Long-timers who can't speak Chinese

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
61

Wow. What a lot of self-congratulation. Some of you guys who speak mandarin are extraordinarily proud of yourselves.

What about the guy who lives in an English-speaking household, teaches English or works as an editor, can feed himself and get about by grunting and pointing, has only foreign friends, reads only foreign media, and is quite happy with his lot here in Taiwan. Do we look down our snooty noses at him because he’s not interested in learning mandarin ? Must he force himself to learn a language he’s not interested in and go and befriend people he would not otherwise make acquantances with ? Come on !

62

[quote]And if you smile at me
I will understand
cuz that is something everbody
everywhere does in the same language[/quote]

Wooden Ships / Airplane and CSN&Y

63

[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]I feel like I am jumping into a donnybrook unarmed.

Very brief: Sandman’s identification of being functional within the subset of society is key. We all choose to what degree we wish to integrate into any society, be it with a foreign language or not.
I think there is no question, the better your Chinese, the more you can access by yourself. But within the realm that one lives, it is all relative as to the need to speak/write/read Chinese.
I do think that a person that comes here and doesn’t bother to learn past the 10-word stage is simply being rude. When I meet a Mexican in LA who has been there for years and can’t even tell me the time of day, I think, “Shit, you are here in my country for all this time and you can’t even be polite in the most basic communications?”

On a tangent, and if you disagree with the above you can start here: A lot of people who were brought up in an English-speaking country could really improve upon their English.[/quote]

of course, that mexican is thinking who does this white boy (or whatever you are) think he is not knowing spanish in los angeles, san francisco, santa whatever in california… where spanish will be the majority language if it isn’t already. he is thinking you’re in his country, along with texas etc. :wink:

64

[quote=“Feiren”]
Sorry Mark, this is one of my hobby horses. I disagree completely. Mandarin may not have lots of bits that change like European languages but this in fact makes the language more difficult. For one thing, the useage is very far removed from European languages. You cannot just directly translate from English to Mandarin as you usually can between European languages. The corresponding words are just not there.[/quote]

Are we talking about the same “Chinese” language here?

Chinese is EASY to learn to speak and understand. We translate directly from English to Chinese and back again all day (I’m in an interpreting school) and believe me, lots and lots of it is WAY direct and literal. The “corresponding words” are almost always there, except in quite rare cases.

Grammar – dead easy. Needs to be taught a bit more creatively/intelligently than it has been in the past.

Tones – not too hard either, but not learned by merely listening to someone bellow them, time and time again, louder and louder, in one’s ear. Again, pedagogy.

Writing – ah, there’s the sticker. Writing is difficult. But with the computer, as many have pointed out, and the almost utter lack of the need to write much by hand, we can get by quite nicely.

ANYONE can get a fundamental, useful level of spoken Mandarin (not written/reading necessarily) in six months, while working. I kid you not. But you won’t do it at Shita. :smiling_imp: And if anyone wants to do so, you know where I live. (Not this summer though – on vacation!! :wink: )

65

Strongly disagree.
Traditional teaching methods are designed for the 4-5% of the population who learn analytically. Most of us do NOT acquire languages that way. Anyway, you can pop over to the “Teaching Chinese” forum to see lots more of my ranting and raving on this topic.

I know a guy right now who is “sitting his ass down” nearly 24 hours a day (he literally does NOTHING else but go to class, eat hurried meals, and study Chinese). He understands not a thing and cannot speak. This after nine months of such delights. He can, however, acquit himself reasonably well on dictation exams given his good eyesight (a bit of copying now and then) and the fact that he can remember how to form the characters for long enough to pass with a 60. However, he has no idea what he has written or what it means.

It really hurts me to see so many people who could have richer lives here (cue the orchestra please!! :wink: ) if they could get a reasonable program to learn Mandarin and/or Taiwanese…but it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon, unfortunately.

66

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not down on those who have not learned – that’s their call. But I think it’s a shame that there ARE many who would like to learn, or, more accurately, who would like to be ABLE to speak and understand, who really don’t have the chance.

67

[quote=“wolf”]it is all relative as to the need to speak/write/read Chinese.
I do think that a person that comes here and doesn’t bother to learn past the 10-word stage is simply being rude.[/quote]

Good one Wolf. I totally agree. I find it quite similar to computers, in a way. In my experience, there are many people who simply can’t understand how anyone can own a computer and NOT be desperate to learn how it works in great detail – after all, how else are you going to upgrade, etc? “Don’t you know that by clicking here, here and here, you can save yourself 7 mouse clicks every time you carry out that function?”
These people (and I strongly suspect there are Forumosans among them) simply don’t “get” that many other people (myself included) simply don’t give a toss until if or when they need such a thing, in which case, they simply look at the manual and figure that particular wrinkle out.
Same goes for Chinese learning. If, for example, I found myself relocating to Taitung or someplace, learning Chinese would suddenly become a much bigger priority, and I’d have to do something about it. Up here in Taipei, though? What little I’ve picked up by “osmosis” or whatever over the years has been adequate for my needs, for the most part. I simply don’t have many Taiwanese friends who don’t speak English. My wife has some, but I find I can communicate with them quite well nonetheless. If that wasn’t the case, or if it ceases to be the case, I’ll do something about it. But it sure as hell won’t be out of choice.

