How much English can the players speak? With the exception of the players from England, English would be the players 2nd language. An example that puzzles me is here in Singapore. When Indra Wijaya won the first set whilst playing against HK's no 1. Zhao, the Chinese coach came over and game him instructions like all coaches would. I assume that they were speaking English seeing that Indra is Indonesian and Zhao is Chinese. comments?
I was just wondering how much english players can speak........... Btw, my exams just started on the 16th of this month and end on the 11th of June...... its a living hell!!! Gotta go study now...... AGAIN
They, Indra Wijaya and his coach Zhao, speak CHINESE each other! There are a lot of Indonesians and Malaysians working in the Chinese restaurants in the United States. They all speak Chinese. Usually, Malaysians here generally speak much better Chinese than Indonesians here in the States. Therefore, usually Malaysians get higher paychecks than Indonesians here. The owner of the Chinese restaurants here are mostly from Taiwan or Hong Kong, I believe. Workers are from Malaysia, Fujian and Indonesia.
Indra Wijaya is Chinese-Indonesian, so there's a slim chance of him being able to speak Mandarin. Good luck for ur exams, Byro!
OT: Re: How Much English? A quick question. As there are quite a number of different languages and dialects in China, which one is used by the government in national party meetings or in official statements or documents? Do the government newspapers appear in several different languages? How about in the Chinese military? Are all Chinese children taught the "dominant" language (if there is one) as a second language in school if their region or province does not already speak it? Thanks.
Re: OT: Re: How Much English? A question back for you Brett. As there are quite a number of different languages and dialects in the United State, which one is used by the government in national party meetings or in official statements or documents? Do the government newspapers appear in several different languages? How about in the American military? Are all American children taught the "dominant" language (if there is one) as a second language in school if their region or province does not already speak it? Thanks. What a STUPID question!!! There is only one language while different dialects, therefore there is only one way of writing with a little different in pronouciation. Same as English. There are two fonts in Chinese, one is simplified, the other is traditional, but either one has the exactly same meaning and pronociation. If you were good at your own mother language, and mother dialect, there would be no problem to undertand what I'm talking about. Be smart next time!
Re: OT: Re: How Much English? well, "ZhongGuo", that was unneccesarily rude. Brett our friend just happens to be an American with no/little knowledge of the Chinese language and dialects, so his question was perfectly legitimate. and i am not sure what your background with the Chinese language is, but many of your claims are incorrect. although there is the one standardized way of writing Chinese, different dialects do differ in how sentences are constructs and how phrases are used. the most common example would be the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin. a Mandarin speaking person will have some trouble understanding Cantonese phrases. and similarly for Hokkien. and if you think the difference between different dialects are simply "a little different in pronouciation", then that shows your ignorance of the language and the dialects themselves. so before you come blasting at other people, please get your facts right first.
Re: OT: Re: How Much English? kwun, if I had anything not appropriate, I'm sorry for that, nothing personal, but I doubt his purpose! Just like English, is there another writing for New England people? or Is there anything different writing in Missisippi? Back to Chinese, is there another writing for Shanghai dialect? NO! I have been in Shanghai for more than ten years. Almost all the people in China can speak Mandarin( I hate this word! We call it PuTongHua). Let me tell you that more than 99% Chinese even don't know the word Mandarin. Writing in WuYu (Shanghai dialect) is exactly the same as writing in PuTongHua. I don't know Cantonese, but I have NO problem at all to read any newspapers or magazines from Canton or Hong Kong or Taiwan. Is that enough?
Re: OT: Re: How Much English? ah. i see why you have your confusion. written "Chinese" can be different from spoken "Chinese". when you are in HK and read the newspaper, it is written in the "standard" Chinese. but when Cantonese talks, they use a different form, both in the pronounciation, and in the sentence structure and phrases. English and Chinese are very different languages with very different roots, the cultural diversity and distribution in China and US are also very different, so the comparison between the two would not be correct. as i said, please get your facts straight. and i still believe that Brett's question is still genuine and legitimate.
