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On August 05 2012 02:17 Aelonius wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2012 02:08 JieXian wrote:On August 05 2012 01:53 Aelonius wrote:
JieXian, how do you deal with the language when you (accidently) mispronounce a tone? I hear most Chinese aren't able to adapt to the sentence and they instantly stop understanding what you're explaining. (Note: I was only 6 months in Xiamen so while I have had some experience there, it doesn't warrant for anything outside the comfortzone I had there /disclaimer)
Aren't able to adapt? You seem to have a problem with your mindset unless I'm misunderstanding you. it's varies between people. Just imagine listening to someone speaking bad english or dutch... If you make a mistake, just repeat yourself again.............. and again until you get it. Of course in the end they need to be patient but it's not their job to "adapt" it's bloody yours. Mmm it's a tough way to explain it easily, but I noticed often that the Chinese people I met, aren't that skillful with putting the context together even if one tone is wrong. In the English language, if you pronounce "sword" with a W, then you'll still be understood. Sure, it is hilarious but most people will understand what you mean. In >my< experience with the Chinese contacts is that they find it very hard to piece context together. Especially when you make one mistake, it often happened to me that they would blankly stare at me like "WTF is he saying?". It might just be my experience, but this is the hardest about tonal language. One wrong tone and the people lose track of the sentence. It is pretty difficult haha.
Exactly why I said that the tones are as important as syllables, not alphabets.
Think care vs car, wild boar vs wild bear but a lot worse, like A im guing ti scheel vs I am going to school.
Ok do know that even the Chinese need to clarify things among themselves when they misheard tones.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't just one single tonal mistake you made. I still understood people who spoke with almost every tone wrong (subject was simple of course) - and I seldom meet foreigners who speak Chinese to me. And Enders when he made those mistakes.
I have to say this because I'm concerned. You need to lower yourself down more. You seem a little cocky. Think about what's wrong with YOU and not what's wrong with them. You should be glad as long as they have the patience to listen to you while to try to get your message across
Try recording your own speech and listening to yourself and compare it to the original. If everyone finds it that hard like you said you must be really bad. Maybe take more time and think longer before every word.
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On August 05 2012 02:33 JieXian wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2012 02:17 Aelonius wrote:On August 05 2012 02:08 JieXian wrote:On August 05 2012 01:53 Aelonius wrote:
JieXian, how do you deal with the language when you (accidently) mispronounce a tone? I hear most Chinese aren't able to adapt to the sentence and they instantly stop understanding what you're explaining. (Note: I was only 6 months in Xiamen so while I have had some experience there, it doesn't warrant for anything outside the comfortzone I had there /disclaimer)
Aren't able to adapt? You seem to have a problem with your mindset unless I'm misunderstanding you. it's varies between people. Just imagine listening to someone speaking bad english or dutch... If you make a mistake, just repeat yourself again.............. and again until you get it. Of course in the end they need to be patient but it's not their job to "adapt" it's bloody yours. Mmm it's a tough way to explain it easily, but I noticed often that the Chinese people I met, aren't that skillful with putting the context together even if one tone is wrong. In the English language, if you pronounce "sword" with a W, then you'll still be understood. Sure, it is hilarious but most people will understand what you mean. In >my< experience with the Chinese contacts is that they find it very hard to piece context together. Especially when you make one mistake, it often happened to me that they would blankly stare at me like "WTF is he saying?". It might just be my experience, but this is the hardest about tonal language. One wrong tone and the people lose track of the sentence. It is pretty difficult haha. Exactly why I said that the tones are as important as syllables, not alphabets. Think care vs car, wild boar vs wild bear but a lot worse, like A im guing ti scheel vs I am going to school. Ok do know that even the Chinese need to clarify things among themselves when they misheard tones. I'm pretty sure it wasn't just one single tonal mistake you made. I still understood people who spoke with almost every tone wrong (subject was simple of course) - and I seldom meet foreigners who speak Chinese to me. And Enders when he made those mistakes. I have to say this because I'm concerned. You need to lower yourself down more. You seem a little cocky. Think about what's wrong with YOU and not what's wrong with them. You should be glad as long as they have the patience to listen to you while to try to get your message across Try recording your own speech and listening to yourself and compare it to the original. If everyone finds it that hard like you said you must be really bad. Maybe take more time and think longer before every word.
Or have himself record a short vid of him speaking and see how much people can understand so we can be more objective here instead of relying on text to convey meaning :D
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I'd definatly do something like that when I get to the point of feeling knowledgeable enough to speak more than basic Chinese.
On the remark of arrogance, I don't wish to sound like it. I suck at the language. It might've been worded wrong ^^
Now the question is:
Chinese, or Korean to learn first.
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On August 05 2012 03:02 Aelonius wrote:
I'd definatly do something like that when I get to the point of feeling knowledgeable enough to speak more than basic Chinese.
