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Westerners reading vs speaking Chinese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6317 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 1 of 9 05 July 2012 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I remember reading a comment on this forum to the effect that it is more common for a Westerner to be able to read Chinese well, much better in fact, than to speak it. My experience and third hand accounts give the complete opposite impression, namely that of those that do seriously engage Chinese, the majority will end up speaking much better than they can read.
Since I don't live in China, and have never lived there, could anyone who has spent time there give their impressions of the differences in capability between the spoken and written/reading ability of non-Chinese (particularly "Westerners", although Middle-Easterners count too. Basically anyone for whom East Asian culture is totally alien)? Is it in fact more common for learners to read well than to speak? How common is it for a Westerner to read novels with relative ease? Have you ever met any such people? How did their speaking ability compare? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4702 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 9 05 July 2012 at 4:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well moster westerners here have no Chinese ability whatso ever. They spend all their time being baby sat by the compnay or their Chinese wife. I have neither of those luxuries.
Spoken is stronger than readins, most enver ever bother with the written form, those that do some speaking learn just a few basic "survival phrases" they use to hit on the young waitresses. As dissapointing as that is that sums up the majority of Westerners in China. There are Exceptions but I have met one American at A2 and one American at C1 (after 7 years of formal training and working as a translator). I level of Chinese is nothing, yet I am already way beyond some of my co-workers who have been here 10+ years. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6317 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 3 of 9 05 July 2012 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm going to try and find that comment I mentioned. I simply cannot believe that most Westerners who live in China can read as widely with ease in Chinese as they can speak given what you've written.
I should add that I am quite aware how theoretical and difficult to measure my writing actually is. How can anyone possible accurately guage the level of this vs. that of all people living in X region? It's especially difficult since no nation-wide survery has been given out (to my knowledge), which makes the task of answering this all the more speculative and subject to simple guesswork. Nevertheless, if there is anyway to deal with the topic based on your own experiences of non-Chinese learning the language, then I am still very much interested in what you might have to contribute. I just want to make clear that I am not necessarily after some concrete, objective percentage or something. Edited by ChristopherB on 05 July 2012 at 4:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4702 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 4 of 9 05 July 2012 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well those that I have met studying Chinese ( which is a nice round number) 90% do not do any active study with the written system. Out fo that 90% half of them do not know pinyin and use their own homebrewed system, for words they aquire simply by asking people in English.
I know one chap who has been here four years and have a genunie surival level speaking set but has zero written/reading ability and gets his wife to do that for him. It is interesting to note that he did attened a intensive course at a local university for several months. Evidently some written form is likely to have covered but he has not retained it, despite being within the Hanzi-sphere. Those I have encountered are primarily bussiness men over 40. Several German interns who are not interested in learning the language, but want a stay in China to fake it on a CV. The younger men have no reading ability and can say a few lines usually pick up lines. As for the women, the 7 years formally traines person was female. The experiance I have is almost exclusively limited to men as the female westerners make no effort what so ever to aquire some language ability. The area is Kunshan, it is a small economic immigrant city between Suzhou and Shanghai. Small in size but has a high GDP/capita enough for Shanghai to try have claimed (unsuccessfully) it as part of Shanghai several times ( it is currently a district of Suzhou) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ClaytonL Newbie United States Joined 4650 days ago 3 posts - 4 votes | Message 5 of 9 11 July 2012 at 11:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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My experience is that people's speaking is better than reading. Understandable, tones are hard, but characters are
incredibly 麻烦。 I was like that for a long time, now I would say that my reading has caught up and is getting a bit better than my speaking. I find watching movies for instance much easier with chinese subtitles. Its easy to think that no foreigners speak mandarin well, but that is just not the case. I know a handful of people at C2 and above, and many at the B2 to C1 level. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6703 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 6 of 9 11 July 2012 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd think that most people studying foreign languages wind up with better reading skills than speaking skills. Reading only requires passive knowledge of words and you can generally take as much time as you need to go through a text, rereading it when necessary, to understand the meaning.
Speaking requires internalized forms, not just of words, but of grammar and prosody. It generally also requires good listening, because a lot of speaking comes in the form of conversation. Even if you've spent a lot of time in the target-language area, it's difficult to really reach a high level of speaking. Reading Chinese is more difficult that most languages, so I get why people would be under the impression that speaking would be easier; I'm not sure that would be the case. Personally, I find it much easier to read a newspaper article about current events than I would speaking about them. Just last night I was reading an article on the UN website about a UN ruling on China's attempt to restrict rare earth metals. Even though I didn't know a few specific words (like the specific metals in question), I could understand most of it. I would never have been able to talk about it at the level the article was written, even though I can speak well enough to handle myself in most daily situations. While I think it's true that speaking Chinese at a basic level is much easier than reading it, I think there's a point somewhere in the intermediate level where it switches over, especially if you ever pass 2500-3000 characters, when you might not know every character or combination in every article you read, but you know the majority and can use them to guess meanings of combination. I remember one of my teachers pointing out that most daily conversation doesn't get much above a 2 on the DLPT scale, and that most native speakers couldn't get much higher than a 3 in speaking. So even if you're in a full immersion setting, you won't get as much chance of hearing and participating in high-level speaking than you would reading. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4666 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 7 of 9 11 July 2012 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't understand this. The web page says: [ For most languages, there are two parts: a reading and a listening part. You are allowed three hours for each part. You may take both parts on the same day or different days. ] So your teacher must have meant speaking that which the test taker would listen to. Level 3 says, amongst other things, "Does not understand native speakers it they speak very quickly or use some slang or dialect". I'd be surprised if most native speakers could NOT produce language at high speed. I'm willing to believe the "most conversations are basically quite simple" part (well, except in my office :-)) but not the "most native speakers couldn't get much higher than a 3 in speaking" part (unless your teacher meant that the test doesn't involve speaking and therefore cannot allot you a score for that component :-)). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6703 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 8 of 9 12 July 2012 at 1:34am | IP Logged | |||||
I meant the ILR scale, which is used as the basis for the scores given on the DLPT. The ILR scale covers all four components of language. What he meant isn't just that everyday conversation is simple, but that 4 and 5 level language use is beyond what most people achieve in their own language, let alone a foreign language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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