68

Ironlady,

Set up a class, PLEASE!

69

I respectfully disagree. Here are a few for you to work on

sa3jiao1

xiao4shun4

yi4qi4

The two “lis” ‘ritual’ and ‘principal’ from Confucian thought

ren2jia1

xi1fan4 (the stuff you eat in the morning)

Q (As in this food is very “Q”).

can1yu4/can1jia1

e-hua4

wai4guoren2

lao3wai4

xiao3jie3

I want natural English equivalents (not dictionary translations)

I would love to meet one of your students who uses a high enough degree of topicality. Or who uses the ‘le’ particles correctly nine times out of ten.

Come on. The tones are really difficult for speakers of non-tonal languages. I had an excellent introduction to tones in my first three months of study (not in Taiwan). I’m studying Taiwanese now and my biggest problem is again tones.

No. Writing is the easy part. If you have a good grounding in the spoken language and you take your time, you will be able to master the written language (at least reading) in four or five years.

[quote]
ANYONE can get a fundamental, useful level of spoken Mandarin (not written/reading necessarily) in six months, while working. I kid you not. But you won’t do it at Shita (Shi-Da). :smiling_imp: And if anyone wants to do so, you know where I live. (Not this summer though – on vacation!! :wink: )[/quote]

Well we’d have to define what we mean by fundamental, useful level of Mandarin. And I do think the teaching at Shita generally stinks. But it works. There are hundreds of foreigners in Taiwan and thousands abroad who have achieved competent levels of Mandarin by studying there. The results speak for themselves.

70

Ironlady should set up her own Chinese language teaching business. Start small with your own classes and train teachers as you need them. Even though I disagreed with her about almost anything above, I know she has a lot of very good ideas about how to teach Mandarin and the ability to acttually do it. You’d be much better off in her class as a beginner or false beginner than you would be at Shida.

71

what would be a good way to learn how to read? you say it’s easy. i have been trying to read a newspaper.

what i find difficult is the shortenings. by that i mean phrases which really are 4 words (2 sets AB + CD) that get chopped into A+C. unless you’ve learned it piece by piece or perhaps the context, it is hard for me to reconstruct the ABCD ie the meaning.

and of course chengyu. there are just so many of them.

grammar is simple. syntax in classical though can be problematic since there isn’t punctuation, but you can get the hang of it after awhile.

The other difficulty I have, in translating, is figuring out which inappositive or that/which phrase describes what word in a complex sentence. sometimes you can translate it in a number of ways and have very different meanings but neither would be incorrect as far as I can tell. When I ask a native speaker, his answer is well it just is this one just because. no real explicable reason. just his experience which doesn’t help me.
those classes sound intriguing if you have them

72

[quote=“ironlady”][quote=“Feiren”]
Sorry Mark, this is one of my hobby horses. I disagree completely. Mandarin may not have lots of bits that change like European languages but this in fact makes the language more difficult. For one thing, the useage is very far removed from European languages. You cannot just directly translate from English to Mandarin as you usually can between European languages. The corresponding words are just not there.[/quote]

Are we talking about the same “Chinese” language here?

Chinese is EASY to learn to speak and understand. [/quote]

I can’t agree with this, and I don’t think it has any more meaning than if I were to say “physics is easy to learn”.

I have know quite a few people who have found Chinese extremely difficult to speak and understand. Amongst the number of foreigners I have know who learnt Chinese I cannot think of any I could say found it “easy”. Myself included.

73

yeah, when I first got here i was amazed at people who had been here ‘forever’ and not learnt Chinese. It does seem rude. Then I met some nice people who never learnt Chiense, so y’know maybe they’ve got their reasons. But still… Well for some people its unforgivable - the always bitching, wish my comapny hadn’t sent me here (what they gragged you here in chains?) blah blah blah types.

I do disagree with one thing though. The claim that you can get by fine in society without speaking any Chinese or Taiwanese. Shit, my Chinese is OK now, and I still have problems. If you can’t speak more that a few words and phrases, there’s so many things that you just can’t do. What do you do? Get friends or wives to do all that for you? I couldn’t stand being that dependent.