On the remark of arrogance, I don't wish to sound like it. I suck at the language. It might've been worded wrong ^^
Now the question is:
Chinese, or Korean to learn first.
Chinese because there's more area to go all explorer mode on foot o/
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(2nd gen., Taiwanese-American.) I'm in this really weird/annoying spot where I can pretty much understand most relevant, every-day Mandarin, but my speech production is shit. (I don't think this is uncommon for 2nd gen. Asians.) Don't get me wrong, I can make myself understood, but my sentences would be weirdly phrased and circuitous -- it's like that thing that happens where you know the words but can't come up with them fast enough -- and my pronunciation is understandable but odd and slow at times, enough to flag me as American-born. Basically cannot read, but that can be fixed with me just sitting down to learn characters. I basically have had no "formal" instruction in Chinese (no Chinese school, no textbooks, etc.), just myself and the 'rents (and some other friends, but they're also 2nd gen. or ... 1.5 gen, I guess it's called also).
I'm kind of lucky to have parents I can practice with, but the funny thing is that they insist on speaking English to me to practice their English while I want to speak Chinese to practice my Chinese, and so the miscommunication is sometimes irritating.
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I just want to say that I learned 啤酒 pretty early on, third month or so. Can't remember exactly.
Shit's important.
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On August 05 2012 03:33 babylon wrote:
(2nd gen., Taiwanese-American.) I'm in this really weird/annoying spot where I can pretty much understand most relevant, every-day Mandarin, but my speech production is shit. (I don't think this is uncommon for 2nd gen. Asians.) Don't get me wrong, I can make myself understood, but my sentences would be weirdly phrased and circuitous -- it's like that thing that happens where you know the words but can't come up with them fast enough -- and my pronunciation is understandable but odd and slow at times, enough to flag me as American-born. Basically cannot read, but that can be fixed with me just sitting down to learn characters. I basically have had no "formal" instruction in Chinese (no Chinese school, no textbooks, etc.), just myself and the 'rents (and some other friends, but they're also 2nd gen. or ... 1.5 gen, I guess it's called also).
I'm kind of lucky to have parents I can practice with, but the funny thing is that they insist on speaking English to me to practice their English while I want to speak Chinese to practice my Chinese, and so the miscommunication is sometimes irritating.
There are also foreign students here (although I think this would most likely be with Mainland Chinese, censored and in some areas, still developing education here) who learn terminology in their studies that they can't immediately think of straight off hand in Chinese. I believe this would most likely be with Mathematics majors for example, and maybe some advanced levels and terms in psychology might be another example. It has also been my own experience that many Taiwanese are assigned readings in English that are made or published in America or other English-speaking countries
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On August 05 2012 02:17 Aelonius wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2012 02:08 JieXian wrote:On August 05 2012 01:53 Aelonius wrote:
JieXian, how do you deal with the language when you (accidently) mispronounce a tone? I hear most Chinese aren't able to adapt to the sentence and they instantly stop understanding what you're explaining. (Note: I was only 6 months in Xiamen so while I have had some experience there, it doesn't warrant for anything outside the comfortzone I had there /disclaimer)
Aren't able to adapt? You seem to have a problem with your mindset unless I'm misunderstanding you. it's varies between people. Just imagine listening to someone speaking bad english or dutch... If you make a mistake, just repeat yourself again.............. and again until you get it. Of course in the end they need to be patient but it's not their job to "adapt" it's bloody yours. Mmm it's a tough way to explain it easily, but I noticed often that the Chinese people I met, aren't that skillful with putting the context together even if one tone is wrong. In the English language, if you pronounce "sword" with a W, then you'll still be understood. Sure, it is hilarious but most people will understand what you mean. In >my< experience with the Chinese contacts is that they find it very hard to piece context together. Especially when you make one mistake, it often happened to me that they would blankly stare at me like "WTF is he saying?". It might just be my experience, but this is the hardest about tonal language. One wrong tone and the people lose track of the sentence. It is pretty difficult haha.
I feel this is very much true, I've lived in China for a couple of yrs now and I have exactly the same feeling... Some ppl misunderstand a single word and they have no idea what you are saying...
Sometimes they will even repeat that word (in the wrong tone obviously) and despite understanding the rest of the sentence they have no idea... And after like 2-3 minutes of repeating the same word and them finally getting it, they suddenly understand exactly what u mean...
I've always thought that is so super weird, I mean this would definitely never happen with any Western language (i think) ...
Anyway my Chinese still sucks as well, specially the tones... I do notice some ppl are really good at understanding me (they don't mind wrong tones that much) and some ppl really suck...
A good example is my gf's father can understand my Chinese quite well, while her mother usually has no idea wtf i'm saying...
My gf can understand my chinese pretty much perfectly, while some of her friends also have a lot of trouble understanding me (they all speak English, so I guess that's not the reason) ....
