A lot of Taiwanese think language exchange is a lot English practice and snippets of information about Taiwan and a chinese word here and there spoken quickly. Most are clueless about their own language and how it works or how to teach it to another person. Basically it is a free English teacher for them as the exchange is more a one way flow to them.
Has anyone had any true langage “exchange”?
Yes, when I first came to Taiwan I had successful language exchanges. It’s important to be insistent that you get your half of Chinese learning.
The assumption is that both parties are ordinary folk who probably have little formal teaching skills. Don’t expect them to be trained in how to teach.
Lay down the law. It works best if you do 30 mins Eng / 30 mins Chinese, rather than try and mix it up throughout the hour.
After the half-hour mark, insist on Chinese only (Eng explanations if necessary). If they can’t manage that, ditch the exchange.
Yeah, it’s kind of boring, because who wants friends who sit and talk for 50% of the time you’re with them?
Just pay for a lesson. You get to do what you want and the teacher will have a bit of training.
You have to be quite firm. Part of the problem is that often your partner’s English is better than your Chinese, so it’s easier to speak in English and it can be tempting to be lazy and do only that. But if your partner keeps using English, move on.
You’re right that most Taiwanese have little idea about Mandarin or how to teach it. One mistake they often make is teaching the formal, written forms, so you need to be clear you want to speak the same as ordinary people on the street. Don’t forget that most English speakers also have little understanding of English or how to teach it, but that doesn’t stop plenty of people coming here and doing that.
I run a weekly language exchange event on a Friday. We speak an hour of English followed by an hour of Chinese. When you are disciplined about the time, everyone can relax and not worry about wasting their time or not getting enough benefit.
What guidance did you give your LE partner? Did you give them any objectives that you wanted to learn?
for example start with a plan
10-15 minutes working on pronunciation and tones (a lot of repeating)
10-15 minutes making different sentences using a few sentence patterns (My friend eats stinky tofu, my friend eats hamburgers, my mother eats spaghetti, etc…)
10-15 minutes on new vocabulary
Did you do any of this or did you expect your LE partner to be a trained teacher?
I think what Abacus said is the way to go. Many Taiwanese people want to improve their English level and know that language exchange is one way to do it. However, they have no clue about how LE works. By providing them with a plan or showing them what are your goal, they can be more focused or even prepare some material for you.
I had successful LEs and our structure was a bit different than the usual. We were set to meet twice a week, 1h~1.5h each time and only one language per day. One day is Chinese, next time will be English, then back to Chinese, then English and so on… If you have to skip one day for any reason, next encounter will be in the language of the skipped day.
In this way, you can make sure that everybody gets their fair share of learning, you avoid to interrupt an interesting topic just because “time’s up” and it’s easier to prepare something for the class. Also, if you do both languages in the same day, the second half of the class is always lower energy than the first half.
It’s important for both parties to know that language exchange is as much teaching as it is learning…
I don’t work for the company, but I would just recommend that you pay a cheap fee for someone to talk to you for the full hour.
italki.com is what I used to use when i was studying Mandarin, many Mandarin speakers offer their services for $5 or less per hour.
Cheers
Fiverr have teachers too:
fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8 … ayout=auto
Mixed language exchanges can work if both parties are fair:
English speaker: Yesterday I went to the funfair and ate two bags of candyfloss.
Mandarin Speaker: How do you say Funfair in Chinese?
Both speaker learn at their level. But yes, the better speaker usually speaks more, and it can be unbalanced.
Please come to my event. Mentioned above. Its going pretty well. I only started it, because I couldnt find something like it in Taipei. i.e. Semi-serious, structured language exchange with everyone at a decent level and interesting group conversation. I attended a similar event to this, every week in HK and felt I really benefitted from it.
How would a Taiwanese man (or woman) feel if he went to America (or any predominantly English speaking country) to live and work and could speak a reasonable level of English but even after a few years wherever he went people still spoke broken Chinese to him with a stupid grin on their faces?
My guess is he would feel frustrated and angry and would think people thought he must be quite dim or arrogant.
So why can’t we apply the same logic here?
