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Thread on "Language Banditry" | ||
Tags: Language Banditry | Immersion | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5997 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 25 of 140 18 January 2009 at 9:54pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Are we talking about the same phenomena, AT ALL? I'm in this filthy country for just one reason, the language, and if I humor them (as I've been doing and hate myself for doing but am fighting my own inner kindness to change) it means I will sacrifice the rest of my life to live here in the process destroying my own English and never getting to speak a single syllable of Mandarin. (Yes, a subconscious process makes you adapt to the 'version' the other person is speaking, and I find myself misusing simple words in English like 'this' and 'that' and 'of' and 'the' every time I'm talking with Chinese since they abuse these words to no end.) Imagine that you can't even get a coffee in a coffee shop because the 10 second transaction will be turned into a 5 minute 'lesson' every day every hour of your life. I "humored" pricks at the counter in McDonalds about 20 times and never was there a one of them that understand my order in English, because I refuse to speak in Chinese grammar English with "oh this one that one" instead of "Big Mac meal". Why am I going to humor someone when there is a 99.99% chance they aren't able to understand and I've probably ordered my McDonalds 1,000 times now in Mandarin with my order getting misscommunicated about once.
THAT'S EXACTLY THE POINT. I'm not immersed. I've practically been borderline wanting to kill myself for nearly two years now because I have sacrificed everything an American salary could buy me (savings, car, toys) to be here on a Chinese salary for the sake of a language I'm not allowed to use. Yes I'll leave soon before I get driven over the edge, and no it is not because my ability is to low. I have gone 12 hours hanging out with Chinese friends and at the end asked if there was an 'troubles' or 'frustrations' at all communicating with me, and got an emphatic "no". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5876 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 26 of 140 19 January 2009 at 12:46am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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parasitius, I think it is time for you to go home as soon as possible.
I can guarentee you a couple of months at home will have you romanticising your time in China, and you might even be ready to go back with a new attitude. Additionally, sometimes it is easier to learn a language when not immersed, especially when you are locked in that bitterness (that I am familiar with, incidentally). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5997 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 27 of 140 19 January 2009 at 12:59am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I appreciate your request that we make this discussion more nuanced. In actuality, however, I think the term banditry still applies in your nuanced context but just in the opposite direction! If you are in a bilingual community and have a very poor command of your target language and dare to insist on using your target language with anyone showing signs of unwillingness (SPECIFICALLY when it is because of your own lack of proficiency and not due to reasons racist or insubstantial to the actual act of communicating) then you yourself become the "bandit". As soon as you've made someone else feel they are being forced to teach you, you have turned into the bandit. So that's why I think anyone who complains about this or has any opinion they feel strongly about... may have to do some self examination first to avoid being a hypocrite and be sure that whatever your beliefs on the topic that you are philosophically rigorous! There are surely people out there who both simultaneously hate English Bandits, and are themselves language bandits at the same time. That is to say: they are not consistent enough in their thinking to realize that while low proficiency harassers have no right to abuse them with English, they have no right to make a stink about a high-proficiency English speaking local using English on them at a time when they themselves have only reached a mid-level of proficiency in the local language and thus still "cost" the interlocutor a lot of additional effort when communicating more complex thoughts. To me what it ultimately comes down to is: when one has reached such a level that there is no significant "cost" in using the target language even to a highly-abled English speaking local, and if he would be addressing any other locals in the country in the local language but won't to you—then we have something offensive and possibly racist. This is why the principle depends on the country—because the point is if you are getting common respect and courtesy you should have the right to be addressed in the same language as everyone else in a given country SO-LONG-AS addressing you in the language doesn't cost the native speakers an inordinate amount of effort that could be perceived as you burdening them with a "teacher" role. What I think you have missed in your last point arguing with Maximus, however, is that in many countries there is actually no solution to the making-friends vs fighting-to-use-the-language dilemma. Yes, if everyone was decent and respectful, the strongest language would prevail. The problem is that there is a precondition for this to be possible: namely—the speaker must objectively understand his own level in English. When it comes to the Chinese or any other people who are particularly arrogant and proud of any amount of English ability they have, they have no objective understanding whatsoever of just how terrible they sound and think if they can just keep spitting words out that they are "fluent". Obvious to any native English speaker who has spoken to a "fluent" European in English, the difficulty of talking to a arrogant "fluent" Chinese guy is a universe apart from just speaking 100% naturally and being understood 99% by the European. The Chinese guy doesn't know how to be objective and so will force the English on you even when he is spewing forth vile abused grammar and misused vocabulary so terrible you can barely restrain yourself from ... @#*%&@#$ him.
