Underestimating the number of people who can speak Mandarin
So today has been a quiet day for me with it being a public holiday here in Taiwan.
Further to my previous post on studying Mandarin today I came across 3 instances of weiguoren being able to speak pretty good Mandarin:
I went to Eda World this afternoon and saw an older looking guy strolling around with a young Taiwanese lady conversing in the local language
Then I was watching the CTV news channel and saw a story about a lady from the Dominican Republic who has learned all 3 of the main local languages (Zhongwen, Taiwu and Hakka)
I then flicked over to TVBS and saw a sad story about a guy from South Africa whose wife has gone missing – he had no problems being interviewed in Mandarin.
I was under the impression that very few foreigners bothered to learn Mandarin here. This is partly due to posts that I have read on this site but also when I meet Taiwanese they seem so surprised that I can say a few basic sentences.
Are there any stats available?
Based on today’s events my perception is that most foreigners in Taiwan speak Mandarin. I know that this may seem slightly ignorant but it does provide motivation :discodance: .
I don’t have any statistics but lets use myself as anecdotal evidence. I was an exchange student for one semester and didn’t know a lick of Chinese. Nor did most people around me. Didn’t bother.
Now I’ve been married to a Taiwanese woman for a few years and know a little bit. We don’t live in Taiwan though so I haven’t bothered really trying.
I’m now finally studying an evening class after work so I’m improving by the week. In August we’ll have a son, that’s my motiviation.
Next year we’ll live in Taiwan for about six months so friends and family can meet the little one. I plan to take private classes then and improve my level so that I can hold my own in a conversation.
Stats would be interesting but it’ll never tell the whole story, just like anecdotes. We all have our reasons, simple as that.
Valid stats would require a proper random sample of the foreigners living here, which isn’t likely to happen (and a proper definition of and assessment of ‘can speak’ are even less likely), so really, it’s anyone’s guess and always will be.
The other day I ordered breakfast from a new place near my school. The laoban was shocked that I ordered in Chinese and told me that none of my friends could do that! I asked who my friends were, and the laoban was shocked tha I didn’t know all the foreigners in Taiwan.
We all make assumptions. Just because I ordered breakfast in Chinese, the laoban assumed my Chinese was good. I assumed she should have known that I wouldn’t know all the foreigners in Taiwan. Everyone assumes my son is a girl and can speak perfect Chinese.
We just go about on autopilot, I guess, but in the end, we’re all individuals.
[quote=“housecat”]The other day I ordered breakfast from a new place near my school. The laoban was shocked that I ordered in Chinese and told me that none of my friends could do that! I asked who my friends were, and the laoban was shocked tha I didn’t know all the foreigners in Taiwan.
We all make assumptions. Just because I ordered breakfast in Chinese, the laoban assumed my Chinese was good. I assumed she should have known that I wouldn’t know all the foreigners in Taiwan. Everyone assumes my son is a girl and can speak perfect Chinese.
We just go about on autopilot, I guess, but in the end, we’re all individuals.[/quote]
True but when do people actually spend the time to turn their autopilot off and smell the roses?
I think about half of the foreigners in Taiwan have basic-conversation-level mandarin or higher.
Probably a quarter have ‘Can understand some, can order food’ level (this seems to be what you pick up after living here too long and not studying at all (or very little))
The newbies and those who live in expat bubbles in Taipei probably make up the last quarter - no ability past ‘xiexie’, ‘wo ai ni’ and a few Taiwanese swear words.
[quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]Underestimating the number of people who can speak Mandarin
So today has been a quiet day for me with it being a public holiday here in Taiwan.
Further to my previous post on studying Mandarin today I came across 3 instances of waiguoren being able to speak pretty good Mandarin:
I went to Eda World this afternoon and saw an older looking guy strolling around with a young Taiwanese lady conversing in the local language
Then I was watching the CTV news channel and saw a story about a lady from the Dominican Republic who has learned all 3 of the main local languages (Zhongwen, Taiwu and Hakka)
I then flicked over to TVBS and saw a sad story about a guy from South Africa whose wife has gone missing – he had no problems being interviewed in Mandarin.
I was under the impression that very few foreigners bothered to learn Mandarin here. This is partly due to posts that I have read on this site but also when I meet Taiwanese they seem so surprised that I can say a few basic sentences.
Are there any stats available?
Based on today’s events my perception is that most foreigners in Taiwan speak Mandarin. I know that this may seem slightly ignorant but it does provide motivation :discodance: .[/quote]
I think your previous impression was based on your experiences up until that point. And, certainly, if you stay exclusively within certain circles and groups of people, you could perceive that most foreigners cannot speak Chinese. Experience, as with everything, is the best teacher. A few of my own relatively recent experiences: The American pastor friend of mine who gave a fluently bilingual service at my wedding. At the wedding of another friend recently, I was seated next to an Israeli physics professor with full tenure at one of the national universities. He not only can speak Chinese very well, he teaches almost exclusively in the language. Blond-haired, blue-eyed children attending local schools who can speak Chinese with native-level fluency and accents. The list goes on.
Personally I’ve found that, though you get a few who have limited experiences with foreigners, most locals get it that at least some of us can speak Chinese well. Relatively few I meet will bat an eyelid when I speak to them. Are most foreigners able to, though? Hard to say. I usually work under the assumption that those who have been here over a certain length of time can to at least some degree.
From my experience, (Limited, about 8 months here) the younger party crowd, (teach English by day, booze it up by night) cannot be bothered to learn Chinese. It turned me off at first, but I guess it’s all about priorities. I get told by locals that I speak better than their foreign boyfriends who’ve lived here for 3 or more years. It’s a seriously hard language for English speakers to learn, so if you are going to learn it you have to dedicate a huge part of your life to it, (like myself). Now that I’m deep into the language, I can totally understand why people DON’T speak mandarin here after living here for many years. Which is great for me, because it just makes me look better.
