Right, but being babbled at in crappy English/Chinese mish mash is not good communication.
I don’t think this is about interjecting random English words and code sharing. It’s where a person speaks fluent Chinese and the Taiwanese person one is speaking to tries to speak to the speaker in terrible English while using exaggerated gestures to try to help that person understand.
I don’t think it is anything other than a ‘deer in the headlights’ reaction - “Shit. Here comes a foreigner and my English is terrible. Help!” When the foreigner then speaks Chinese, it doesn’t really compute. It’s just fear and embarrassment. Tell them their English is good, using Chinese.
Why? Second person usage is an effective, common literary technique.
[quote=“Super Hans”]I don’t think this is about interjecting random English words and code sharing. It’s where a person speaks fluent Chinese and the Taiwanese person one is speaking to tries to speak to the speaker in terrible English while using exaggerated gestures to try to help that person understand.
I don’t think it is anything other than a ‘deer in the headlights’ reaction - “Shit. Here comes a foreigner and my English is terrible. Help!” When the foreigner then speaks Chinese, it doesn’t really compute. It’s just fear and embarrassment. Tell them their English is good, using Chinese.
Why? Second person usage is an effective, common literary technique.[/quote]
Why say “You speak fluent Chinese, but people insist on speaking to you in stupid English” when what the OP meant was “I speak fluent Chinese, but people insist on speaking to me in stupid English”? The latter may be true, but the former most likely isn’t for many if not most readers. That’s why I see most second person usage as presumptuous nonsense. Note I didn’t say “That’s why you see most second person usage as presumptuous nonsense,” as that would be even more presumptuous nonsense.
Why not get creative? If they speak back to you in English, bust out another language. It doesn’t even have to be a real language. Bust out some Klingon or Entish or something made up on the spot. Wouldn’t that solve the problem and then force them to speak Chinese?
On a related matter, because I’m weird and hate small talk, I’m actually giving serious consideration to making a laminated card, or series thereof, with information about me to chase off those looking for a free English lesson, with answers to the top 20 or 50 questions (and responses to those) about me. Upon encountering someone trying to bust out his English on me, I will hand him the card(s). I’ll probably need some sort of fail-safe statement at the end though about how I can’t talk to people because I might encounter someone with good enough English to then ask me more questions about the information on the card.
Still, it’s better than the conversations I’ve had back in Australia. At least in Taiwan, it’s only one in one thousand people you pass on the street or encounter somewhere. Also, even if you meet someone at a party/dinner/meeting/whatever, they’ve usually exhausted their English within two minutes and then they leave you alone again. Here, on the other hand, you have to sit and listen to someone for fifteen minutes about how they’re really tapped into the national hobbies of becoming (more) obese and/or running up credit card debt buying some shit they don’t need so they can keep up with people they don’t like, and you have to pretend you’re interested. Likewise, they have to pretend they’re simply fascinated, no, downright enthralled, by the fact that you teach English in Taiwan.
I’m very much not with TC on this one. Communication is highly, highly overrated.
It’s a bit like saying:
“Everyone knows you shouldn’t speak with your mouth full”
The “you” and “your” in this sentence don’t refer specifically to whoever is reading it, but just refer to people in general. It’s basically a less pompous way of saying “one”. I guess that the OP didn’t use “I” simply to be more inclusive, because he’s hoping he’s not the only one experiencing this kind of situation.
Anyway, on topic, I have to say that I’ve experienced this phenomenon quite a lot in Taiwan. At first it really bugged me, but like people have mentioned above, it’s really not about you (or me? 
), but about them wanting to use some English. The best idea I’ve found is to just be relaxed about it, and speak English if they want to speak English. If it’s really important or communication is just impossible, then switch to Chinese and say how awesome their English is, then they’ll usually be more than happy to switch over.
In at least one case it’s somebody who has worked in my office for several years, so I don’t think it’d work.
No, that’s all the more reason to do it. It would make for even more hilarity. Just bust out Klingon on that guy. He’ll then either figure it out and speak Chinese to you, get frustrated at the inability to communicate or think you’re weird and leave you alone. Problem solved in any case. If other people get on your case, then just (as I think someone else has already suggested) bust out a ton of slang or really complex English, and ramp up the accent from wherever you’re from to the point where other native speakers would have trouble understanding you, and speak really quickly. Then calmly state to your boss or whomever it is getting on your case that the person you’re speaking to has really bad English.