Unfortunately i rarely ever talk Chinese to my gf, should do that more if I ever wanna be good at this language :{
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Funny. I've suddenly got motivation to go hard on Chinese lately. I can speak Cantonese well but like you, I'm not fluent. I can't read and I can't speak Mandarin. Must go hard on the HSK Level 5.
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On August 05 2012 07:52 Kaolla wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2012 02:17 Aelonius wrote:On August 05 2012 02:08 JieXian wrote:On August 05 2012 01:53 Aelonius wrote:
JieXian, how do you deal with the language when you (accidently) mispronounce a tone? I hear most Chinese aren't able to adapt to the sentence and they instantly stop understanding what you're explaining. (Note: I was only 6 months in Xiamen so while I have had some experience there, it doesn't warrant for anything outside the comfortzone I had there /disclaimer)
Aren't able to adapt? You seem to have a problem with your mindset unless I'm misunderstanding you. it's varies between people. Just imagine listening to someone speaking bad english or dutch... If you make a mistake, just repeat yourself again.............. and again until you get it. Of course in the end they need to be patient but it's not their job to "adapt" it's bloody yours. Mmm it's a tough way to explain it easily, but I noticed often that the Chinese people I met, aren't that skillful with putting the context together even if one tone is wrong. In the English language, if you pronounce "sword" with a W, then you'll still be understood. Sure, it is hilarious but most people will understand what you mean. In >my< experience with the Chinese contacts is that they find it very hard to piece context together. Especially when you make one mistake, it often happened to me that they would blankly stare at me like "WTF is he saying?". It might just be my experience, but this is the hardest about tonal language. One wrong tone and the people lose track of the sentence. It is pretty difficult haha. I feel this is very much true, I've lived in China for a couple of yrs now and I have exactly the same feeling... Some ppl misunderstand a single word and they have no idea what you are saying... Sometimes they will even repeat that word (in the wrong tone obviously) and despite understanding the rest of the sentence they have no idea... And after like 2-3 minutes of repeating the same word and them finally getting it, they suddenly understand exactly what u mean... I've always thought that is so super weird, I mean this would definitely never happen with any Western language (i think) ... Anyway my Chinese still sucks as well, specially the tones... I do notice some ppl are really good at understanding me (they don't mind wrong tones that much) and some ppl really suck... A good example is my gf's father can understand my Chinese quite well, while her mother usually has no idea wtf i'm saying... My gf can understand my chinese pretty much perfectly, while some of her friends also have a lot of trouble understanding me (they all speak English, so I guess that's not the reason) .... Unfortunately i rarely ever talk Chinese to my gf, should do that more if I ever wanna be good at this language :{
Ok I spoke to Aleo for a while and discovered that his pronunciation sucks big time. Enders's is soooo much better. If I were to pay less attention to him I won't know if he was speaking English or Mandarin because they sound the same from him. And that's bad.
You really need to record yourself saying something and compare it to how the Chinese say it and work on your language more because all that whining isn't going to help.
So your problems won't only be with your tone, but also your intonation (eg how french sounds and how english sounds and how a French American accent sounds), and definitely your phoenetics are probably off (ja = ya in German).
When people don't understand me I try to ask them to correct my mistakes and find out where I went wrong, pay a lot of attention to them and think slowly before making the sound, trying to get in the details. Trying hard to correct my mistakes.
This attitude is slowly getting really irritating me about how fucking arrogant white guys can be. (Aleonius explained his position to me so I'm not talking about him anymore but rather you.)
On August 05 2012 03:33 babylon wrote:
(2nd gen., Taiwanese-American.) I'm in this really weird/annoying spot where I can pretty much understand most relevant, every-day Mandarin, but my speech production is shit. (I don't think this is uncommon for 2nd gen. Asians.) Don't get me wrong, I can make myself understood, but my sentences would be weirdly phrased and circuitous -- it's like that thing that happens where you know the words but can't come up with them fast enough -- and my pronunciation is understandable but odd and slow at times, enough to flag me as American-born. Basically cannot read, but that can be fixed with me just sitting down to learn characters. I basically have had no "formal" instruction in Chinese (no Chinese school, no textbooks, etc.), just myself and the 'rents (and some other friends, but they're also 2nd gen. or ... 1.5 gen, I guess it's called also).
I'm kind of lucky to have parents I can practice with, but the funny thing is that they insist on speaking English to me to practice their English while I want to speak Chinese to practice my Chinese, and so the miscommunication is sometimes irritating.
I'm 3rd/4th generation Chinese, my grandparents spoke bad Mandarin (spoke dialects) and my parents don't speak Mandarin but my sister and I managed to learn it.
Yes, we went to a Chinese school and everything but I have people to speak to also. I'm sure there isn't shortage of them in the US. Try to find some friends man.
On August 05 2012 05:47 Dandel Ion wrote:
I just want to say that I learned 啤酒 pretty early on, third month or so. Can't remember exactly.
Shit's important.
