I have to agree with those that have made the point about exposure to foreigners speaking Chinese and attitude. In the office where my mom works in the U.S., she always gets the calls from foreigners. She doesn’t speak any foreign languages, but she’s the only one patient enough to try to figure out what the people on the other line are saying. Here, I’ve had the same problem being the foreigner; many people just lack the patience or attitude of trying to help. They get so nervous by the sight of you, and convinced that they won’t understand, that they give up before you’ve even opened your mouth. On the other hand, I’ve known a few Taiwanese people that speak next to zero English, but that have had a lot of foreign friends in the past that spoke Chinese with them. They understand my Chinese even when I put the prepositions and adverbs in the wrong place, add in unnecessary verbs and leave out half the nouns. They use the context of our conversation and their knowledge of common foreigner mistakes in Chinese to figure out what I’m saying. This is just a skill that most Taiwanese people have not had the need to develop.
Then you have the dinks that no matter how good you speak Chinese or how bad they speak English they will still refuse to speak Chinese to you. Some messed up power thing or something. Not the majority but they’re defiantly out there.
That’s easy. I tell them I don’t understand English and if they keep it up, they don’t get my business. Too many people here to have to waste time talking to an asshole.
I have a slightly different theory about the blank stares and incomprehension - I think they’re frantically trying to dredge up their bushiban English and parse what you’re saying using it.
I do the same thing myself sometimes - a Taiwanese person will start speaking decent but accented English to me and I’ll squint at him in mystification because I just assume it’s Chinese.
To avoid this phenomenon I’ve copied a trick from a fluent friend - when you start talking to someone, speak ridiculously slowly and overemphasise the tones. Once they’re clear that you’re speaking Chinese, you can speed up and relax.
My main complaint these days is that when the right way to say something doesn’t immediately spring to mind, people interpret my hesitation as complete inability to communicate, and just give up.
Ironlady and others have posted good stuff in the past about how useful it is to start off with set functional phrases such as “Qingwen yixia” to give listeners processing time and a cue to listen to what you’re going to say and what language it’s going to be in. I find this very effective, and I don’t have to speak especially slowly or anything. I just speak at a normal rate.
I find that having made a good start in this way, even if I get through only half of what I want to say then dry up, people are generally willing to be patient and either wait for me to find the right words, or help me to express myself.
My take is that tones are undoubtedly important (of course) – but not as important as other elements of pronunciation, such as vowel and consonant sounds. Look, for example, at this page on Chinese characters with multiple pronunciations and the recent thread in this forum on [url=Characters pronounced differently in Taiwan and China - #3 by Taffy pronounced differently in Taiwan and China[/url]. The differences are predominantly in tone, which indicates a greater flexibility with tone than with initials or finals.
I haven’t seen any academic studies on this, though. Does anyone know of any?
I’d like to modify my last post. I can count on one hand the people that refused to speak Chinese and in usually had to do with office politics or a guy with girl(s) felt the need to establish his dominance or something. I think 95% of the people you come into contact with after 20-30 seconds they realize you can really speak Mandarin there is no problem. I also agree with other posters, slowing it down and giving them a minute to adjust usually helps (you do have to nail the pronunciation and tones though). I even have friends whose English is better than my Mandarin but still prefer to speak in Chinese.
Has anybody had the opposite though? I’ve had people I’ve never met walk up to me and start talking full on in Chinese to me. Maybe a shift in thinking because more and more foreigners are learning Chinese???
I experience that more and more. Especially after I’ve ordered something in Chinese. Then they start speaking quite rapidly. One of my newest LE acquisitons is a lady I buy dumplings from every Wednesday before evening class. She speaks no English and we have a nice rapport going on Wednesdays.
I would have to be honest and say I also think this occurs more often because my Mandarin has improved. My listening skill is approaching the point where I can almost understand everything in normal conversation and even the news is less of a problem. I’ve improved because my wife’s English isn’t very good, and when I speak to her in English she usually answers back in Chinese. So this has been a contributing factor, I believe.
Two years ago I still had the problem of asking for green tea and getting blank stares. The last time that happened I snapped at the young guy and asked him if he’s a moron or from Thailand (I was in a hurry and having a bad day). He quickly scuttled off to get my tea. That was a long time ago. Doesn’t really happen anymore.
So keep on trying. Bash away at it doggedly and disregard the blank looks. Half of learning a new language is the ability to laugh at yourself and keeping trying regardless.
I blame Bush.[/quote]
Now, now; we all know that Al Gore invented tones.
Some of the reasons for misunderstanding have been right on the ball…especially “exposure to foreigners.” I grew up in a small town in Central New York (about 4 hours from the city), and I had little to no exposure to foreigners speaking English. Right after I graduated high school I went to Taiwan, and within two or three months most of my conversations were in Chinese (I had studied a year of it before I went, and I was mostly talking to my host family). Other exchange students in Taipei who arrived at the same time as me didn’t have good Chinese, and generally had to use English most of the times. Often when a Taiwanese person spoke English to me, I had a very difficult time understanding them. My good friend, whose Chinese wasn’t good until the last month or two, had no problem understanding even the most garbled English sentences (she claimed to be fluent in Chinglish).
With Mandarin, it was generally the same. My host family had hosted two exchange students previously, both of whom had very poor Chinese and never really bothered to learn it very well. When I got there my Chinese was piss-poor, but my host sister and mother didn’t have any trouble conversing with me and making appropriate corrections to my Mandarin. I think this had to do with exposure to crappy foreigner Chinese, as well as a pretty decent knowledge of the English langauge (since I used English grammar when speaking Chinese when I first got there). My host sister’s boyfriend, on the other hand, did not speak any English, and never had any American friends. We became very good friends, but at the beginning, he would have difficulties understanding what to me were seemingly simple things. I remember once after getting Hot Pot (huo guo) for the first time, I told him about it, but had no clue what tone “pot” was (first). So I said it anyways, assuming he would be able to figure out, but all I got was a blank stare. I cycled through all of the tones, and even tried different tones with ‘fire,’ to no luck. Finally I explained it to him, using copious hand motions, and he said "Oh! You mean huo guo. At the time I couldn’t figure out how he didn’t know what I meant when I said “Today for dinner I had huoguo,” even if the tones were slightly off…how many foods in Taiwan are the same sound with different tones? (none spring to mind right now).
Also, the idea of prefacing things in Mandarin with a buffer phrase is a great idea, that I never thought of. I would always get flustered when I said something in Chinese to someone and they would not understand. There was always a slight moment of panic and self-doubt in my head after such moments, but after repeating the same phrase, Taiwanese people would understand me. I suppose it’d be the same if a green and purple alien landed on my doorstep and politely asked “may I use your bathroom?” in perfect English.