ESL - how do you cope?

[Neil]

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.

[Neil]

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.

[David E]

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

[ttwjr32]

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

[Paul Todd]

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

[Vince G]

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.

[brett]

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.

[Willy The Londoner]

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

[brett]

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:.

[Willy The Londoner]

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

[brett]

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!

[Paul Todd]

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!!!!!

[Brian Mc]

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

[Hans]

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.

[Scottish_Rob]

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: