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Q: Does your Chinese partner help you to learn Chinese?
A few western friends, who are married to Chinese Nationals, get lessons in both spoken and written Chinese from their wifes.
My wife does not do this. She is reluctant to teach me, for two reason.
1. I am not a good linguist. So she gest fustrated trying to teach me. She can't explain it to me, even though her English is perfect.
2. I am already too independent of her with my limited Chinese. What would I get up to if my Chinese was better?
What help does your Chinese partner give you to learn Chinese?
Yes, she helped me, no need anymore.
I know other people in the same situation.
Then I know some who consider their Chinese partner as an instant translator.
"I won't learn no chong chong, I have a slave to translate for me".
Better learn to be independent.
Yes, she helped me, no need anymore.
I know other people in the same situation.
Then I know some who consider their Chinese partner as an instant translator.
"I won't learn no chong chong, I have a slave to translate for me".
Better learn to be independent.
My ex didn't want me to teach him Chinese. He said he could not concentrate on studing when he was with me.
Nope, I asked my wife many times.
She is just WAY too lazy when it comes to this... or maybe she doesn't want me to learn to assert some kind of control but I learn on my own anyway.
My wife is not a good teacher. I gave up after some years, if asking her "What does that mean" she would always reply very unspecific.
jetfire9000:
Learning Pinyin is the most important thing you could ever do to lay the foundations for Chinese learning. Why? Because of the wonderful advent of the dictionary. Without knowledge of Pinyin you would have no way of looking a word up, because you wouldn't know how to input the right pinyin. That makes you utterly dependent on others. Once you get Pinyin down you can just jot down the noises you heard and then go back and look up a few words and find the one that makes most sense to match the context you heard it in. Voila, new vocab word unlocked.
Hotwater:
I've found this quite funny as I know Scots wife well as she speaks bloody good English! He's learnt more Chinese from me over drunken conversations & mine is not much over survival level.
But it then his wife is Cantonese & only speaks Chinese when she really has to!
ScotsAlan:
yup, my wife is Cantonese, so Mandarin is her second langauge.
No, mine refuses to do so. Primarily because then I could communicate with more Chinese (Chinese women) and she is opposed to that.
Mr ScotsAlan, once again I must question whether we married the same woman...lol
When I ask my wife "What does that mean?" or "What did he say?" the standard reply: "I don't know" is to be expected. From experience I know not to question this answer.
Hotwater:
You should get together for a beer to compare wives, I'm sure you'd get on well! I'd be quite happy to drive us both to your city as I still can't figure out who you are offline but bet I've unknowingly had a beer with you in Friends bar in the past......
My wife has offered but i seem to be in the minority here but i dont want her to teach me. Im good at everything, shes never seen me suck at anything. ( This is all in her eyes by the way).
I speak well enough on my own. Shes never even really heard me speak much more than the most common daily stuff.
its easier for them to speak english to us so they dont make the effort to teach. Ive tried with many gf's but they always go back to speaking english and i get tired of saying "TELL ME IN CHINESE".............or i say say in english then in chinese........damn they dont want to make the f effort.
gouxiong:
Well, I think it's more about the priority. One of the reason why the Chinese girl may decide for the foreign boyfriend is mastering the language for free (as many would otherwise not be able to afford the proper lessons). And as foreign boyfriend brings them a lot of drawbacks in China society so they are probably not willing to give up the free courses of English - in other words for majority of the girls with foreign boyfriend the boy speaking Chinese is clearly not desired.
Once (and if) you get married then the situation may change but majority of the foreigners here who even claim speaking Chinese are usually not too far from just Ni Hao only level (even though there is increasing No. of foreigners being really fluent in Mandarin). So it may then be easier for the couple to use the language in which both partners are proficient and can use more or less without problems.
ha ha. Now my wife is laughing because our daughter speaks Mandarin "like a foreigner"
Of course, because her daddy is the only one who tries to speak Mandarin to her. And my Mandarin is shit.
If you think Chinese people are mad, try to work out the Cantonese. No logic at all.
