China Romance
General Discussion and Useful Links => Ask An Experienced Member => Topic started by: Neil on November 23, 2009, 12:45:35 pm
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When I met Nina, she knew very little English. She couldn't carry a conversation. She knew more English than I knew Chinese, but mostly numbers, some words and phrases. Since we got engaged, she hasn't been able to attend as many English classes as she would like and she is realizing that her English level is not going to be very high by the time we get married. She is getting frustrated and is losing patience quickly.
I know many of you are dating or engaged or even married to ladies that don't speak English well yet. You still have a good relationship and can communicate with each other right? I need to reassure her.
She asked me today if we can extend our engagement to give her more time to learn English. We had our first disagreement today. It was not heated, but I stood my ground firmly. One year is too long, more is unacceptable.
I'm planning a trip to see her soon, but I haven't discussed it with her yet. She doesn't want me to waste money and I understand that, but I need to see her.
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Thanks Biggie. You're right of course. We haven't had a lot of opportunity to talk in the last couple weeks. She has been away for a week helping a friend. She's been very busy - work and English classes. And you're right, it's all just excuses. If something's important, you make the time. I hope to catch her when she wakes up before work. I guess what I didn't write was that I need to see her so we can decide if this relationship is worth continuing. I'd rather do that face to face than through bad translations on QQ or MSN.
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Thanks Biggie. You're right of course. We haven't had a lot of opportunity to talk in the last couple weeks. She has been away for a week helping a friend. She's been very busy - work and English classes. And you're right, it's all just excuses. If something's important, you make the time. I hope to catch her when she wakes up before work. I guess what I didn't write was that I need to see her so we can decide if this relationship is worth continuing. I'd rather do that face to face than through bad translations on QQ or MSN.
Neil
My Daughter is a teacher here and she specialises in teaching English to the little kids who come here from every country you can posibly imagine...most of them without a single word of English.
Several evenings each week, she has classes for the parents of these kids to also help them learn English to better help their assimilation here in Aus.
Before these folk migrated here, many, many of them spent years having English lessons and got really frustrated because all these lessons seemed to be useless when they actually got to speak their "learned" English in an English speaking environment.
They got to realise that whatever they had learned over this time was not nearly enough...and it wasnt the right stuff anyway for their normal life....very depressing and frustrating for them.
But the good news is, according to my Daughter, that as soon as these migrants are actually into a total immersion regime in their new country, colloquial English comes very quickly.
So if you can tell your Lady that what she learns now is useful, but when she actually gets there, it will all be so much easier...and success will come very quickly...and dont worry too much about it :):)
David
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i agree . like david said the english they have learned is really basic unless they have gone
to a very expensive high end school. but once they get around english speaking people they
really do pick it up fast as they have somewhat of a foundation to help them. i have seen this
in california many times. the children seem to learn very fast. now im in guangzhou and trying
to learn chinese but i will say that will take some time
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Sounds like she's just a bit downhearted about the speed that she's picking up the language. I can well understand this! The standard of teaching over here is not high and as David pointed out lots of it is pretty worthless anyway., but it does help. My wife's English is not that good and like many here my Mandarin is even worse. The one thing we do have in our favor is that we have the rest of our lives together to improve on this. Time is defiantly on your side, explain this to her and the sooner you two are together the faster you will both learn. My wife and I seem to be constructing a whole new language between us anyway! Support and encouragement go a long way,best of luck to you both:icon_cheesygrin:
Paul
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My lady is learning english also, on her own. She said lessons are to expensive (what can I say about that?). I give her much encouragement. Actually I am pretty proud of her she does real well. She had called herself stupid for forgetting some of what she had learned before? It can be discouraging for her but you have to reinforce it. She has not said to hold off till she speaks better english but I want her to be good with english when the time comes for the interview.
We plan on having english/chinese lessons whenever we are together.
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I am lucky my lady knows some English, though it's mostly what she learnt in high school. She does appear to be particularly talented at learning languages though (she speaks 2 Mandarin dialects and Cantonese). I bought her some books while I was out there, they seemed quite good. Again, I have had to reassure her that there is no need to learn English that quickly.
What I would ask though is why not enrol on a Mandarin course, then you can begin to talk in her language as well. You would also win tremendous lady points for doing so. I am on week 6 of my Mandarin course and it's not as fearful as I thought it would be. Unlike English, it actually gets easier as you go along.
