Let's Talk!

Talk about what? Talk with who? No, the question of these days is... talking in English. Since my Chinese is still pretty nothing, the only way I can speak here is English. At the first, I'm really glad for that a lot of local people can speak English. Many of them are really good, even though they weren't abroad. I'm really impressed by you guys! Thank you...

I've got the impression that most of people which I've met here can understand well, but when it comes to talking abilities, it's much more worst. Perhaps, there is more then one reason for that, for instance the education system focused mainly on the grammar and vocabulary, movies on the TV with the subtitles, or using English text books and slides during the classes. The catch is, many people here are actually thinking that their English isn't good enough to speak so they won't speak just because of that.

From my point of view is really sad that even though people who has got actually really good English are thinking in that way and referring themselves as a person with poor English... What about to encourage you a bit? ;-)

I've experienced that some people, especially girls, are replying me with the scared face the sentence which I don't like to hear: "I'm so nervous to speak English with you!" According them, they've got two reasons. One is me and the other one is talking English. I'm afraid, I can't do anything with myself in order not to make them nervous... Can I? Though I hope we can do something and change their feelings towards speaking English. I mean, I can understand you can feel quite uncomfortable, because you're not sure if you can express yourself clearly. But you know what? The language is just a part of the communication and actually more is going on via non-verbal channels. The body language is very often useful for better understanding and it can help you to guess the meaning in case you're not sure.

Do remember, the person you're talking to won't judge you're English or making jokes about that. And you can asked again in case you didn't understand. There is nothing to be be ashamed of. Forget about Dr. Eye for a while and let's try... Like with many things, it's just about the practice -- practice makes you perfect --you have to do it over and over in order to achieve better level. And you'll see it isn't so difficult after all. The only thing which you need to do is the first step. Like I mentioned above, you know a lot about the grammar and vocabulary, so it won't be a big issue for you.

I was asked what to actually talk about during the conversation. Of course, for the start in the campus environment, you can always use the cliché such as "What's your name? Where do you come from?" "What is you major?", or my personal favorite one "Why did you choose Taiwan?" and nobody won't mind. However if you're wondering what should follow and thinking about that too much, just let the conversation keep going. You'll always find out another topic to talk about. Just think about your talking with your friends. And especially in case you will meet someone who's got the same interests as you or is interesting for you in some way, you'd most likely won't find yourself in the trouble and running out of the ideas for the chat.

And, I'd like to note that even though it's kind of funny that some local people like to say hello to me when I actually already passed them, it's much more better to speak with me and the others foreigners face to face ;-)

Please, my Chinese friends don't be afraid of talking English, I'm sure we can communicate very well, we are human after all :-)

^.^ k.

Soundtrack: Daft Punk - Human After All