How to tell someone, "I'm not your friend"

I don't know that I would call you cranky, but I do have a related question. Ken is always stressing the importance of practice, but it can be hard to find someone to converse with on a regular basis. It so happens that I work with someone, who I like by the way, that is a native Chinese speaker. Considering the flip side of amphivera's situation, how do you take the opportunity to develop a relationship with someone who can help you learn a foreign language without becoming a "language rapist?"

不好意思,下次吧.

well

all you say is well i kno weve been friends but i feel as thoughg we dont need to hang bout dont b mean

just say nicly i dont think we should hang out so much any more we can still be cool ppls but friends i dont really think its nessary any more dont take it hard but i hope you can find some 1 els. and no your not carzy u are just making hard choices rite now and im here 4 u

I am also not eager to be friends with people who just want to hang out with foreigners (me in this case) to improve their language skills or because they think it is cool. But it is pretty easy to tell if someone has a genuine interest or not. If I really want to avoid a person, which does not happen often, I use the "I am busy" excuse, if necessary repeatedly, and most people get the hint.

Talk about knitting, only about knitting, and never let the subject change. Works for me ;-)

大部分的中國人很有禮貌。 我覺得如果你告訴他們： 我趕時間 I'm in a hurry. 我現在很忙沒有時間談話(I'm busy at the moment. No time to chat) 他們一定讓你一個人。 I think it would be very rude in Chinese culture to tell some one directly that you are not interested in talking to them, unless they are horribly annoying. The best thing to do is to repeat the same excuse a couple of times. I've found that is a more polite way to decline invitations. Now stop posting these annoying blog questions! /humor :) Gary

I want to make friends

你就說 “我有事請 別煩我了 ” 呵呵 如果是陌生人 你就說 “好的好的 下次再說吧” 盡量用少的語言答覆 顯得有點不耐煩的樣子最好。

Well, its just me but I would help as many as I could. You will be suprised what you can learn working with people even if they are using you, or have nothing in common. Diversity is a good thing sometimes. Besides you can also ask for help with your Chinese. It does work both ways. -RJ

That's a good attitude to have RJBerki. If you think about it, everybody here is a language rapist. Not that we go around town being obnoxious and bugging people just to get free Chinese lessons, but we all learn from other people who know what we want to know. The whole language learning experience is just an exchange of knowledge, however, if you've got somebody following you around who is seriously badgering you and won't take a hint....then yea, go with the nitting thing. "What kind of yarn do you like?"..."Well, I can't really go to the party because I'm not finished nitting your sweater yet", etc....

Well I was going to make a bad joke about pretending you are dumping your boyfriend, but I have decided to behave. Seriously though, you might consider having a once a week "chat session" (english class). You could explain that many people would like to use your native ear to fine tune their english skills but you simply do not have time to accomodate everyone so it occured to you to have a class every tuesday night for 2 hours. They can share a little Chinese as well. If it doesnt work out, turn it into a Knit-in with open discussion. Do it at a public place, (or at someone else's house) so you can leave when class is "over". I remember walking along the Bund and having folks come up to me and want to walk and talk. If you start speaking only really bad Chinese, they will leave. Teaching Chinese is hard work. The other option is to pretend you dont understand anything they say in english. This is pretty mean though.

Haha, that's funny, AuntySue : )