You are all right. 
If more foreigners would put forth a serious effort to learn at least some Mandarin, maybe the locals wouldn’t be completely surprised when they hear us speak it. I know some foreigners who have been here for years and they can’t speak more than two words in Mandarin. They are just adding to the stereotype. Stop being lazy! Learn at least SOME of the local language! :fume:
How can we if they are always trying to practice their English?
Something I read the other day seems to explain, to me, a fair bit of the reason so many Taiwanese can’t grasp that there are foreigners who can speak Mandarin. Basically, look at it this way - why do English speakers even need to learn Mandarin, or any other language for that matter? I don’t mean specifically in Taiwan, I mean in general. If you’re a native English speaker, you’ve already got a total command of the language most in demand around the world, and the language most used in international business. Why do you need to learn any others? That’s part of why no-one ever bats an eyelid at foreigners from any country speaking English, but if you came across, say, an Englishman who spoke fluent Finnish, even Finns would be shocked.
Mind you, there’s also the whole ignorance thing that doesn’t really help.
[quote=“Flicka”]
How can we if they are always trying to practice their English?[/quote]
Keep responding in Chinese, they get the message soon…
[quote=“Flicka”]
How can we if they are always trying to practice their English?[/quote]
You can always say “wo bu hui shuo yingwen”, that’ll surprise the shit out of them “Oh my god, you mean there’re other languages besides chinese and english…fuck”
I think another issue needs to be addressed here as well. That being that very few taiwanese can speak proper Chinese themselves. A lot of taiwanese can’t properly form some of the consonants of the chinese language. Like, the sounds that correlate to the pinyin “sh” “x” and “s” pretty much all sound the same when a taiwanese is speaking. That goes for “zh” “j” and “z”, as well as “ch” “q” and “c”.
Well, also, when you are able to communicate roughly OK in chinese, then well… They well prefer speaking chinese to you and they will NOT mock you. I usually give a sharp reply when mocked, but that hardly ever happens.
When it comes to studying Chinese here it’s not a game, it’s war.
I’m in a constant battle to speak Chinese. Some of my tactics include using too many Australian colloquialisms (sp? is that even a word?) so they get nervous about speaking English, so it’s more comfortable to speak in Chinese.
Telling them I’m from another country. I was walking through Taipei main station with headphones in, walking fast, clearly didn’t want to be disturbed. Some dude holding his TOEFL book had the audacity to wave me over to where he was standing and start asking me English questions without even introducing himself or anything. I just said “huh?” in response to three of his questions. One the fourth just gave him a big “TING BU DONG!”. He continued to speak English, I told him I couldn’t speak English, he asked where I was from (in English of course), after finally getting him to ask me in Chinese, I said “uhhhh deguo?”. And in English again, “But Germany can speak better English than me!” I felt like saying - “Yes, you’re right, but that was my polite way of saying you can go screw yourself” After getting him to repeat himself in Chinese I just told him that most Germans can speak English, but I can’t. And that was the end of that. I don’t mind helping people with their English if they’re geniune, but if you just want to leech some English practice off me, then you’re going to have to go study overseas like I’ve had to do.
Sometimes I just ask “Can you speak Chinese?”
Or sometimes when people speak English you can just say “I’m sorry, I can’t speak Taiyu”
I think the hardest thing to do is to force yourself to keep speaking Chinese, even when you know the person you’re talking to has better English than your Chinese… but gotta practice if you want to get better… and people try to speak to me in crappy English all the time, so I don’t feel so bad.
But yeah, I can kind of see how the stereotype is there about non-locals not being able to speak Chinese… when I’m walking around Taiwan, it’s really rare for me to find other foreigners who can actually converse or even speak a little Chinese. Learn some Chinese! You’ll be the envy of all your friends! I promise! :bravo:
Post of the day imho:
Pleading guilty. It’s definitely convenient to speak a language that MOST people don’t understand (not that I usually bitch much in public 
). And pretty embarrassing when it turns out that the Taiwanese girl next to you grew up in Germany. 
Tonight I took my friends daughter to eat out at the Taka whatever Department store in Tienmu and pick up some groceries.
We order our food and sit down and start chatting away. Some local guy brings his child over and sits next to our table. His kid is not behaving properly so father says to him that he’ll leave him with that big bad looking forienger sitting next to him, to be adopted and never to be seen again.
Food arrives and as we are eating the kid’s father scolds his child and tells him to sit next to that bad looking guy and not move… and takes off… to order some food.
