If the conversation is uninteresting anyway, you can always just excuse yourself and leave.

If it's a shopkeeper or something, I reply in whatever language was spoken to me. There are plenty of other people around who speak Chinese, while that shopkeeper probably doesn't have much opportunity for English practice. Often as not they'll move to Chinese when they find out I speak that too.

As to coworkers hired for their English skills, that constitutes most of the Chinese people I know at the moment, and I realized this was growing to be a problem. Fortunately, they are fine with speaking Chinese when I started doing so. At a party the other day, I was speaking English with a coworker and asked her (in English) if she would mind speaking Chinese. She was a little surprised, but agreed. She then introduced me with (I presumed) another Chinese, and me and him continued to chat in Chinese for a while, until I found out he is actually Dutch. Ah well :-)

[jbradfor]

My opinion was inline with the majority opinion here: if I take the time and effort to go to China, I expect to speak / learn Chinese! It's not my responsibility to provide free English lessons.

Until a couple weeks ago.

Now I feel so guilty about that opinion that next time I'm in China I might have to give a couple hours of free Chinese lessons to repay my karmic debt. [EDIT. crap. I mean English lessons. "thanks" Meng Lelan ]

What changed? I started an informal language exchange with someone from Beijing. She was in town with her husband, who was here for a 6 months international assignment. I had low hopes for this: her English was (and is!) better than my Chinese, so by the general law of language exchange, I assumed we would end up speaking English most of the time. But I decided to give it a try. So we talked (mostly in Chinese) for 30-40 minutes, then I offered to switch to English. She actually declined! She said that she has a lot of opportunity to speak English here, and since I don't have much opportunity to speak Chinese here, she doesn't mind speaking (mostly) in Chinese with me.

The guilt, the guilt....

[Meng Lelan]

Now I feel so guilty about that opinion that next time I'm in China I might have to give a couple hours of free Chinese lessons to repay my karmic debt.

You're going to give a couple hours of free Chinese lessons? Where can we sign up?

[lockdoc]

This whole think looks as almost every chinese speaks good english. Where do you guys live? I live in Shanghai at Minhang district, so its not the center and here it is hard to find anybody who speaks english. Just pretend your English is really poor or u dont speak any... if it works...

I have a nice story of a guy I met:

I met a guy he told me he had the same problem, he is an english native so its hard for him to pretend to to speak another language. Everybody was always talking to him in english. He was so sick of all it, that he decided he is gonna give it a try and pretend not to speak good english. He went into a Bank, the lady asked him something in English and he replied in Chinese something like "sorry your english is not very good I do not understand you very clear", Then the lady asked: "Where are you from" he said he is russian (assuming no chinese speaks russian), the the lady told him something in russian (he obviously did not understand anything and tried to continue chinese by telling her, that her russian is also pretty poor. But the lady replied to him (in chinese or english) that this is not true, she had lived in Russia for 6 years. At that moment he was so embaresed and just went straight out of the bank.

Man this poor guy, but dont lose hopes, just pick a really rare language that no one bothers to learn.

[gougou]

Man this poor guy

He lied and he was seen through. No pity from me.

[roddy]

Yeah, 'sorry I don't speak English' is one thing, 'sorry, your English is no good' is another. Although it doesn't sound true anyway - in Harbin they might try Russian on the off=chance, in Shanghai?

[anonymoose]

I've found that, even in Shanghai, 9.5 times out of 10, people will respond in Chinese if they are spoken to in Chinese. So if the story above is true, I suspect it's more a case of the English speaker's Chinese being so poor that the bank clerk had no choice but to speak in English.

[lockdoc]

Why should it not be true???

[Meng Lelan]

in Harbin they might try Russian on the off=chance, in Shanghai?

There's a Russian Jewish community still in Shanghai, not as sizable as Harbin or Beijing though.

A number of older and mostly retired native Chinese are able to speak Russian, mostly because they studied or worked in Russia at some point.

[xianhua]

This whole think looks as almost every chinese speaks good english.

But when living in somewhere like the UK, this is often the case. After all, the Chinese students here have passed English tests to be here in the first place - as have the skilled migrants. Other than that, your chances of meeting an illegal immigrant who can't speak a word of English are slim as they are deliberately ellusive (but studies suggest they are here in their thousands).

[gougou]

Why should it not be true???

he is an english native [...] he said he is russian

[evasiege]

Having been in China for a year and half and studied Chinese for nearly 4, I actually think it is quite inconsiderate and selfish avoiding speaking English with those trying to learn. You don't necessarily have to befriend someone who only wants to speak English, but indulging a stranger in a simple, 2 or 3 minute conversation, and even assisting with incorrect grammar, is nothing. 95% of Chinese I meet on a daily basis can't speak English, so whats 5% that want to chat it a little?

I like to imagine if I were still studying Chinese in the US, and had no means to practicing oral English ( financial, time related reasons) other than random Chinese I met on the street, whom were also here to learn English. I have spent just as much time and effort to learn a language as they have, but don't have the opportunity to speak as much. They have endless resources for learning English from basically everyone everywhere, but I'd have very very few to learn Chinese. If I lived close to a university, the majority of Chinese I meet are students who study English. However, I discover none of them want to talk Chinese with me because "they came to study English", not teach natives Chinese. Its rare for me to meet Chinese that have both poor English skills that don't mind helping me out a bit when I try to converse in their language. As you can see, this situation would suck and I would be so appreciative of anyone willing to help out a little, even if its just a minute conversation.

I used to be a bit snobby when ordering food when a waiter, or a cashier at mcdonalds or something, tried to ask me in English what I wanted to eat. I would quickly respond in Chinese reinforcing the fact that I could speak Chinese and that they better respect it. I still do it a little now, but I'm more conscious of it. I have to order in Chinese the vast majority of the time anyways. Situations like this where I see someone really wanting to practice their English in a basic conversation I don't have a problem with anymore usually. The only time when its annoying is when I start a conversation in Chinese (with someone who speaks both), pronounce something wrong once or twice, then the whole conversation turns to English as the person I'm talking with is suddenly reminded that my Chinese isn't fluent. Anyway, gotta look at it both ways.

Also, it depends on where you live. If you live in Shanghai and you are bombarded with Chinese wanting to speak English with you all the time, or live in Chengdu and you run into an English speaker only every other day, your perspective is of course different.

[Yang Rui]

I agree with evasiege.

[jbradfor]

so whats 5% that want to chat it a little?

67,050,000 people wanting to talk English to you. Better take a number!

[Taking the wikipedia reference of 1,341,000,000 people.]

[evasiege]

Yea, because all those 67,050,000 just happen to live in the same city as you do. It would help if you actually thought about it rather than throw up some random high number to try and make a point.

5% means if I interact with 20 Chinese people on a daily basis, a high number in my opinion, 1 will seriously try to speak English with me. Its all about where you go, who you hang out with. Hanging around English majors and frequenting foreigner hot spots (language schools, bars etc.) will make the number leap much higher. If your English speaking Chinese friends don't respect the fact that you are trying to learn Chinese, then you have to adjust how much time you spend with them. In the end, no one feels sorry for you, especially not any Chinese who can't find anyone to practice with at all.