Re: OT: Re: How Much English? ZhongGuo, while I have certainly sparked and participated in some heated debates on this forum, I have never resorted to namecalling or other non-civil postings (with the exception of a few posts regarding the now-banned imposter). I take offense at your reply to my message as it was immature and partially to totally non-responsive. Even if I thought someone else's message was sophomoric, if it even resembled being a question posted in good faith and not as a joke, I would not have called either the question or the poster "stupid." First, your comparison between China and the U.S. is not even close to being an accurate example. In the United States, there IS a predominant language used in all major newspapers, government documents, statements and general communications throughout the country - English. There are sizeable areas in Florida or the southwestern part of the country where Spanish is commonly spoken and there are accompanying Spanish language newspapers, television stations, etc..., and the same can be said on a lesser scale for groups speaking other languages, such as Louisiana Cajuns and Creoles, immigrants from other countries and members of various Native American tribes. However, it is undisputed that if one wants to live and work in mainstream American society, outside of a limited ethnic pocket of non-English speakers, one needs to speak English. There are certainly different accents and expressions present in the English spoken by Americans that varies geographically, but except in extreme cases (generally individuals lacking in education) there is no significant difficulty in clear communications between individuals from different regions of the U.S. While there are differences in styles of speaking, no one ever refers (unless in a joking manner) to an American speaking "Southern," "New Yorkish," "Texan," or "Bostonian," as they are not at all separate languages. In fact, the only references I have ever heard in the U.S. with regard to English "dialects" are with regard to Cajun English, and (outside of the U.S.), Jamaican English, which have changed the language so substantially that it may no longer be easily and clearly understandable by most English speakers. In America, there is only one generally accepted written language, which is English. While some individuals (particularly in internet communications in the last five years) may choose to write more casually, ignore grammatical rules, use shortcuts, etc..., they are still communicating in English. Your reference to my "mother dialect" thus has no meaning at all with regard to the United States in terms of either oral or written communications. English within this country is one language. In contrast, from what I have read from other comments on this site and from a variety of other sources, it is clear that a person who speaks only Mandarin cannot communicate orally in an effective and clear manner with a person who speaks only Cantonese or vice versa. There are a number of other separate linguistic systems aside from those two from other regions in China that have their own distinct form of oral expression, whether one calls them languages or dialects. Again, this is not comparable to American linguistics and I genuinely wanted more information about this topic. Are you attempting to state that written Chinese is comparable to the arabic number system, in which each number or symbol has the same meaning but is pronounced in an entirely different manner depending on the language of the reader/writer? To draw an analogy, would this be similar to a written language/alphabet employing the symbol # to mean dog, in which it would be pronounced as "dawg" in English while it would be pronounced as "she-enn" (chien) in French and both an Anglophile and a Francophile could communicate clearly in writing but not be able to understand each other in speech? I posted my questions out of genuine curiosity and had no other motive, agenda, etc..., whether humorous, nationalistic or otherwise, for raising those issues. If my questions were so incredibly obvious and simple, why did you fail to provide simple and clear answers to them? I admit that I could have obtained some, but probably not all, of this information within a few minutes by doing a web search for "China and official language." However, one of the things I especially enjoy about this forum is that the individuals who participate are from many different countries and we regularly discuss some of the differences between our countries and cultures. I think that these international communications make us more informed and better world citizens and probably most of the other fans of this website would agree. I had no intent of doing anything here other than going briefly off-topic to satisfy my curiosity on a few non-badminton issues. If memory serves correctly, there are a number of regular posters here who share Chinese ancestry but whose origins are from different regions of China with different dialects or languages and I wanted to see if their imput to my questions would be the same. All I wanted to do was become better informed so that I would not make inaccurate assumptions about China, as you have done with regard to the United States. So forgive me for this long-winded response, but this all could have been avoided if you had treated my question with the sort of respect that others on this site have for each other and provided a simple, accurate response to my question.
