Oh man, thanks for this lesson. I laughed so hard because it hit close to home. I've lost track of how many times I've had that type of conversation. It really started to get to me how everytime I try to speak Chinese, people would always speak back to me in English. If I was lucky, they would wait until I made a mistake (which wasn't very long) or asked them to repeat something before they would switch to English and stay there. I always thought it was entirely because my Chinese must just be terrible. It starts to break down your self esteem after a while. It helps a lot to know it's not just me.
Posted on: Language Power Struggle
December 28, 2009 at 2:18 PMOh man, thanks for this lesson. I laughed so hard because it hit close to home. I've lost track of how many times I've had that type of conversation. It really started to get to me how everytime I try to speak Chinese, people would always speak back to me in English. If I was lucky, they would wait until I made a mistake (which wasn't very long) or asked them to repeat something before they would switch to English and stay there. I always thought it was entirely because my Chinese must just be terrible. It starts to break down your self esteem after a while. It helps a lot to know it's not just me.