Says the one with the Austria tag ^^
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On August 05 2012 12:34 JieXian wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2012 07:52 Kaolla wrote:On August 05 2012 02:17 Aelonius wrote:On August 05 2012 02:08 JieXian wrote:On August 05 2012 01:53 Aelonius wrote:
JieXian, how do you deal with the language when you (accidently) mispronounce a tone? I hear most Chinese aren't able to adapt to the sentence and they instantly stop understanding what you're explaining. (Note: I was only 6 months in Xiamen so while I have had some experience there, it doesn't warrant for anything outside the comfortzone I had there /disclaimer)
Aren't able to adapt? You seem to have a problem with your mindset unless I'm misunderstanding you. it's varies between people. Just imagine listening to someone speaking bad english or dutch... If you make a mistake, just repeat yourself again.............. and again until you get it. Of course in the end they need to be patient but it's not their job to "adapt" it's bloody yours. Mmm it's a tough way to explain it easily, but I noticed often that the Chinese people I met, aren't that skillful with putting the context together even if one tone is wrong. In the English language, if you pronounce "sword" with a W, then you'll still be understood. Sure, it is hilarious but most people will understand what you mean. In >my< experience with the Chinese contacts is that they find it very hard to piece context together. Especially when you make one mistake, it often happened to me that they would blankly stare at me like "WTF is he saying?". It might just be my experience, but this is the hardest about tonal language. One wrong tone and the people lose track of the sentence. It is pretty difficult haha. I feel this is very much true, I've lived in China for a couple of yrs now and I have exactly the same feeling... Some ppl misunderstand a single word and they have no idea what you are saying... Sometimes they will even repeat that word (in the wrong tone obviously) and despite understanding the rest of the sentence they have no idea... And after like 2-3 minutes of repeating the same word and them finally getting it, they suddenly understand exactly what u mean... I've always thought that is so super weird, I mean this would definitely never happen with any Western language (i think) ... Anyway my Chinese still sucks as well, specially the tones... I do notice some ppl are really good at understanding me (they don't mind wrong tones that much) and some ppl really suck... A good example is my gf's father can understand my Chinese quite well, while her mother usually has no idea wtf i'm saying... My gf can understand my chinese pretty much perfectly, while some of her friends also have a lot of trouble understanding me (they all speak English, so I guess that's not the reason) .... Unfortunately i rarely ever talk Chinese to my gf, should do that more if I ever wanna be good at this language :{ Ok I spoke to Aleo for a while and discovered that his pronunciation sucks big time. Enders's is soooo much better. If I were to pay less attention to him I won't know if he was speaking English or Mandarin because they sound the same from him. And that's bad. You really need to record yourself saying something and compare it to how the Chinese say it and work on your language more because all that whining isn't going to help. So your problems won't only be with your tone, but also your intonation (eg how french sounds and how english sounds and how a French American accent sounds), and definitely your phoenetics are probably off (ja = ya in German).When people don't understand me I try to ask them to correct my mistakes and find out where I went wrong, pay a lot of attention to them and think slowly before making the sound, trying to get in the details. Trying hard to correct my mistakes. This attitude is slowly getting really irritating me about how fucking arrogant white guys can be. (Aleonius explained his position to me so I'm not talking about him anymore but rather you.)
Eh, you are quite the hostile motherfucker eh?
I am not arrogant at all, i'm just concluding Chinese ppl are bad at understanding complete sentences if they miss the meaning of one word. The fact that they do understand the sentence once they understand that one word kinda proves this. I don't care whether it's the tone or the way i pronounce stuff, i just conclude they are bad at it.
Then I just say something about how some ppl can recognize my broken Chinese very easily, while some ppl can't. Again, I'm not criticizing anyone, I'm just writing down my observations and I think it's strange that some ppl can easily recognize it, while others can't.
The only person I really criticize is myself, saying my Chinese sucks. Yes, of course my pronunciation sucks, I'm a foreigner and learning this language isn't exactly easy.
Not sure why you are trying to 'educate' us on this stuff. I've been studying Chinese for more than a year at a university in Shanghai
and my teachers luckily all know this stuff as well. Quite fortunately they aren't as negative and hostile as you are as this really helps studying the language.
Anyway, good luck in life dude. I hope you can find a way not to be offended by stuff that isn't meant offensive (maybe take some comprehensive reading classes) and I hope one day you can be happy...
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I usually keep a blog on my QQzone.
I really want to work on my Chinese in the context of casting a game of starcraft 2, so if someone could really help me with that, I would be most grateful. Every now and then I watch Qbaby lin or storm or Joeman or Sobadrush and their casts and I can understand roughly 60% of what they say, but when I cast, I usually don't speak it the same way they do.