And please let’s not turn this into a “my Chinese is great, I’m so cool” vs “think you know everything just because you can speak Chinese - show off” sort of thing.

Nother thing. Do you get the impression that foreign men in Taiwan are much much more likely to learn Chiense than women? Why is that? At first I thought it must be to pick up chicks, but upon firther thought, I figured that’s probably not the whole story.

At least it’s better than HK, where maybe 95% or more of the white population make no effort whatsoever to learn Cantonese (or Mandarin). Here I guess 50% or so make a good effort (maybe more).

Brian

74

Well, maybe in Taipei where most everybody you talk to speaks at least a basic level of English, you can get away with never learning Mandarin or Taiwanese. But the guy I was talking about in the original post doesn’t live in Taipei - he lives in Tainan. There aren’t exactly a lot of fluent English speakers on every street corner the way they are in Taipei. And if you live out in the sticks - outside of the 7 or 8 full-fledged cities in Taiwan - you may find yourself the only foreigner and perhaps the only fluent English speaker in town. Speaking Chinese is a necessity in southern Taiwan - unless you’ve got your Taiwanese girlfriend attached to your arm everywhere you go to translate.

On an average day, I use English

  1. when I’m teaching English class (speaking)
  2. when I’m on boards like this on the net (reading/writing)

The rest of the time I have no choice but to use Chinese, unless I’m in an expat pub/restaurant speaking to fellow foreigners.

75

[quote=“Sir Donald Bradman”]
Nother thing. Do you get the impression that foreign men in Taiwan are much much more likely to learn Chiense than women? Why is that? At first I thought it must be to pick up chicks, but upon firther thought, I figured that’s probably not the whole story.[/quote]

I have to admit that this is a HUGE motivation. There’s nothing worse than spotting a knockout xiaojie and not being able to use cheesy pick up lines on her because she no speak English. All of the girls here who speak English well do so because they picked it up from their foreigner boyfriends, and with them off the market, that leaves only the girls who don’t speak English available. If I walk into a dance club in Tainan, how many of the hot girls are going to speak English? 1 out of 99? Like I said - I don’t live in Taipei. Have to do what you have to do to survive.

I remember ordering my meal at Burger King in Hong Kong once (fortunately ‘cheesehambow’ is apparantly the same in Cantonese, or maybe the clerk could just understand Mandarin). A couple of laowai - a pair of guys in their late 30s, by the looks - gave me this look of incredulous shock, “You can speak Chinese?..” That’s the only time I’ve had a waiguoren give the same kind of shock that Taiwanese regularly give us barbarians when we mangle their tongue.

76

So some are arguing that someone who’s learned to be fluent in Mandarin is more “fully functioning” in this society than somebody who isn’t?

I’d like to help open your eyes to another aspect you’re glossing over. I have met many foreigners in Taiwan who have boned up on their Chinese well enough to jump into virtually any conversation. Trouble is–

-the words they choose,
-the way they convey it,
-their body language,
-and their lack of awareness of how their own cultural markers are blazing like a goddam police car siren

–are keeping them from fully functioning.

I am fully functioning in this society. I’m working in a company that is wonderful in many ways, but like many foreigners I am putting in more than full-time hours trying to integrate our foreign market’s interests and with their way of doing things. It’s a challenge to try and be the voice for the non-Taiwanese point of view. But I’m making changes here. They’re doing new things on my suggestion. I speak enough to make them feel comfortable. But I’m also watching their body language to know when perhaps they are uncomfortable.

And would you like to know how many people I’ve seen in Taiwan gloss over this aspect of communication? You know how many foreigners can say exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time with the wrong body language, but with PERFECT GRAMMAR? Ever notice how far a smile can go over here?

I won’t defend the management style in Taiwan, or deny that working with Taiwanese can be maddening. But have you ever noticed that there are some foreigners flourishing here that AREN’T doing so because of their language skills?

77

[quote=“Dahudze”]…I have met many foreigners in Taiwan who have boned up on their Chinese well enough to jump into virtually any conversation. Trouble is–

-the words they choose,
-the way they convey it,
-their body language,
-and their lack of awareness of how their own cultural markers are blazing like a goddam police car siren

–are keeping them from fully functioning.

…have you ever noticed that there are some foreigners flourishing here that AREN’T doing so because of their language skills?[/quote]
Excellent point. An equivalent example which might bring the point home even further would be an Oxford don toodling through a West Texas town, stopping at a gas station, and proclaiming: “Hallo! My, but these distances are frightening! I’ll need every last drop of petrol you have, there’s a good chap!”

78

[quote=“Feiren”][quote=“ironlady”]Chinese is EASY to learn to speak and understand.

