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skylee -



Quote:


Originally Posted by imron

In some situations possibly even resulting in the unfortunate loss of life


Love the video. Thanks imron.



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gougou -

Sat's not funny.










Shadowdh -



Quote:

Why do Caucasians love English?

Obviously because English is the king amongst languages... I thought everyone knew that...???










adrianlondon -



Quote:

Why do Caucasians love English?

Because for many of them it's their mother tongue, and for many of the remainder (especially those
able to travel) it's a langauge they've been learning for many years.

In response to your specific opener, if you happened to speak fluent German, your friend would
probably be most comfortable in speaking German with you.

End of the day, relaxing in a bar, pick the easiest language kind of thing.

All makes perfect sense to me.










david1978 -



Quote:

Obviously because English is the king amongst languages... I thought everyone knew that...???

Oh. I thought Chinese was supreme. It's spoken by 1.3 billion people, ya know!? lol

Enough of this thread, my hair hurts!










yonitabonita -



Quote:

Yonitabonita, I'm sure the irony of this post has not been lost on you. On the one hand, the
original thread poster criticized a "Caucasian" for speaking to him in English, which I take to be
a criticism of his ethnic attachment to language, yet on the other hand, the poster makes a
sweeping and awkward generalization about all Caucasians.

Best to check that assuredness of yours then David, your irony was by far too subtle for me.



Quote:

Besides, this post spawned a number of silly responses,

On that I can agree.

I think this thread's dead.










sthubbar -

wushijiao, thanks for understanding me:


Quote:

I think the spirit of the original post was something along the lines of “I have come to this
school to learn Chinese. You have come here to learn Chinese. Why don’t you want to speak
Chinese?"

Gato, you are absolutely right!


Quote:

Sthubbar, you gotta relax.

Mugi can you elaborate?


Quote:

The conclusions you draw regarding what is pretentious and what is not are illogical.

If two Asians are in America seen speaking English to each other I don't think anyone would have a
problem with it.

When I used to attend classes, everyone knew that I only spoke Chinese. No one ever had a problem
with it, though some might have considered it odd. It is only this one individual. I have also met
two other Caucasians since I have been in China that are fluent in Chinese and yet have the same
belief system.

It is actually kind of interesting because my previous classmates know that I only speak Chinese,
they will be speaking English with each other and then when they turn to talk to me will switch to
Chinese.

Last thing is the point about people using their best language doesn't seem to hold up. I have
seen two Germans, two French, or two Mexicans talking to each other in a private conversation
using English. I don't think anyone ever considered them pretentious, or requested that they
please switch to their stronger mother tongue. The discrimination seems to be especially reserved
for two Caucasians speaking an Asian language.










muyongshi -



Quote:

I think this thread's dead.

Please! I missed the last 5 hours of heated debate but man...isn't the horse dead?










muscle -

Well, I've been expecting somebody to give the reason why I think it is, but surprisingly nobody
has. So I guess I'll just have to speak for myself, so to speak.

Maybe not for all people, but for people like me, there is the "rub off" effect. The accents of
those around me will rub off and I may find myself afflicted with their pronunciation.

Put me in a group of learners who have bad pronunciation, bad intonation and bad grammar, and
pretty soon my own skills will deteriorate. This even happens with English which is my native
tongue.

I suspect that this German fellow does not want to pick up or hear any non-native pronunciation.
He likely applies his rule to everyone who is not a native Chinese speaker.
He is just protecting himself so that he doesn't aqcuire any bad habits.

Another point:
It sometimes is difficult to speak with another learner, because you may know words that she
doesn't know, and she may know words that you don't know. But with native speakers of your target
language, you can use anything and everything that you have learned. You at least don't have to
hold yourself back. And anything you learn from a native speaker, you don't have to worry about
it. But something that sounds odd or that you hear from a non-native speaker, you have to check to
make sure whether it is correct or not.

Now just imagine that you are talking with another learner, and he starts using some word that you
don't know. And you ask him what it is and he tells you, and you go, "OK." And then he continues
on using that word and you understand him and by the end of the conversation he has used it like 2
dozen times and you'll never forget it. Then one day you use that word with a native speaker and
they don't understand you. And you try to explain but they don't jump from your explanation to the
meaning of it. So later you go and look it up and find out that it was wrong! Now you've got this
wrong word stuck in your head and you never want to let that happen again, so you ban speaking
Chinese with any other learners.










Shadowdh -



Quote:

Another point:
It sometimes is difficult to speak with another learner, because you may know words that she
doesn't know, and she may know words that you don't know. But with native speakers of your target
language, you can use anything and everything that you have learned. You at least don't have to
hold yourself back. And anything you learn from a native speaker, you don't have to worry about
it. But something that sounds odd or that you hear from a non-native speaker, you have to check to
make sure whether it is correct or not.

I like the first part of your post and agree somewhat but for the above I would just like to point
out that native speakers can also be guilty of not knowing some words (and in some cases quite a
few) and sometimes the language used by natives is not correct... a good example of this is
cockney from London... even for native English speakers it can be hard to know what the heck they
are saying... (eg I was down the jack at the shop when the guvnor opened his jack and someone
robbed him = I was at the shop on the corner when the shopkeeper opened his till someone robbed
him.) But if you use this in another part of the UK (heck London even) another native speaker will
probably not understand you... which makes me wonder is cockney a dialect?












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