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On August 05 2012 20:14 Kaolla wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2012 12:34 JieXian wrote:On August 05 2012 07:52 Kaolla wrote:On August 05 2012 02:17 Aelonius wrote:On August 05 2012 02:08 JieXian wrote:On August 05 2012 01:53 Aelonius wrote:
JieXian, how do you deal with the language when you (accidently) mispronounce a tone? I hear most Chinese aren't able to adapt to the sentence and they instantly stop understanding what you're explaining. (Note: I was only 6 months in Xiamen so while I have had some experience there, it doesn't warrant for anything outside the comfortzone I had there /disclaimer)
Aren't able to adapt? You seem to have a problem with your mindset unless I'm misunderstanding you. it's varies between people. Just imagine listening to someone speaking bad english or dutch... If you make a mistake, just repeat yourself again.............. and again until you get it. Of course in the end they need to be patient but it's not their job to "adapt" it's bloody yours. Mmm it's a tough way to explain it easily, but I noticed often that the Chinese people I met, aren't that skillful with putting the context together even if one tone is wrong. In the English language, if you pronounce "sword" with a W, then you'll still be understood. Sure, it is hilarious but most people will understand what you mean. In >my< experience with the Chinese contacts is that they find it very hard to piece context together. Especially when you make one mistake, it often happened to me that they would blankly stare at me like "WTF is he saying?". It might just be my experience, but this is the hardest about tonal language. One wrong tone and the people lose track of the sentence. It is pretty difficult haha. I feel this is very much true, I've lived in China for a couple of yrs now and I have exactly the same feeling... Some ppl misunderstand a single word and they have no idea what you are saying... Sometimes they will even repeat that word (in the wrong tone obviously) and despite understanding the rest of the sentence they have no idea... And after like 2-3 minutes of repeating the same word and them finally getting it, they suddenly understand exactly what u mean... I've always thought that is so super weird, I mean this would definitely never happen with any Western language (i think) ... Anyway my Chinese still sucks as well, specially the tones... I do notice some ppl are really good at understanding me (they don't mind wrong tones that much) and some ppl really suck... A good example is my gf's father can understand my Chinese quite well, while her mother usually has no idea wtf i'm saying... My gf can understand my chinese pretty much perfectly, while some of her friends also have a lot of trouble understanding me (they all speak English, so I guess that's not the reason) .... Unfortunately i rarely ever talk Chinese to my gf, should do that more if I ever wanna be good at this language :{ Ok I spoke to Aleo for a while and discovered that his pronunciation sucks big time. Enders's is soooo much better. If I were to pay less attention to him I won't know if he was speaking English or Mandarin because they sound the same from him. And that's bad. You really need to record yourself saying something and compare it to how the Chinese say it and work on your language more because all that whining isn't going to help. So your problems won't only be with your tone, but also your intonation (eg how french sounds and how english sounds and how a French American accent sounds), and definitely your phoenetics are probably off (ja = ya in German).When people don't understand me I try to ask them to correct my mistakes and find out where I went wrong, pay a lot of attention to them and think slowly before making the sound, trying to get in the details. Trying hard to correct my mistakes. This attitude is slowly getting really irritating me about how fucking arrogant white guys can be. (Aleonius explained his position to me so I'm not talking about him anymore but rather you.) Eh, you are quite the hostile motherfucker eh? I am not arrogant at all, i'm just concluding Chinese ppl are bad at understanding complete sentences if they miss the meaning of one word. The fact that they do understand the sentence once they understand that one word kinda proves this. I don't care whether it's the tone or the way i pronounce stuff, i just conclude they are bad at it. Then I just say something about how some ppl can recognize my broken Chinese very easily, while some ppl can't. Again, I'm not criticizing anyone, I'm just writing down my observations and I think it's strange that some ppl can easily recognize it, while others can't. The only person I really criticize is myself, saying my Chinese sucks. Yes, of course my pronunciation sucks, I'm a foreigner and learning this language isn't exactly easy. Not sure why you are trying to 'educate' us on this stuff. I've been studying Chinese for more than a year at a university in Shanghai and my teachers luckily all know this stuff as well. Quite fortunately they aren't as negative and hostile as you are as this really helps studying the language. Anyway, good luck in life dude. I hope you can find a way not to be offended by stuff that isn't meant offensive (maybe take some comprehensive reading classes) and I hope one day you can be happy...
lol I can't be absolutely sure about the verity of your statements and highly doubt it's that extreme as you put it, because that would mean that there's really something wrong with them. Your teachers obviously have a lot of experience with foreigners and they aren't a good sample size to pick from. Meaning you Mandarin probably isn't as good as you think it is.
