patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German
| Message 17 of 21 22 October 2014 at 1:20pm | IP Logged |
smallwhite wrote:
patrickwilken wrote:
I guess my question is how can you really be an immigrant (as opposed to a guest worker) if you can't engage with the country by speaking the language? |
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If it's Hong Kong you're immigrating to, by us speaking in English with you. Like how I write in English with you. |
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That's perhaps not a good example though as Hong Kong has both Cantonese and English as official languages. I don't know the requirements for Chinese/Hong-Kong citizenship for non-Chinese nationals, but I would be surprised if you didn't have to speak Mandarin (Cantonese?).
This is an interesting topic, but perhaps we should move it to a new thread as it seems to have no relation to the original discussion.
Edited by patrickwilken on 22 October 2014 at 1:24pm
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smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5311 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish
| Message 18 of 21 22 October 2014 at 2:15pm | IP Logged |
patrickwilken wrote:
... but I would be surprised if you didn't have to speak Mandarin (Cantonese?). |
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While I was surprised that you had to speak English to immigrate to Australia. So you see we come from different backgrounds.
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patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German
| Message 19 of 21 22 October 2014 at 2:27pm | IP Logged |
smallwhite wrote:
patrickwilken wrote:
... but I would be surprised if you didn't have to speak Mandarin (Cantonese?). |
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While I was surprised that you had to speak English to immigrate to Australia. So you see we come from different backgrounds. |
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Seriously? Why is that surprising?
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smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5311 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish
| Message 20 of 21 22 October 2014 at 3:42pm | IP Logged |
patrickwilken wrote:
smallwhite wrote:
patrickwilken wrote:
... but I would be surprised if you didn't have to speak Mandarin (Cantonese?). |
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While I was surprised that you had to speak English to immigrate to Australia. So you see we come from different backgrounds. |
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Seriously? Why is that surprising? |
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Mainly because I grew up seeing people coming to Hong Kong without speaking Cantonese or English.
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Gomorritis Tetraglot Groupie Netherlands Joined 4281 days ago 91 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, Catalan, French Studies: Greek, German, Dutch
| Message 21 of 21 28 October 2014 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
He should work a lot in the pronunciation. I wonder how the teacher was able to guess he was trying to say "δουλέυω".
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