Well, I said, if offended, just sorry. But I still don't think that question is a smart question. Any language, will definitely not seperate language, so DOES CHINESE. It does not only applied to English. Chinese is a fully integrated language, and of course it is used by Government and military, etc... Thanks to you, your article is not that long. I just changed it a little bit, it becomes a good paper on Chinese language. See, you can even teach yourself. **** the following is your article with English replace with Chinese ************ First, your comparison between China and the U.S. is very close to being an accurate example. In China, there IS a predominant language used in all (not only major) newspapers, government documents, statements and general communications throughout the country - Chinese. There are sizeable areas in Tibet or the nouthwestern part of the country where Tibetan is commonly spoken and there are even FEW accompanying Tibetan language newspapers, television stations, etc..., and the same can be said on a lesser scale for groups speaking other languages, such as Korean and Viet, and immigrants from other countries. However, it is undisputed that if one wants to live and work in mainstream Chinese society, outside of a limited ethnic pocket of non-English speakers, one needs to speak PuTongHua, i.e. Chinese. There are certainly different accents and expressions present in the English spoken by Chinese that varies geographically, but except in extreme cases (generally individuals lacking in education) there is no significant difficulty in clear communications between individuals from different regions of the China. While there are differences in styles of speaking, no one ever refers (unless in a joking manner) to a Chinese speaking Taiwanese, as they are not at all separate languages. In fact, the only references I have ever heard in China with regard to Chinese "dialects" are with regard to YangJingBing (Chinese spoken by foreigners, outside of China.), which have changed the language so substantially that it may no longer be easily and clearly understandable by most Chinese speakers. In China, there is only one generally accepted written language, which is Chinese. While some individuals (particularly in internet communications in the last five years) may choose to write more casually, ignore grammatical rules, use shortcuts, etc..., they are still communicating in Chinese. Your reference to "how to write document?" thus has no meaning at all with regard to China in terms of written communications. Chinese within this country is one language. In contrast, from what I have read from other comments on this site and from a variety of other sources, it is clear that a person who speaks only English cannot communicate orally in an effective and clear manner with millions of immigrant in California, Florida and all over the country. There are a number of other separate linguistic systems aside from those two from other regions in the U.S. that have their own distinct form of oral expression, whether one calls them languages or dialects. It becomes more and more difficult for upper class white to communicate with Black teenagers wandering along street even though they both claim speaking English. It is also difficult for Appalachians to communicate outside Americans even though they both speak England. Again, this is a huge similiarities between any kind of languages, including English and Chinese. Language is like tree while dialects are branches. If the tree is bigger and older, there would definetely more branches. Some people predicted that one hundred years later, Brits and Amreicans can not understand each other. Actually I saw many Americans have problems to understand British. That is the biggest lesson you can learn from this discussion about this topic. Are you (you NOT me) attempting to state that written Chinese is comparable to the arabic number system, in which each number or symbol has the same meaning but is pronounced in an entirely different manner depending on the language of the reader/writer? To draw an analogy, would this be similar to a written language/alphabet employing the symbol # to mean dog, in which it would be pronounced as "dawg" in English while it would be pronounced as "she-enn" (chien) in French and both an Anglophile and a Francophile could communicate clearly in writing but not be able to understand each other in speech? You posted your questions out of genuine curiosity and had no any thinking yourself.., whether humorous, nationalistic or otherwise, for raising those issues. Since your questions were so incredibly obvious and simple, I would like just give you a hint and let you figure out yourself. ................ (your poster IS really TOOOOO LOOOOOOOONG, gotta go) take care of yourself
Re: OT: Re: How Much English? Try these for size: neighbour vs neighbor colour vs color favourite vs favorite I think there are variations to english writing, very minute, but there are some variation. Plus pronunciations and linguals do vary from region to region.
Interesting thread, cant see wood for trees. Did any of you see the recent stuff in a certain national badminton site, in particular remarks by HK and Canada which I suspect are people from this site.
I've read all these posts and I still don't see why you are so worked up about this simple question, ZhongGuo. My teachers through the years have always mentioned "The only stupid questions are the ones you don't ask." What in the world are you thinking Brett is implying with his question for you to keep getting angry at it? I really don't understand. What better place than this site with polite, well-mannered (usually) badminton players, to ask an honest question? I'll tell you one thing for sure, Brett's not the kind of guy who would ridicule anyone about origins, cultures, nationalities,etc. I lived in Singapore for a year a while back, so I have been exposed to several of the "dialects" of Chinese, and I understand a few simple phrases in Mandarin (that's the only thing I heard it called), but I was still enlightened by Kwun's answers given to Brett's first question. Anyways, ZhongGuo, please don't think Brett meant anything offensive; I'm very sure he didn't.
Re: OT: Re: How Much English? Actually, when it comes to English(da most boring sub in da world), it's usually only da accentation(if there's such a word), or da slang.