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When I met my Angel she had no English whatsover other than Hello. That was three months ago - she has probably learned more English words than me in the meantime. But it is still restricted in our conversations. But we are getting better every day. I learn something new and so does she. It is strange chats sometimes - we can start a sentence in English then revert to Chinese and then back to English and by teh tiem we have finished the sentence we do know what has been said.
If you want to sit down and have meaningful converstaions then wait for two or three years.
I am at Hong kong airport at the moment and earlier I rfasn into a Englsih man about 35 and his young Chinese girlfriend - they were talking together in Chinese and I asked him how long it took to get to the level he was at - answer two years.
I know its difficult to learn together at a distance - so maybe I should set up my own English School in Zhongshan.
Willy
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Another strange thing is that some ladies have better written than spoken English while for others it's the other way round. My lady and I can hold a decent conversation, but her written English needs a lot of work, and she writes the funniest things sometimes (like going to her bed to sheep) :icon_biggrin:.
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Another strange thing is that some ladies have better written than spoken English while for others it's the other way round. My lady and I can hold a decent conversation, but her written English needs a lot of work, and she writes the funniest things sometimes (like going to her bed to sheep) :icon_biggrin:.
But I always say it is better in the early stages to learn to speak the language rather than take time learning how to write it.
Does anyone know what the percentage is of Chinese that cannot read their own language..?
Willy
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I think literacy is quite high in China, thanks to the good education system. I don't have facts and figures though.
I didn't encounter a taxi driver who didn't understand my hanzi hotel name (fortunately!). Some had to look at it a while - I guess many taxi drivers in Wuhan are immigrants who don't always know their way around the vast city. They also spoke some strange sounding dialects.
Incidentally, my lady bought the "New Concept English" books while I was with her - they seem to be well regarded, so get your ladies to look for them. In fact, we drove all over town looking for all 4 volumes :dodgy:. Volume 4 is very tough!
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The literacy rate in China is determined by 15 years and older who can read and write 90.9% total; male,95.1% female, 86.5% . They do take education very seriously over here, but if 9% of the population of what, 1.3 billion are illiterate that works out at 117,000,000 or roughly equivalent to twice the population of the Uk based on 08 figures! That's a lot of people!!!!!
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Greetings Brothers,
Neil Zhen and i have been together in china for about a month now and we are in the same boat. Zhen's english is improving as is my chinese but basically she cannot speak english and I cannot speak chinese.
However we do manage to communicate quite well with each other in day to day situations with intuition, body language and our little bit of shared english/chinese. The longer you are together in person the easier it is to communicate despite teh language. The difficulty comes when trying to talk with others or discuss difficult ideas or thought or situations.
For instance Zhen can be in the kitchen cooking and ask me to get something from the fridge in teh living room and more often than not I understand what she wants. Now granted the fact that she is cooking gives me a clue but often I dont understand a word yet i know what she wats. So all in all even without words in the same language we still manage to communicate effectively.
The problem comes in when talking with others or trying to make a point to others because you are unfamiliar with their body language. I think the best thing is to encourage her as much as you can when you can compliment her on her improving even if its only one word. Give her reasons to work at it everyday, and also I think this is key you have to work at chinese also. If she sees or thinks that she is doing all the work it may discourage her.
Besides just imagne the fun you can have listening to chinese peple talk about you in chinese and then respond if they say something nice or something mean. That is such a hoot hehe.
Anyway keep up the encouragement and perhaps ask her if she has a friend that is also learning english or speaks it a bit and they can practice together. learning is easier when you have someone to practice with.
Sincerely,
Zhen and Brian
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Oh, the language barrier can be so frustrating. I am actually a bit concerned about going to Guangdong and hoping to understand anything of what they say since I am learning Putonghua. Words are pronounced entirely different in different provinces and cities. I guess me and my lady's first time without an interpreter will be a huge wake up call. :s Right now I don't even want to think about the possible difficulties, to be honest. It feels weird to study a language and realize that you will basically only be able to use it fluently in a limited part of the country! On the other hand, looking for Beijing women only limits the search too much...
About learning to talk before reading and writing: When it comes to Chinese, I see it as essential to also learn the characters at the same time. If you don't understand the dialect somewhere you can always write the characters in your hand or on a sheet of paper.
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The demo class I done in Rizhao comprised 15/16/17 and possibly 18 year olds...
The thing I got told by the teacher that took me back to the office to wait for the result of my class, was that this class was the top English speakeers in their school. If that was the top then they are in a lot of trouble...God they could not even understand me!!!:huh:
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I found technology most helpful... The week before I arrived in Shenzhen, she sent me a picture of a High End language translator she had brought ( it was then that I realised she was serious about a committed realtionship..with me..)
