I don’t get to use English with my neighbors. I don’t get to use English when I go to Carrefour. Even the American priests speak better Taiwanese than I do, I don’t get a chance to speak in English with them.
So, yes. English is lingau franca, but it’s just not the regional language in Taiwan.
Employees at a big tech or trading company know some basic English is common, just not your next door hardware store laoban, plumber, or granny selling veggies and fruits.
Your allusion is lost on me.
Quit your day job and open up a waffle stand in 板橋.
Instead of teaching they need to play games and act like a clown mostly.
Well, I had to, they always told me to play games instead of teaching the kids. Mixed classes from 4-16 years old kids. Play games!
The owner would prepare them for the yearly buxiban English competition.
I would say that, for a composition, knowledge of proper grammar is the deciding factor in whether or not you do well. Another important factor is specific vocabulary for whatever topic you choose. Grammar is best taught during the first 7 years of your life. Its obvious to me that the ban on teaching English in Kindergarten is the cause of these low scores. That being said, everyone cannot afford private kindergarten where English is spoken half the day. I think the only solution here is time, where a growing number of people can become fluent and then the Taiwanese can teach themselves English. Just my two cents.
“not everyone can afford” sorry to be a pedant but that needs to be corrected.
if Chinese would become a lingua franca, people in Taiwan would enjoy some advantage.
For Chinese to become a lingua franca Chinese have to accept that big noses can speak it. I keep telling people that Chinese is an international language but I don’t think Chinese are that comfortable with big noses speaking “the difficult tongue”.
Chinese will not become lingua franca. It won’t even become an international language. It has some regional importance at best.
Well I’m glad that’s decided then.
It’s already happening to some extent in SEA. I find I can get by just fine using Mandarin in Thailand.
Yeah, I don’t think I’m wrong in positing it’s emergence as a new international language. Anyone have any data on learners? Eng. vs. Ch. vs Frog vs. Spanish etc.
That’s why I said it has some regional importance. SEA is in the region.
What is international?
ya earth region
I believe that would mean “between nations” but I could be wrong…
Whatever.
I know some SEA countries actually have mandarin classes at schools; my cousin teaches mandarin in Vietnam and have taught in Indonesia.
But English is, and will continue to be the Lingua Franca.
Adults around me used to brainwash me, saying, “don’t forget your Chinese! China will rise up to dominate the world!”
Well, I’m still waiting for it to come true…it has become a myth to me.
That’s comparable to French/German/Italian/Spanish/Russian courses in other European countries. In the end people completely forgot about what they learned at school (in most cases anyway).
There are several technical diffciculties which linguists have pointed out prevent Mandarin from becoming a lingua franca. From personal experience though I believe the “only we can master the language, the rest of you not Chinese should not even touch it” attitude in teaching circles must change to make real inroads. We are funny when we step into the lanmguage but once we gain competence we become dangerous. Some people do not like it.
Even if the non-Chinese world develops a non-tonal pidgin-Chinese it would still be valuable.
Let’s face it half the old-timers here are already speaking a pidgin-Chinese.
“Xiaojie, woyao bingkuai gen wo pijiu”. 