But since I don't expect to get through to you due to what happened and this isn't some normal general topic I'll won't "educate" or flame you back and I wish you good luck (zero sacarsm here)
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On August 05 2012 22:42 JieXian wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2012 20:14 Kaolla wrote:On August 05 2012 12:34 JieXian wrote:On August 05 2012 07:52 Kaolla wrote:On August 05 2012 02:17 Aelonius wrote:On August 05 2012 02:08 JieXian wrote:On August 05 2012 01:53 Aelonius wrote:
JieXian, how do you deal with the language when you (accidently) mispronounce a tone? I hear most Chinese aren't able to adapt to the sentence and they instantly stop understanding what you're explaining. (Note: I was only 6 months in Xiamen so while I have had some experience there, it doesn't warrant for anything outside the comfortzone I had there /disclaimer)
Aren't able to adapt? You seem to have a problem with your mindset unless I'm misunderstanding you. it's varies between people. Just imagine listening to someone speaking bad english or dutch... If you make a mistake, just repeat yourself again.............. and again until you get it. Of course in the end they need to be patient but it's not their job to "adapt" it's bloody yours. Mmm it's a tough way to explain it easily, but I noticed often that the Chinese people I met, aren't that skillful with putting the context together even if one tone is wrong. In the English language, if you pronounce "sword" with a W, then you'll still be understood. Sure, it is hilarious but most people will understand what you mean. In >my< experience with the Chinese contacts is that they find it very hard to piece context together. Especially when you make one mistake, it often happened to me that they would blankly stare at me like "WTF is he saying?". It might just be my experience, but this is the hardest about tonal language. One wrong tone and the people lose track of the sentence. It is pretty difficult haha. I feel this is very much true, I've lived in China for a couple of yrs now and I have exactly the same feeling... Some ppl misunderstand a single word and they have no idea what you are saying... Sometimes they will even repeat that word (in the wrong tone obviously) and despite understanding the rest of the sentence they have no idea... And after like 2-3 minutes of repeating the same word and them finally getting it, they suddenly understand exactly what u mean... I've always thought that is so super weird, I mean this would definitely never happen with any Western language (i think) ... Anyway my Chinese still sucks as well, specially the tones... I do notice some ppl are really good at understanding me (they don't mind wrong tones that much) and some ppl really suck... A good example is my gf's father can understand my Chinese quite well, while her mother usually has no idea wtf i'm saying... My gf can understand my chinese pretty much perfectly, while some of her friends also have a lot of trouble understanding me (they all speak English, so I guess that's not the reason) .... Unfortunately i rarely ever talk Chinese to my gf, should do that more if I ever wanna be good at this language :{ Ok I spoke to Aleo for a while and discovered that his pronunciation sucks big time. Enders's is soooo much better. If I were to pay less attention to him I won't know if he was speaking English or Mandarin because they sound the same from him. And that's bad. You really need to record yourself saying something and compare it to how the Chinese say it and work on your language more because all that whining isn't going to help. So your problems won't only be with your tone, but also your intonation (eg how french sounds and how english sounds and how a French American accent sounds), and definitely your phoenetics are probably off (ja = ya in German).When people don't understand me I try to ask them to correct my mistakes and find out where I went wrong, pay a lot of attention to them and think slowly before making the sound, trying to get in the details. Trying hard to correct my mistakes. This attitude is slowly getting really irritating me about how fucking arrogant white guys can be. (Aleonius explained his position to me so I'm not talking about him anymore but rather you.) Eh, you are quite the hostile motherfucker eh? I am not arrogant at all, i'm just concluding Chinese ppl are bad at understanding complete sentences if they miss the meaning of one word. The fact that they do understand the sentence once they understand that one word kinda proves this. I don't care whether it's the tone or the way i pronounce stuff, i just conclude they are bad at it. Then I just say something about how some ppl can recognize my broken Chinese very easily, while some ppl can't. Again, I'm not criticizing anyone, I'm just writing down my observations and I think it's strange that some ppl can easily recognize it, while others can't. The only person I really criticize is myself, saying my Chinese sucks. Yes, of course my pronunciation sucks, I'm a foreigner and learning this language isn't exactly easy. Not sure why you are trying to 'educate' us on this stuff. I've been studying Chinese for more than a year at a university in Shanghai and my teachers luckily all know this stuff as well. Quite fortunately they aren't as negative and hostile as you are as this really helps studying the language. Anyway, good luck in life dude. I hope you can find a way not to be offended by stuff that isn't meant offensive (maybe take some comprehensive reading classes) and I hope one day you can be happy... lol I can't be absolutely sure about the verity of your statements and highly doubt it's that extreme as you put it, because that would mean that there's really something wrong with them. Your teachers obviously have a lot of experience with foreigners and they aren't a good sample size to pick from. But since I won't get through to you because of a bad start I'll stop and wish you good luck (zero sacarsm here)
Well i've been in China for about 3.5 yrs now, met quite a few Chinese ppl and this is just how i feel about it.
I don't see it as something negative either. Some ppl just understand me better than others. That doesn't mean it's better or worse, or that ppl that dont understand me are stupid, they probably just have another way of processing language in their brains 
When I saw Aelonius' post I just recognized what he wrote and wanted to say i felt the same.
Sry bout the name calling, but i do feel you reacted too agressively. Now let's all be friends and make the world a better place >.<
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Well I'm Chinese and although I converse in Mandarin everyday I would say my Mandarin is pretty bad. Further proof: I don't know what "nuclear reactor" is in mandarin. Had to google that. Then again, I think 95% of the Chinese population in my country wouldn't know either.