Kid’s eyeballing me… not too sure if I aint gonna eat him right there on the spot. So I start speaking to him in Chinese and tells him not to worry. I ask him where your Mum? At home he replies… What’s your mom’s telephone number we’ll call her to come over… ok …
I call the mother ( who can’t understand how it is I have her kid with me ) and explain that her husband has abandoned her son to a scary foreigner and that the kid is about to have a heart attack. She’s says wait there she’s a coming right on over… she speaks to sonny on the phone to make sure he’s OK
The kid has calmed down now and mother’s told him to wait and not go anywhere. I tell the kid not to say anything to his father.
About 15 minutes later I see this woman storming into the eating area… must be the mother… sure was…
Did she let fly at her husband… accusing him of all sorts of nasty stuff … man did she make a show of it… even I was getting worried…
He doesn’t know what the hell is going on… then she thanks me in Chinese for calling her to collect her child… who is now having a fright attack from seeing his mother so pissed. She promptly takes off with the kid.
Finally the idiot father asks me in Chinese if I can speak Chinese, so I told him probably as good as he can…
But you’re a foreigner, he says…
I told him he looked like a Vietnamese Refugee to me… but I wasn’t to sure… maybe I needed to get my eyes checked out…
Then I scolded him like his wife did and told him not to scare his kid by telling him that foreigners were bad guys… He got highly embarrassed and took off… but the funny thing was that all the others eating there wouldn’t look me in the eye as we left…
Seems they couldn’t bury their faces down far enough into their noodles…
Bet they talk a lot more quietly around those sneaky fooking foreigners in the future…
Satellite TV, great story!
Yeah, that’s deserves the “I’ve got big cojones AWARD !” Best story I’ve heard yet.
Good job, Sat. keep 'em coming. 
Can attest that SatelliteTV is indeed huge and looks mean enough to consume several small humans each breakfast
[quote=“ex-isle”]Yeah, that’s deserves the “I’ve got big cojones AWARD !” Best story I’ve heard yet.
Good job, Sat. keep 'em coming. [/quote]
read the bottom posts… the woman who was standing near me in this story is now my wife heheheh
forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph … &&start=45
Can attest that SatelliteTV is indeed huge and looks mean enough to consume several small humans each breakfast
I’m only 105kg and 185cm tall… can’t be that frightening
I’ve got loads of stories, its not just Caucasian ‘foreigners’…
So me and me friend are hanging out, who is also Chinese (but Austrian-born- who is a translator for the UN and can speak over 5 European languages as well as Taiyu and Mandarin) and we’re on the bus…
These women get on and sit next to us and after observing us chatting in English, start talking loudly about how ‘American-raised’ hua qiao are really badly behaved, how we are too li hai for our own good and that American girls were like prostitutes…
So we just switch to speaking Mandarin and not a peep from them for the rest of the journey. they didn’t even talk to each other, I could just feel their burning embarrassment. One of the women asks my friend where she was from and she had never even heard of Austria. They ask me where I lived and I said ‘Yorkshire, like the terrier.’
Another scenario was when I was at the gym using a 3kg free weight, these Taiwanese businessmen are on their way up to the next floor, but take the time to wander over and exclaim loudly ‘Wah! Nu ren dou hui yong ze ge!!’ I ask if the guy has a problem and he immediately backs away and says ‘mei you, mei you’…Ask a stupid question… I think that’s the weirdest thing, when they say something really inflammatory and don’t expect a reply.
Satelite, that’s the all-time winner.
CK
[quote=“Satellite TV”]
I’m only 105kg[/quote]Oh, you’ve lost weight since I last saw you 
(this would be at least 5 or 6 years ago, maybe more)
[quote=“zhujianlun”]I’m not at all convinced - 4 and 10, for example, have different tones and are distinguishable even if the retroflex in 10’s case has been considerably softened
Ahem, there are a lot of occasions when it’s obvious you’re not being joked with. Don’t you think we’re generally smart enough to tell that when someone sneers and says something potentially offensive, they’re being offensive?[/quote]
I am absolutely not saying that people aren’t treated rudely here on occasion
Oh man, that made me laugh. Tell me Gloria, d’you speak with a Yorkshire accent? Better still, Chinese with a Yorkshire accent? That would be the icing on the cake. :bravo:
I’m glad noone has ever said anything rude to me in chinese. Everyone just speaks gibberish to me.