Writing – ah, there’s the sticker. Writing is difficult. But with the computer, as many have pointed out, and the almost utter lack of the need to write much by hand, we can get by quite nicely.
[/quote]

No. Writing is the easy part. If you have a good grounding in the spoken language and you take your time, you will be able to master the written language (at least reading) in four or five years.[/quote]
Urk! Four or five years isn’t what I’d call “easy”! I was able to read and write German well enough to get a 570 on the College Board test (can’t remember the acronym; not the AP exam, obviously) after two and a half years!

But IMHO most of you folks who are arguing in this thread are missing some key points, and the above disagreement (“Writing – ah, there’s the sticker.” “No. Writing is the easy part.”) pretty much highlights it.

Different people find different things easy. Partly it’s a matter of interest (e.g., Sandman’s being bored by learning Chinese), but it’s also a question of how each person’s mind processes information. This leads us to the corrolary that individuals learn things in different ways.

If I read something, I can remember it. Permanently, if I want to. Former coworkers of mine have been put in awe by my memory (I’m not bragging; this is a simple statement of fact).

On the other hand, if I hear something, odds are that I won’t have a clue of what was said ten seconds later, unless I’m writing it down as fast as it’s being said.

IMHO this bodes ill for my learning to speak Mandarin (much less Taiwanese), because of the tones. I’m not sure about learning to read it, since a series of squiggles is pretty hard to interpret sans guidebook, but I might be able to memorize symbols well enough to get by after a while.

79

[quote=“fredericka bimmel”]My grandmother lived in the US for over sixty years before she died. She only ever spoke rudimentary English.

I think there are many reasons why lots of ‘colonials’ don’t speak fluent Mandarin after years of living here.
Could be that they’re very busy with their work and don’t have time.
Could be that when they hook up with a local partner, they depend on that partner and they don’t bother because the partner can sort things out much more easily.
Could be they don’t want to learn, they don’t see how it’s useful to them. Even living here it’s not that necessary to become fluent.
Could be they prefer to alienate themselves from local society.
Could be they have no motivation to learn because they’ve tried in the past and it doesn’t come out right. They’re embarrassed to make mistakes, much like locals who study English for so many years in school and never learn it.
Etc, etc.[/quote]

Thank you Fredericka. You are spot on in my case.
Despite 12-13 hours working day before moving to Taiwan, I used some kind of “repeat after me tape”, and got the hang of a few sentences.
After I arrived I tried to practice what I had learned, but only drew blank stares or giggles due to the very strong Beijing accent.
Then, building our new company kept me at work for 14-16 hours a day - not time or energy to get involved in studies on top of that.
Suddenly 2 years had past, my wife handled all the local business in Chinese and I thought I got around pretty OK wihtout speaking Chinese.
Now, after 10 years, I still do not speak Chinese, and have given up that project. I still put in around 12 hours a day in our company, so I don’t have too much spare time to invest in studies, and the motivation is not there anymore.
OK, you can call me both ignorant, stupid and lazy. That’s how I describe myself.

If I should do it over again, I would probably have insisted to take Chinese classes a few hours a week during the first couple of years. I think the motivation is strongest then. After you learn to get around without knowing Chinese, it is not such a pressing task.

80

[quote=“X3M”]

If I should do it over again, I would probably have insisted to take Chinese classes a few hours a week during the first couple of years. I think the motivation is strongest then. After you learn to get around without knowing Chinese, it is not such a pressing task.[/quote]

Now you’re spot on about the first couple years being the time to learn. That’s the only time I ever had the desire to take classes, and did.
The bulk of what I learned stayed with me (grammar, structures) and was built upon.
I use it everywhere but at work and for socialising.
At work, I’m supposed to be an English ‘expert’, and my colleagues must have superior English as well.
About functioning, it does get frustrating when there is lexis you need to perform a task, and you don’t have it. Like last weekend I bought a digital camera, but I had no clue about how to describe functions in Chinese, much less English! I found a retailer who was knowledgable in both the cameras, and English, and purchased from him.
I wish someone would write a concise practical Chinese coursebook that would have the vocabulary, grouped according to topical and contextual situations and functions: (buying computers, getting haircuts, dealing with utility companies, etc etc) INCLUDING dialogues that offer tips on politeness and hedging (lots of this in Chinese, you’re right Dahudze!), face saving rituals, and some sort of guide to understanding Chinese culture. If a book like this were available on the market, I’d snatch it up. Even at this late stage, I’d find it rather useful. But the key is, it should be colorful, contemporary and extremely practical. None of that outdated crap.
I don’t need grammar, or to read dialogues about how Mr. Lee has American cousins coming to visit. That sort of stuff is impractical once you’ve reached a level of Mandarin to suffice and have no desire (or time) to become scholarly.