Second person usage doesn’t necessarily presume anything. A novel using second person narration doesn’t assume the reader is the protagonist. Often, second person narration is used to put a person into a theoretical or hypothetical situation, although the person who is compiling this reply is absolutely sure that the person who is reading this reply is aware of this and that this person is just being pig-headed in a pig-headed way.
Second person usage doesn’t necessarily presume anything. A novel using second person narration doesn’t assume you are the protagonist. Often, second person narration is used to put you into a theoretical or hypothetical situation, although I am absolutely sure you are aware of this and that you are just being pig-headed in a pig-headed way,
參數,編譯器,Java,軟體開發,專案經理… in reality many people use the English terms, but it sometimes depends on the individual’s education, some universities emphasize English and use American textbooks so many students will use the English terminology mixed into Chinese, whereas some students from universities where Chinese is used as the language of teaching and in the textbooks will use the Chinese term.
This is more appropriate because as non-Asian Chinese speaker, I have found most Taiwanese will drop speaking English if they know I can speak Chinese, and become even more conversant. However, this is only my personal experience.
[color=#FF0000]Moderator’s note: Add translations to your Mandarin sentences, please. This isn’t the Learning Chinese forum and not everyone can read or understand Mandarin.[/color]
Unless the problem is that you’ve just dropped your wallet, or the bike or car you’ve just parked and walked away from is starting to catch fire, or there’s a cop coming down the street ticketing vehicles and yours is next, and he’s trying to tell you that. :discodance:
I never used 參數 or 編譯器 at work. Come on, compiler? Everyone says compiler here.
And why do you assume development pertains only to software? Is it because of the word compiler? 
Honestly, I wouldn’t use the Chinese forms of ‘switches’ or ‘routers’ when talking with my colleagues when discussing network related issue.
And BTW…that’s ROUTer as in 66 to 3 UCLA butt-whipping of UT ‘rout’ (for those that insisted on saying the correct ‘Engrish’ pronunciation…slowly curling all the fingers except for the middle one).
[color=#FF0000]Moderator’s note: Add translations to your Mandarin sentences, please. This isn’t the Learning Chinese forum and not everyone can read or understand Mandarin.[/color]
Second person usage doesn’t necessarily presume anything. A novel using second person narration doesn’t assume the reader is the protagonist. Often, second person narration is used to put a person into a theoretical or hypothetical situation, although the person who is compiling this reply is absolutely sure that the person who is reading this reply is aware of this and that this person is just being pig-headed in a pig-headed way.
Second person usage doesn’t necessarily presume anything. A novel using second person narration doesn’t assume you are the protagonist. Often, second person narration is used to put you into a theoretical or hypothetical situation, although I am absolutely sure you are aware of this and that you are just being pig-headed in a pig-headed way,[/quote]
Well, you certainly put me in my place.
It’s just conversation and light banter. Don’t take it too seriously.
Dragonbones: For sure. You can usually tell by the first or second sentence of the conversation what the person is on about, and in the case of a colleague, there’d surely be a history of such a person being a pain in the backside (or not).
If you come from North America, sure.
I come from North America and I say it BOTH ways.
What the fuck are you trying to say?[/quote]
What is your major difficulty in understanding the sentence?
I’ll try to help you through it if you can explain clearly where it eludes you.
What the fuck are you trying to say?[/quote]
What is your major difficulty in understanding the sentence?
[/quote]
HA HA! Gotcha. 
See? Its like, YOU said language is for communication, so, like, EYE riffed on that by coming back with a joke about how your language was failing to communicate, even though its only six words long. Only, I failed to communicate the meaning, prompting YOU to come back with a question about why EYE couldn’t understand your communication.
Its Friday, the sun is over the yardarm and yet my whistle won’t be wet for 2 hours. SO CUT ME SOME SLACK, GODDAMMIT!
Well, the Chinese at least know how to say “development” (發展 fa1zhan3), given that it’s one of the most overused words in the Chinese language! But in a computer programming context, as in Web development, it’s more like 開發 (kai1fa1).
Parameter is 參數 (can1shu4)
Compiler (e.g. a C++ compiler) is 編譯器 (bian1yi4qi4)
One of several translations for project manager is 專案管理員
As far as I know, Java is just Java!
I think if your Chinese was truly ‘fluent’ they’d be more than happy to yak away in the putong hua.