The question "how should I say (English phrase) in Mandarin?" always pops up in my mind, but to be fair, "how should i say (Chinese phrase) in English?" also always happens.
I suck at languages. T_T
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On August 06 2012 00:17 Resolve wrote:
Well I'm Chinese and although I converse in Mandarin everyday I would say my Mandarin is pretty bad. Further proof: I don't know what "nuclear reactor" is in mandarin. Had to google that. Then again, I think 95% of the Chinese population in my country wouldn't know either.
The question "how should I say (English phrase) in Mandarin?" always pops up in my mind, but to be fair, "how should i say (Chinese phrase) in English?" also always happens.
I suck at languages. T_T
A lot of the times there is no direct translation. How would you say "swagger" in Chinese?
The guy I mentioned in the OP can't read Japanese, but he said he could speak it fluently. When you say the term "fluent" to a monolingual person, especially an American, they instantly think that your second language is just as good as your first language.
Also, typically people who work as translators usually do it as a side job unless they are simply highly literate, and highly skilled in both languages for a few simple reasons. Document translators usually specialize in translation for their best two languages and whatever they supplemented their language skills with. For example, a journalism major would be the first one to translate foreign media in to English, a Taiwanese Nurse that got his or her bachelor's in Taiwan and then his or her master's in the U.S.A. would probably be an on-call translator for people who can't speak English but are mortally wounded.
A lot of these people have day jobs and don't typically do translation for a living unless it is in a court of law or for government work.
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I guess I'll add my two cents, for what it's worth.
I think you're looking at this in the wrong way. Language learning is not a competition. It's not a linguistic dick measuring contest. When someone says "I'm fluent in _______", it's like saying "I'm good at Starcraft". What does that even mean? It doesn't mean anything, just that according to their own arbitrary standard of "good" or "fluent", they think highly of their own ability. In the SC community, we know that a statement like "I'm good at Starcraft" doesn't mean anything, so we usually make a more specific statement like "I'm mid-Masters on EU" or "I got to D+ on ICCUP". But real life isn't like that. People talk about things just to be social and friendly and make conversation, not because they want every personal statement they make to be questioned or challenged as if they were in a courtroom. It's not a job interview. It's not a lie detector test.
If someone else wants to lie about or exaggerate their own level of fluency, then does that really make such a big difference to your life and your own language journey? I don't understand why you feel the need to rain on everyone's parade and "put them in their place". Why try and be the language police? If someone says they're fluent in Japanese, why not just give them props and be like "cool man, that's awesome" and then ask them about their experience in Japan or why they find the language interesting. Isn't that what a secure, socially competent person would do? In the long run, if you want to make friends and get along with people, being sociable and making people feel good about themselves is gonna be much more effective for you than putting people in their place just to satisfy your own feeling of self-aggrandisement. If someone wants to learn basic conversation in a few languages and add them to their Facebook profile, then so what? If that's how they choose to define themselves, then why try and impose your own standard of "fluency" on everyone else?
If you're only learning a language to impress people or earn "respect" then you're in it for the wrong reasons imo. Based on the tone of your post, your "forenote", your profile and blogs or posts that I've read from you before, you seem to care a lot about what other people think of your Chinese level. But really, does it matter? Is it really of such grave importance that every person you meet finds out what your true level is, so that they can appreciate your "credentials" and show you the "respect" you think you deserve? As I'm sure you're well aware, being a language learner means that some days you're in the zone and the words just roll off your tongue like a native speaker, and other days you can't even seem to get the simplest of sentences out coherently. So some people you meet will think you are much better than you really are, and others will think you are much worse. But once again, who the fuck cares?
I can understand where you're coming from because I used to be like that. When I first went to China I was very much concerned with what people thought of my level. I wanted to prove my ability to everyone, and most importantly avoid the stereotype of the "ignorant foreigner" who was only there to party and get girls. If people spoke to me in English, I would reply in Chinese, to establish right away that I was serious about the language and looking for opportunities to practice. Even in mixed groups where everyone could speak English, I would ask our coordinator a question in Chinese just so I could be like "hey guys, she says that we might have to wait another 20 minutes" and assert myself as the most fluent foreigner in the group. I would change the channel every time Da Shan came on TV because watching him made me feel awkward about my own ability. At KTV, I was the guy who would sing Chinese songs on purpose, even though it was probably boring and even alienating for the members of our group who didn't know the songs and couldn't understand a word of it. In short, I was a huge douchebag, and because of that I ended up alienating or pushing away a lot of the people who I could have become good friends with.