First thing was for both of us to learn drive the thing - more orientated to Chinese that english - and then to use it. It served its purpose, albiet a little frustratingly. I dont doubt with the research on speech recognition and synthesis going on, plus Moores law in technology, that within a year or two, I will speak into it in English, it will convert to Mandarin and voice that accordingly. So we keep an eye on translator progress. Meanwhile we found body language most useful. Modesty prevents me from adding more :-)
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Yesterday our Chinese teacher was trying to show us the pronunciation difference between zhi, shi, ri and chi. Honestly, we could barely tell the difference!
There are many different ways of learning Chinese, but we are being taught the word, the pinyin (with the tone), plus the character. I think this way is good.
I am not yet convinced the Chinese use the tones to determine exactly what somebody is saying, I think the context the word is used in is of much more importance.
I am glad I found such a good Chinese teacher, as I am now beginning to understand why my lady phrases her English sentences the way she does. Hopefully I will be able to write much better Chinese, especially after next term's lessons which concentrate on writing.
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I dont doubt with the research on speech recognition and synthesis going on, plus Moores law in technology, that within a year or two, I will speak into it in English, it will convert to Mandarin and voice that accordingly.
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More on Moores law - Dragon Dictate on the Iphone :-)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/09/dragon_dictation/
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I dont doubt with the research on speech recognition and synthesis going on, plus Moores law in technology, that within a year or two, I will speak into it in English, it will convert to Mandarin and voice that accordingly.
[/i]
More on Moores law - Dragon Dictate on the Iphone :-)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/09/dragon_dictation/
well dragon dictate works on a tablet PC, or a tiny netbook, why they would run it hosted on an Iphone is a mistery to me, certainly with newer mobile phones becoming more and more powerful (HTC Hero) and maybe you'll soon find an Intel Atom CPU in a phone, battery technology is going that way, it will be easy to run those algorithms on a pocket pc or equivalent.
It will still be a long wait until you get a real time voice recognition translator, the market is not that big to drive that, and you would be talking expensive for early adopters like most high end gadgets ...
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No way in heck you'll find an Atom in the CPU. Too high power. Battery technology is growing but not that fast.
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I learned to speak spanish by working with mexicans, I had a neighbor that was mexican and learned to read mexican because of the newspaper, while living in Phoenix. So living, working with chinese one would think that would be the best way, without school to learn chinese, I guess the same goe's for chinese learning english. I learned more spanish living in Phoenix, than I did in High school in a class.
But you know that translator that your talking about is very interesting. According to you, you just speak a sentence into it, push a button and it translates it back into chinese? What kind of translator does she have and where can I get one.? are there other kinds?
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My lady has a Besta. She does very well with it too. She studies all the time. She even said some people might think she's crazy talking to herself in english? (practicing). She once asked how long I studied english before I new enough? I didn't have an answer. My guess was 12 years? (Schooling)
We both figure we will learn from each other once together.
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Because I now have the luxury of long daily chats on QQ with Ming, I have begun to help her with English to add to her knowlege she gets from her formal lessons.
From what I gather from her discussions, i dont think that the lessons she gets in China are really doing a lot of good, they seem to concentrate on just learning words, and a bit of pronunciation, not context or structure.
So...I had a few lengthy sessions with my Daughter (who teaches English to ESL students and Parents here in Aus) to get some help as to the most effective way to speed English learning..
Some of the key points she advises me about, in order to speed the learning process may help any of you who may be helping your ladies, either in person or via QQ or similar.
Firstly, it is important to understand the "syllable" issue. For a "newbie", trying to get the whole word off pat is often difficult because many words in English seem not to have logical construction if you try to get them in one bite !
To break each word into syllables speeds both the learning and the comprehension.
Secondly...and it is a very important point, particularly for Chinese speakers....is the actual sounds of the words and syllables. We apparently pay too much attention to getting the sounds exactly right in the early days of learning and we should understand that Chinese speech is so different...that they dont have the muscle structure developed enough to properly form the English word sounds. It is a similar impediment to us learning Chinese...except that the tonality and voices demand the use of correct sounds...difficult for us
This skill only comes with time and with the development of the correct and appropriate muscle structure in the tongue, mouth and throat.
So the advice is...dont be too picky about the English word sounds in the early days, better sounding pronunciation only comes after some time, as the correct muscles develop and strengthen.
For your information, hope it is helpful
David E