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It comes down to: (1) Chinese people are blown away when a Westerner speaks Chinese, and (2) Americans are blown away by anyone who speaks Chinese. I have bee

by reuven 12y ago

It comes down to: (1) Chinese people are blown away when a Westerner speaks Chinese, and (2) Americans are blown away by anyone who speaks Chinese. I have been taking daily Mandarin lessons for the last few months, since I'm traveling increasingly often to Beijing to teach programming classes (in English), and want to be able to communicate more easily with my students and colleagues. I'm having a super-fun time with it, and definitely feel like I'm making progress. It's slow progress, but it's something. My friends in the US and Israel seem to think I'm some kind of mutant super genius for being able to learn Chinese. I keep trying to tell them that a billion people have managed to do it, so it can't be that hard, but they are completely surprised that it's possible. Moreover, even when I say something short and simple (with an undoubtedly very strong American accent and mediocre tones), my Chinese friends and colleagues are blown away, impressed by my ability to learn the language. Zuckerberg seems to be where I hope to be in about a year or two -- namely, a with good vocabulary, decent but imperfect grammar, and a terrible accent. I can live with that. The impressive thing here is the time needed to do this. Zuckerberg is a busy guy, and taking a few hours each week to study Mandarin isn't necessarily something that you would expect him to make time for. Then again, he just got married and doesn't yet have children. Hmm, maybe I am a mutant super genius for learning Chinese while married, consulting, and with three children... Regardless, my wife took this news as proof that I'm doing the right thing. She's convinced that there will be even more people flocking to learn Mandarin, now that Zuckerberg has shown that it's possible.

raverbashing 12y ago
Or maybe "Americans are blown away by anyone who speaks another language?"
- reuven 12y ago
  Yes, but I live in Israel. It's normal here to expect native English speakers to learn Hebrew to some degree. But Chinese is seen as completely impenetrable, more than any other language. People use "Chinese" to mean something they don't understand. Just two days ago, my postal carrier asked me a question about computers. (She's knows I'm in high tech.) I started to explain things, and she said, "What you're saying is Chinese to me." I said, "Actually, I'm learning Chinese," which she definitely didn't expect!
- xiaoma 12y ago
  This is only true in bigoted European stereotypes of Americans. 20% of the country is bilingual. In port cities such as San Francisco or New York the ratio is much, much higher. It's just not that special. Non-Asians learning Chinese is still somewhat special, though much less so than it was in the 90s.
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    Bigoted European stereotypes? Yes, a lot of them know a second language, usually because of family. Of course that's not what it shows when most tourists don't even try to speak the local language in Europe.
  - tluyben2 12y ago
    Well it's not that strange; in many EU countries most people also only speak their own language. I'm not sure it's more normal in the EU to speak two languages than the US. I'm from the Netherlands so I have a skewed perspective on all it considering all the people I know speak 3-5 languages well enough to hold a non casual conversation. 20% is rather a tiny % for my taste anyway, so not difficult to be an bigoted European as the chances of running into a non 1st / 2nd gen American who speaks two languages is just not very high. And seems tv-shows / films want to push that idea a bit more by, whenever someone blurts out a foreign sentence, making it grammatically wrong and pronunciation wise a complete joke (no-one would recognise it as the target language if they didn't say it explicitly). Not that i'm saying tv shows are a good reflection of how it is, but a lot of people don't know any different... (Same vice versa by the way).
- Shivetya 12y ago
  Americans and foreign nationals. Anecdotal, friend returned from China many years ago after being paid to go teach English and some other minor courses. Got married while in China and after his stint there she was granted permission to move to America with him. Long story short, they frequent different ethnic grocery stores and restaurants and some customers will make comment about them, directed at his wife, that they fully don't expect him to understand. Needless to say he does and usually replies kindly with how nice it is today and did the see that great item on a certain aisle. So it works both ways, for many of us the need to learn a second language isn't there and the ambition to do so doesn't work well without the need.

by reuven 12y ago

raverbashing 12y ago

Or maybe "Americans are blown away by anyone who speaks another language?"

reuven 12y ago
Yes, but I live in Israel. It's normal here to expect native English speakers to learn Hebrew to some degree. But Chinese is seen as completely impenetrable, more than any other language. People use "Chinese" to mean something they don't understand. Just two days ago, my postal carrier asked me a question about computers. (She's knows I'm in high tech.) I started to explain things, and she said, "What you're saying is Chinese to me." I said, "Actually, I'm learning Chinese," which she definitely didn't expect!
xiaoma 12y ago
This is only true in bigoted European stereotypes of Americans. 20% of the country is bilingual. In port cities such as San Francisco or New York the ratio is much, much higher. It's just not that special. Non-Asians learning Chinese is still somewhat special, though much less so than it was in the 90s.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  Bigoted European stereotypes? Yes, a lot of them know a second language, usually because of family. Of course that's not what it shows when most tourists don't even try to speak the local language in Europe.
- tluyben2 12y ago
  Well it's not that strange; in many EU countries most people also only speak their own language. I'm not sure it's more normal in the EU to speak two languages than the US. I'm from the Netherlands so I have a skewed perspective on all it considering all the people I know speak 3-5 languages well enough to hold a non casual conversation. 20% is rather a tiny % for my taste anyway, so not difficult to be an bigoted European as the chances of running into a non 1st / 2nd gen American who speaks two languages is just not very high. And seems tv-shows / films want to push that idea a bit more by, whenever someone blurts out a foreign sentence, making it grammatically wrong and pronunciation wise a complete joke (no-one would recognise it as the target language if they didn't say it explicitly). Not that i'm saying tv shows are a good reflection of how it is, but a lot of people don't know any different... (Same vice versa by the way).
Shivetya 12y ago
Americans and foreign nationals. Anecdotal, friend returned from China many years ago after being paid to go teach English and some other minor courses. Got married while in China and after his stint there she was granted permission to move to America with him. Long story short, they frequent different ethnic grocery stores and restaurants and some customers will make comment about them, directed at his wife, that they fully don't expect him to understand. Needless to say he does and usually replies kindly with how nice it is today and did the see that great item on a certain aisle. So it works both ways, for many of us the need to learn a second language isn't there and the ambition to do so doesn't work well without the need.