But after a while, I realised that all of that bullshit just doesn't matter. I didn't have to be smug around those who were worse than me, and I didn't have to be jealous of those who were better than me. If some guy wants to practice his English with me, then why not just give him the chance? If I'm in a mixed language group, why not just vibe with people and get to know them in whatever language is convenient for them, rather than trying to impose my own agenda on the conversation? If someone else is speaking Chinese and getting praise for it, then I no longer feel the need to show him or her up. If I go home at the end of the night and noone in the room even knows I speak Chinese, then so what? I know my own abilities and limitations, and at the end of the day that's all that matters.
Being at an advanced level (or any level really) doesn't entitle you to shit, just like playing in your regional football team or in a prestigious orchestra doesn't entitle you to shit either. Becoming more fluent means that you expanded the pool of potential people you can meet and communicate with. That's great. But it doesn't mean everyone suddenly needs to start respecting you, and it doesn't make you any better than anyone else. I'm a hardcore guy too. If I'm learning a language then I'm going all-in, but my choice is no more or less valid than "social learners" who are just learning for fun or want to hold basic conversations. Learning a language is supposed to be a humbling experience. The more you learn, the less you realise you know. Until you reach a highly advanced level, you have to accept that almost every sentence you create will be at best unnatural, and at worst contain several major grammatical or lexical errors. That's the whole point, that's the challenge. It's not about "earning achievements", or measuring your self-worth against other people learning the same language as you.
Lose the ego, lose the sense of self-entitlement. Give people props for their effort, rather than shooting them down or acting smug. Because at the end of the day, 99,9% of second language learners are shit, if you compare them to actual native speakers. You know, Malaysians speak three or more languages growing up. If they wanted, they could shit on Chinese people all day long for having crappy English and do the same to native English speakers for having crappy Chinese. But do they? No, most of the time they're just happy to converse with you and shoot the shit. And when it comes down to it, being cool, likeable and sociable will get you much further than trying to impress people and make them respect you.
TLDR: 山外有山,天外有天 etc
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On August 05 2012 12:34 JieXian wrote:
I'm 3rd/4th generation Chinese, my grandparents spoke bad Mandarin (spoke dialects) and my parents don't speak Mandarin but my sister and I managed to learn it.
Yes, we went to a Chinese school and everything but I have people to speak to also. I'm sure there isn't shortage of them in the US. Try to find some friends man.
I do. But they all speak Cantonese or Shanghainese, no joke. Big Canto neighborhood where I live. Anyways, if you drop me in China or Taiwan, I can live perfectly fine; people will just think I'm super-American, and I wouldn't be able to read street signs. (So my main focus is actually to brush up on reading/writing.) ^^;
Also, in my defense, I'm in the middle of learning/brushing up on three other languages (soon-to-be four later this year) right now for my thesis. I mean, I could spend all my day language-learning if I wanted to, but gotta live some life, man. :O
@ Enders: Lol, the first thing I thought of in my very circuitous Chinese for "swagger" was "walking like a big man."
@ FuRong: There's a difference between language fluency and language proficiency. (To add a third to the mix, there is also language competency.) I'm pretty sure you are confusing them or Enders is or both. Or rather Enders is just referring to proficiency as it's established by a proficiency test, like some people refer to lang. competency as it's established by a competency test. I do think it's a bit harsh to criticize people for language ability; so long as they get what they want out of it, they should be able to say what they want. (Though, obviously, with the caveat that they might be exaggerating: "I know French," when all they really mean is, "Well, I have reading fluency in French.")
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On August 06 2012 02:22 FuRong wrote:
I guess I'll add my two cents, for what it's worth.
I think you're looking at this in the wrong way. Language learning is not a competition. It's not a linguistic dick measuring contest. When someone says "I'm fluent in _______", it's like saying "I'm good at Starcraft". What does that even mean? It doesn't mean anything, just that according to their own arbitrary standard of "good" or "fluent", they think highly of their own ability. In the SC community, we know that a statement like "I'm good at Starcraft" doesn't mean anything, so we usually make a more specific statement like "I'm mid-Masters on EU" or "I got to D+ on ICCUP". But real life isn't like that. People talk about things just to be social and friendly and make conversation, not because they want every personal statement they make to be questioned or challenged as if they were in a courtroom. It's not a job interview. It's not a lie detector test.
You've got a solid point here, except that "fluency" in a language is pretty clear in a business environment. I'd say that when you're fluent in a language, that you're capable of speaking said language without having to translate from one language to the other. Myself, I often think in English as opposed to thinking in my native language, Dutch. Fluency =/= flawless. Everyone makes mistakes, even natives. You'd be suprised to see howmany native English speakers make mistakes in their own language. Most commonly the "your" and "you're".
If you keep that in mind then I fully agree!
Please note I do agree with what you said after this point. My posts earlier were merely to outline an observation. JieXian is a decent person, but my feeling when we spoke about the language is that he's forgetting that foreigners do not have the same linguistic basis as Asian languages. For me for example, the correct intonation is extremely hard because it depends on such miniscule details. For me the four tones sound very similar, and I get almost scolded for not doing them correctly.
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EPT