I can totally agree that you are right on that point, but in China proper (and I'm sure certain other countries) it is just too dangerous a policy to pursue generally. It would be better to pass up a "chance" at 10 or 20 friendships, not wasting your precious time, and finally find the Chinese guy who doesn't care about English than to get abused. Meanwhile when I was in Japan I found a ton of cool Chinese friends to speak Mandarin with exactly because the fact that they were in Japan meant their interest was in Japanese and not English. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5997 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 28 of 140 19 January 2009 at 1:24am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I'm really curious why you feel they care about the culture! In my experience they couldn't give a rat's arse about the culture, and that is exactly part of the problem. They want to usurp English to be their culture-neutral Esperanto 2.0. I came to a really big realization about this yesterday. At a company party one of the ladies who handles my contract approached my in Mandarin and says "Looks like you got even fatter." and I just smiled and chatted with her a bit. I didn't feel anything, this is the way Chinese socialize in their culture and language and the part of my brain that understands Mandarin understands this point subconsciously. When I gave conscious thought to it a few hours later, I realize that another coworker had said the same to me some months prior on the elevator and I fantasized about slamming his head into the elevator wall until he was unconscious! I wanted to kill him!! What was the difference? He delivered his "chinese culture" to me in English, where the English part of my brain interpreted the meaning of his words as an attack that deserves reciprocation. . . I cannot tolerate this kind of crap, if you want to speak to me with an American accent in my damn language then you had better speak it in my culture as well. So my point is... these people are studying it with dollar signs in their eyes if you ask me. If they had any passion for it, from their hearts and not from the dollar signs, they would act very differently... I would feel their genuine honest desire and probably love to help or assist them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5997 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 29 of 140 19 January 2009 at 1:41am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Fantastic! Thanks for the cool url. I've seen some of these before along with other interesting discussion in the Sinological society (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sinosociety/). **Warning you have to apply for access and explain why you are studying Chinese etc. so not everyone will want to take the effort to access it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5997 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 30 of 140 19 January 2009 at 1:53am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
That's a real interesting thing, and I have heard of this before. My friend told me he was really impressed when a German couple visited him because they just spoke English to each other in front of him so he wouldn't be excluded. (Impressed because that is the extreme opposite of Chinese and we live in China.) This is, however, a two way street. I have read many times about Europeans being offended at "Asiatics" "Orientals" and other peoples in their countries talking to their family, same-race friends, or children in their native country or ancestral country's language. They get paranoid and think it inappropriate because if they are in public it can make nearby strangers feel like they might be saying bad stuff about them. — When I mentioned the phenomena to a Chinese friend she looked at me with the most shocked expression ever as if she'd never heard something so absurd. Rather I expect Chinese might be offended to hear two whites speaking Chinese to each other rather than what they "should" be speaking some white people language. (Okay exaggerating a bit there but definitely two white guys talking in Chinese will get you surrounded by curious people wanting to observe the "bizarre" phenomena.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| musigny Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6020 days ago 57 posts - 61 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2, Japanese Studies: Italian | Message 32 of 140 19 January 2009 at 3:18am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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The posts here also seem so passionate. I think it is hard for non-native speakers of English to understand this issue. As a fluent speaker of both Japanese and French, I have the battle scars to show it. My basic rule is that I speak the language of the land where I find myself. If someone in his native country doesn't want to speak his native language with me at all, I'm ready to move on to other relationships. One strategy I used to use was to say, "I'm in France to learn French." If someone kept speaking English to me, I'd just say in a really nice way, "I'm in France to learn French." If you say something like that once or twice it's hard for someone to continue in English. If they do you can just repeat it again. Just praise their country and culture and tell them why you're there. I would say, I love French wine, cheese and its artisan culture thats why I'm in France to learn French. Most people will be glad to speak their language after all that. Tell them why you are interested enough to visit their country and learn their language.
One side point, I was wondering if anglophones could call themselves polyglots in the same spirit that many people of the world state they speak multiple languages that are in actuality very close to each other, like ukranian and russian for example. Could I say that I speak American, English and a bit of Australian? I digress. Edited by musigny on 19 January 2009 at 10:51am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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