Moderators if you feel this is fishy please throw it in the temp forum but I don
absolute bollocks…i’m fluent and so are me mates (well some of them)
you think thats funny…i once worked at the Bank Of America Euro HQ in Kent 50 miles from France…my co-workers couldn’t even spot Spanish from French (language) when we had people over from European branches
it’s an island mentality i guess or a hangover from the Empire…make the locals speak English what…
It hurts their teeth.
HG
Edit: Bear, I thought you were Aotearoan? In any case, your Chinese sucks.
I’ve yet to meet an American who can speak proper English, let alone Chinese.
The English have enough trouble speaking proper English, give them a break…the Irishers, Sweaty Sox, and Taffs, on the other hand, they tend to be masters…
Yes indeed, masters at including English curses into their Chinky patois . . “I’ll give ya ni fookin’ hao ma ya fokkin’ cunt”.
HG
Take a trip over to Tai Da
Yes indeed, masters at including English curses into their Chinky patois . . “I’ll give ya ni fookin’ hao ma ya fokkin’ cunt”.
HG[/quote]
“Aye, cha fookin bu duo ma fookin bollocks ye san ba choob yiz…(butt)”
Take a trip over to Tai-Da
Well, duh… that’s 'cause we speak 'merican… 
They speak fluent Chinese but cannot find it on a map. They must be idiot-savants or something 
Ahh, very simple explanation. It’s not just the Scots who are tight-fisted, the rest of the British Isles is like that too.
‘You want how much a semester? No thanks, I think I’ll just study by myself.’
Plus bear in mind that we can understand people from Sunderland and Inverness (most of the time). If that isn’t skill in strange tongues, I’ll eat my own arm.
Oh, I see, you wanted a serious answer. Hmm, well there aren’t actually that many Brits here, compared to all the Norf Americans. I wonder what the percentages are like or those who can speak Chinese and those who can’t. Are the English really so monolingual? On limited personal experience, I wouldn’t have said that we’re any more or less inclined to learn Chinese, but that’s just me.
I’ve got to admit that us Limeys are a bit on the shite side when it comes to languages. 
Having said that, most of us can speak proper foreigner language. Apparently, we just have to raise our voice and talk slowly and they can all understand us. Especially when we say ‘That’s sausage, egg and chips!’
[quote=“ralphy”]
I have never once come across a student from England.[/quote]
I once came over student’s bristols. - No, 'ang on, that’s not right…
I once came over a student from Bristol. - No, still not right…
I once came across a student from Bristol. - Yeah, that’s it.
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]It hurts their teeth.
HG
Edit: Bear, I thought you were Aotearoan? In any case, your Chinese sucks.[/quote]
good point…but i’m on a pommie passport and have pommie parents so i still count sometimes…
my chinese may suck but it sucks fluently…
:roflmao:
I’m about 1/3 English by ancestry, and attribute my fluency in Chinese to those genes. (Certainly not to my French blood, ha ha!)
But not hard slog? 
GF
My flatmate of many years was British and she spoke a pretty damn fair Chinese.
However, some of the worst “Chinese speakers” I ever met were a bunch of students from a Famous British University with Many Hundreds of Years of History who once lived in a rooftop flat on the same rooftop with Above-mentioned Flatmate and me. They came to Taiwan and thought they were truly fluent…well…you can imagine how practical the Chinese course at Said University was. 
[quote=“ironlady”]They came to Taiwan and thought they were truly fluent…well…you can imagine how practical the Chinese course at Said University was.[/quote]I don’t doubt that their course was particularly unsuited to achieving fluency but, to be fair, how many university Chinese courses around the world do a good job of getting people fluent? I can’t imagine many.