I already know a lot of the answers to this question such as 1. Showing off 2. Using a limited chance to practice 3. Assuming that Chinese is too difficult to learn 4. Assuming foreigners are too arrogant to bother learning 5. Wanting to be ‘helpful’ 6. Respect the visitor (and in the process making him/her feel isolated and lonely) 7. Assuming all foreigners are just passing through and are just tourists.
My own hunch is that it is a form of subconscious exclusion and rejection of something that they are uncomfortable with and that is, you are not one of them.
Not sure what this has to do with the OP’s issue, which is why (in his view) Taiwanese people don’t seem to provide good and fair language exchanges.
People default to speaking the language they believe is the strongest language in common with the person they want to talk with. They may or may not change that language after finding information that changes their belief about what that language is.
That “reasonable level” also depends on who’s judging. Many Taiwanese people believe they have a “reasonable level” of English, but the opinion of a native speaker might be different. The same is quite often true of foreigners with their Chinese.
[quote=“ryanx”]
I already know a lot of the answers to this question such as 1. Showing off 2. Using a limited chance to practice 3. Assuming that Chinese is too difficult to learn 4. Assuming foreigners are too arrogant to bother learning 5. Wanting to be ‘helpful’ 6. Respect the visitor (and in the process making him/her feel isolated and lonely) 7. Assuming all foreigners are just passing through and are just tourists.
My own hunch is that it is a form of subconscious exclusion and rejection of something that they are uncomfortable with and that is, you are not one of them.[/quote]
I vote 2 and 5. I think you are taking it too seriously.
[quote=“ryanx”]How would a Taiwanese man (or woman) feel if he went to America (or any predominantly English speaking country) to live and work and could speak a reasonable level of English but even after a few years wherever he went people still spoke broken Chinese to him with a stupid grin on their faces?
My guess is he would feel frustrated and angry and would think people thought he must be quite dim or arrogant.
So why can’t we apply the same logic here?
I already know a lot of the answers to this question such as 1. Showing off 2. Using a limited chance to practice 3. Assuming that Chinese is too difficult to learn 4. Assuming foreigners are too arrogant to bother learning 5. Wanting to be ‘helpful’ 6. Respect the visitor (and in the process making him/her feel isolated and lonely) 7. Assuming all foreigners are just passing through and are just tourists.
My own hunch is that it is a form of subconscious exclusion and rejection of something that they are uncomfortable with and that is, you are not one of them.[/quote]
Something new to complain about? Just what is your real issue?
Why? Are you offering therapy?
I just make observations about some ridiculous aspects of living in Taiwan as a foreigner and how it affects my overall enjoyment, or otherwise, of being here.
Or does the PC police not allow that?
[quote=“ryanx”]Why? Are you offering therapy?
I just make observations about some ridiculous aspects of living in Taiwan as a foreigner and how it affects my overall enjoyment, or otherwise, of being here.
Or does the PC police not allow that?[/quote]
People are trying to make real suggestions on how things can be done better for you. You aren’t exactly engaging their suggestions and seem more interested in a bitchfest about your life in Taiwan.
If you don’t want people to speak English to you then get out of the big city on weekends. There is still very little English spoken in the villages. The reason that people speak so much English to you is that there are few foreigners that speak decent Chinese and it is possible that they don’t understand your Chinese well. Perhaps they want to practice English. Perhaps they are rude assholes. This kind of stuff shouldn’t affect your enjoyment.
I use HelloTalk or Hello Pal apps for language exchange. For me, successful exchanges have been those where…
[ol]
[li]the partner is of no sexual interest to me, [/li]
[li]I can use the language opposite to the one my partner uses (so, if they’re trying their English, I’m trying my Chinese; and if they switch, I switch), [/li]
[li]we share a common interest, [/li]
[li]the partner follows up his responses with questions, and[/li]
[li]the partner corrects my mistakes and accepts my corrections.[/li][/ol]
If fairness is the biggest issue, then always do (2). It also relieves some of dual labor of listening and speaking (or reading and writing). You just need more partners.
LE in taiwan is more about culture exchange and making foreign friends