Well anyways. . . Mine is just another anecdotal source of evidence, but from the limited circle of foreigners I know, most can speak mandarin well enough to order “yi ping pijiu” and that’s about it.
I’m sure if I came here as a graduate student at one of the upper tier Universities, my experience might be a little different.
But I’m with you, I would like to see a proper survey about us Waiguo’s and our Chinese ability.
It’s because there are very few who are fluent. I’m sure at least half the foreigners, like me, can speak ‘some’, but I’ve been here over a year and am a dedicated part time learner and the average Taiwanese person’s english is still better than my chinese… I typically like to default to ‘whoever’s second language sucks less’, and I usually only win this battle with taxi drivers
I think there are many people who can make themselves understood in Mandarin - but there seems to be relatively few people who can speak or read Chinese with much fluency.
Will find many of those that can speak well picked up for a purpose other than “just because”. Maybe their company paid or sent them to school, maybe they were missionaries and required to learn it, etc. I suspect the fluent ones learned for a useful purpose and not out of self motivation or desire.
I think that most lao wei that came over here later in life, (after 35), will only gain a basic grasp, ordering food, navigating to the airport, train, etc. However, the younger people that I meet, they all seem to pick it up pretty quick.
My son has no problem juggling Mandarin, English, Taiyu, and even a little Hakka with Agong. Now he wants to start learning some French as well.
I have also met some, much like myself, that can understand quite a lot, but cannot hold a conversation, or even put together much of a sentence.
I would say that the biggest factor in learning any language, (Chinese, English, Martian) is one’s personal desire/motivation. People who are only extrinsically motivated to learn a language, (i.e. learn this language to make $$$) only end up learning as much as they need to meet their given goal. Like the poor Taiwanese students that have English beaten senselessly into their skulls. “You must pass GEPT to succeed, do business with the foreigner, money money come come.” These kinds of Taiwanese only have a very limited grasp of English, because they don’t have a real desire to learn, but rather they are told by their company, school, society that English = success. Correction, high GEPT score= success. Never mind if they actually speak the language properly.
Now I have an adult student who is GENUINELY interested in learning. She tells me she really does not need English for her job, (quite a successful lady who works for one of Taiwan’s major corporations), but she studies with me because she enjoys it.
I am in the same category as her. . . Before I moved here, I had absolutely NO practical use for Chinese. Now that I am here, and have a job that gives me ample free time, I study because I find it personally rewarding. Certainly not because I think it will land me the big bucks at some Fortune 500 later in my life.
Now I am not fluent yet, but I plan fluency in another year or so. I think a lot of us “big-noses” who learn Chinese do it for intrinsic satisfaction, (for fun) not for financial gains. I mean, if I really wanted to work my way up in the business world, moving to Taiwan and playing sticky ball with small children is not exactly the best way to do that. I only do that because it allows me the free time to pursue my passion for language learning in the country where the language is actually spoken.
Now I also know a girl in international business, (just because I live in proximity to major industry) who learned Chinese because her company paid her to. But when I asked her why she learned Chinese, she gave me the same feel good answer as my adult student, “it’s a lot of fun, I had the choice of moving here and I said yes in a heartbeat, etc”.
On another note, English is already the lingua franca of the business world. There are plenty of native Chinese speakers who speak English to at least a passable level in the business world.
Actually I do it to show locals that I can speak Mandarin just like they can and like to laugh when then don’t pronounce 十 correctly or 老师. I don’t want to be treated as some idiot foreigner.
I’m learning… I can swear like a trouper now. It would be easier if my ‘teacher’ would use it more with me, but he says he ‘can’t speak clearly because it just sounds all wrong’ so I’m left going @.@; and picking it up little by little by little…
I know there’s a Filippino guy in Tainan who speaks English, Spanish and Taiwanese (all fluently) but no Mandarin. A lot of priests can speak Taiwanese but not Mandarin as well.
On the thread title, I made this mistake once on a Chinese New Year trip to the Philippines with the now Taiwan ex. We were on the long bus ride from Manila to Batangas en route to Puerto Galera and seeing as we were surrounded by “foreigners”, felt safe jabbering away in Chinese, and in the process talking about some of the people on the bus. The ex had been asking me where I thought people were from.
Well imagine my horror when I got on the ferry to Puerto Galera and the bloke that had been sitting behind me with his European wife came up and said, “we’re actually Swiss Germans, not Germans, and yes you’re right, that Italian couple up the front are complete arseholes.”
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]On the thread title, I made this mistake once on a Chinese New Year trip to the Philippines with the now Taiwan ex. We were on the long bus ride from Manila to Batangas en route to Puerto Galera and seeing as we were surrounded by “foreigners”, felt safe jabbering away in Chinese, and in the process talking about some of the people on the bus. The ex had been asking me where I thought people were from.
Well imagine my horror when I got on the ferry to Puerto Galera and the bloke that had been sitting behind me with his European wife came up and said, “we’re actually Swiss Germans, not Germans, and yes you’re right, that Italian couple up the front are complete arseholes.”
HG[/quote]
I think it is always a mistake to assume people don’t speak a language because of their skin color. Especially a language such as Chinese. I will never assume I can freely speak Chinese around a group of “laowai”, because it’s simply a numbers game… Especially simple speech like that… My chinese is pretty bad but I can definitely understand “我覺得他一定是美國人”
You’re right, but bear in mind this was in the Philippines.
My mistake was that it was Chinese New Year, so obviously there were a huge number of expats out of the Greater China area on that particular bus. I’m just awfully glad the English navy wankers that sat behind us on the way back and just assumed my missus was a Filipino prostitute didn’t understand a word!!!