“Do native speakers even want me to learn?”
This is one of the key considerations everyone should, and usually does, make when weighing up whether to learn a foreign language or not. Apparently Thai’s are highly resistant to foreigners learning their language, and we have all heard horror stories about French people who realising you don’t speak perfect French prefer to just end the conversation immediately rather than have to listen to you.
Obviously there will be wild variation in terms of people’s supportiveness, but it’s good to get an idea as to whether or not its going to be an uphill battle, or will you be able to have a small team of private tutors who help you with your problems and look on astounded and adoring when you speak their language.
There are significant numbers of Australian Born Chinese (ABCs) in Melbourne and they generally don’t want to speak to you in Chinese because they have had to fight all their lives with themselves and their friends to identify as ‘Aussie’. While my friends from high school spoke to their parents in Chinese predominantly, they never spoke to each other in English even though these were their first languages.
Of native speaking international Chinese people in Melbourne though, there are two groups.
1) Shocked, amazed and overjoyed, that I’m learning Chinese. These people will sit patiently as I try to say things, they will recast poorly pronounced words that I’ve messed up and happily repeat their sentences.
2) Slightly threatened, skeptical and condescending. These people will almost always respond in English even when I ask them things in Chinese, and act really surprised if I ask them to speak Chinese. I remember sitting on South Lawn with one Chinese friend and another Chinese learner. We were speaking Chinese to her, and we asked her ‘Why don’t you ever respond in Chinese?’. She said ‘Because I know you aren’t a native speaker of Chinese, so I don’t speak to you in Chinese’. And I said to her, ‘You aren’t a native speaker of English, does that mean I shouldn’t speak to you in English?’.
For a long time she still thought this, and I generally tried to avoid her. But eventually I had to say to her, ‘Look, it’s really great that you learnt English, you come here and you study, but you know that Chinese is very important to me, and I don’t really think I can hang out with you if you reject me speaking Chinese.’ She felt really guilty and called me 30 mins after we had to go to different things (on good terms of course).
People in this second group, if I say something in Mandarin, and I’m reading off a piece of paper, they will always try to look at the piece of paper, rather than trying to understand what I say to them. So if they start trying to look at it, I usually hide the book/paper and resay it to them in Chinese. It’s legitimate that they don’t understand me, but often I think they don’t want to even try, like something in them doesn’t accept that I’m speaking Chiense (or at least trying). They say ‘just say it in English’ and then when I do they say ‘oh, okay’. Like that is the end of it. Obviously there was something about the way I was saying it in Chinese which was wrong, and I would really appreciate it if they corrected me. And then when I say, so how do you say it in Chinese, they respond, ‘Yeah that’s right’. And this just couldn’t be more frustrating. I try to stick clear of these people needless to say. Fortunately I have a lot of options when it comes to friends to hang out with.
Conclusion:
I’m lucky in that I can pick and choose, but I think that generally there are some speech communities, and people within them, that reject the idea that its even possible for foreigners to learn their language. Especially as a native speaker of English, and being Anglo, I am often faced with people saying ‘But why would you want to learn Chinese, you already speak English’.
