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roddy -

Also, there's evidence that we have slightly different personalities for different languages.
Perhaps this guy knew he was a nicer person in English than in Chinese and was just trying to do
you a favor. And I'm only half joking.

Anyway, given that you know this guy, why not send him a link and invite him along to tell us what
he thinks.



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skylee -



Quote:


Originally Posted by roddy

Anyway, given that you know this guy, why not send him a link and invite him along to tell us what
he thinks.


This is clever.










david1978 -



Quote:

Why do caucasians love English?

Why is this the most ridiculous title for a thread...ever?




Quote:

The likelihood that two caucasians mutually speak better Chinese than English is small, so when
you do speak in Chinese together it looks/sounds incredibly pretentious to other foreigners and
many Chinese, and just plain stupid to other Chinese. It comes down to being good manners and
common sense (efficiency) to use the language that between you you are the most conversant in.

Thank you, Mugi. I think if a Westerner started speaking Chinese to me, I'd walk away too.
Sthubbar, you should probably consider how stupid you must have looked.










Lu -



Quote:

Why is this the most ridiculous title for a thread...ever?

Agreed. I don't love English, to me English is just a tool. (Which is also one of the reasons I
won't teach it.)

OP: has it occured to you that perhaps the German didn't think your Chinese was good enough for
intelligent conversation? I seem to recall that in another thread you said you're a beginner.

Also, when talking to a foreigner, people tend to speak the best common language. If one speaks
the other's native language, that language is spoken. If none speaks the other's native language,
they go for the second language they both speak best. In your case, if the German's English is
better than your Chinese, and his Chinese better than your German, English is the BCL for you two
and best fit for conversation.

This even apart from the 'pretentious' reason, which you can ignore if you wish.










imron -

If two westerners have a decent level of Chinese, I see nothing pretentious about them speaking
together using Chinese. I've done it on many occasions and will continue to do so in the future.
Of course if the person didn't have a reasonable level of Chinese, or didn't feel comfortable
using it, or if it's someone I've traditionally only spoken English with then I'd probably speak
with them in English, otherwise I see no reason not to use Chinese.

Chinese, like any other language is a tool for communication, and I find it far more pretentious
for people to advocate that the language you speak should be determined by your ethnicity










jonaspony -

sthubbar,

He won't be the last stuck-up prat you meet. You gotta love 'em.

A friend of mine used to say "Without the wankers you are nothing".

Talk to anyone - any way you want. Mix it up if you like. People who don't want to listen probably
have nothing to say worth hearing. Try speaking to him with a Scots accent - it's halfway between
the motherland and fatherland.

cheers.










david1978 -



Quote:

Chinese, like any other language is a tool for communication, and I find it far more pretentious
for people to advocate that the language you speak should be determined by your ethnicity

This is a gross oversimplification of what language is. With all due respect, this is, frankly, an
ignorant statement. Language is not merely a tool for communication. Language is a source of
identity; language is history; language contains cultural values and beliefs; language is shaped
by the dominant religions of a particular society; language both shapes and is shaped by culture;
language, if the genetic theories are correct, may, in some ways, even tell us about our ancient
ancestors.

What few nuggets I've tossed out do not even begin to explain the significance of language and its
effects on social development.

What irritates me is that all you guys who look down upon any Westerner who cherishes and values
his own history and language as a bigot or zealot, will endlessly admire the ethnocentricity and,
basically, cultural chauvinism and supremacism of the Chinese. To me, this is a pathetic double
standard.










cdn_in_bj -



Quote:

I wonder what the OP would think of native speaking Chinese speaking English to native speaking
Chinese.

I remember one time I was out having dinner and at the table next to ours there was a group of
Chinese fitting the description of "young professionals". You know, well-dressed, looking like
they just got off of work. Anyways, I could hear their conversation clearly and not only did their
conversation include the odd English word, they would also drop whole English phrases in the
middle of or at the end of their sentences. And it wasn't just one person doing it - they were all
doing it. I don't know if this is just young professional speak but I could understand everything
they were saying (the Chinese as well as the English parts) and to me it seemed very strange.
Looking at it another way, it's sort of like listening to a non-native Chinese speaker who uses
chengyus far too often.










roddy -



Quote:

What irritates me is that all you guys who look down upon any Westerner who cherishes and values
his own history and language as a bigot or zealot, will endlessly admire the ethnocentricity and,
basically, cultural chauvinism and supremacism of the Chinese. To me, this is a pathetic double
standard.

Where did that come from? Are we reading different threads?


Quote:

I don't know if this is just young professional speak but I could understand everything they were
saying

Pretty much - it's an in-group, we are educated professionals, thing. 夹中夹英 I think it's
referred to as. Can be a bit grating I find, but I'm not in that in-group.










wushijiao -

I think the biggest issue here is the issue of privacy. When we are talking to someone else, not
only do we want to speak the language that we will both be able to use to our highest level of
competency, but we also don’t want to be eavesdropped on by everyone, or at least, eavesdropped
on by the lowest number of people. This doesn’t apply to the classroom, but if you are on a bus
in China, many people might be starring at you anyway (if you are non-Asian), if you start
speaking Chinese to someone, I almost guarantee, everyone will listen in. If you speak English,
most likely the vast majority won’t be able to follow what you are saying. For example, my wife,
who is in Llahsa right now, gave me a call while I was in a small, crowded jiaozi restaurant. She
started off in Chinese, but I basically had to yell because the signal was bad, so I immediately
switched over to English. It just would have been slightly awkward to have done otherwise. But in
the US, we often did the opposite.

On the other hand, this makes me think of all those people who do language pledges, or
self-imposed language pledges. I had an old gringo friend like that who did that with Spanish when
I was studying done in Chile. He refused to speak anything other than Spanish. Even if you said
something to him in English, he’d reply in Spanish. Most of my friends felt that his
self-imposed policy was unnecessarily awkward, but at the end of the year, he improved probably
more than anyone else, especially in terms of his accent and speaking ability. So there is
something to be said for the people who don’t give a damn about all these odd, semi-formal
social conventions!












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