Muddled Languages

I have been playing around with Skypecasts most of the afternoon and stumbled across one called “Teach in Chinese”. I chatted a bit with the host. The contents of our chat follows:

Me: 你是主持人, 是吧?
Me: 你在吗?
Host: yes, sir
Host: 不好意思,有点忙
Host: 手里有点事
Me: 我想问一下你为什么想搞这个Skypecast?
Host: 哦, kind of Chinese Corner
Me: 哦
Me: 你作什么工作?
Host: Outsourcing
Me: 哦, 你们在哪个城市?
Host: 重庆
Host: 您呢?
Me: 北京
Host: 您是ABC?
Me: 不是
Host: 看起来象亚裔
Me: European-American
Host: 你的中文很好
Host: 表扬一下!
Me: 我的中文不太好.
Host: 别谦虚
Host: 你会说中文吗?
Me: 会。
Host: good
Host: 您在北京做什么?
Me: 教英文
Host: Kevin,是你在说话吗?
Me: 没有。
Me: 我现在只是在听。
Host: 就当练听力吧

What’s interesting to me about this chat is the host’s use of English. By his own words he is hosting a “Chinese Corner,” but his first words to me are in English, and that after I addressed him first in Chinese. To be fair, the host only used a smattering of English and almost everything else was in Chinese, which was good, since it was supposed to be a “Chinese Corner.”

This is a particular pet peeve of mine, and I’ve written about it before, though it annoys me far less now than it used to. Anyway, I’ve seen much worse, where some foreigner is going on all in Chinese and the Chinese person is going on all in English. To avoid this problem, I usually just speak in whatever language the other person is speaking in.

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Tags Chinese, Communication

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