Chinese Ed Speaking English

This post was inspired by one of the previous comments in my most recent "update" post. I think we've been quick to criticize the relatively poor standard of English among those in Malaysia who are Chinese educated. But often, we forget too quickly how difficult it is to master a language which is not our 'mother-tongue' so to speak. Frankly, I'm always impressed by people I meet who are Chinese educated but are also relatively fluent in English. Like one of the commentators in the last post mentioned, how easy how it for those of us who are English / BM educated to speak as fluently in Chinese?

My 'mother-tongue' is Mandarin because that is the language I use to converse with my parents (with a generous smattering of English, BM and Cantonese). But I wasn't Chinese educated (to my deep regret, later in life). I could not imagine myself delivering a lecture or a speech in Mandarin in the same fashion as many Chinese educated politicians and friends deliver speeches and lectures in English (and sometimes BM). And I would consider my Mandarin as better than most Chinese were not educated in Chinese. Even as I'm learning how to write and read in Mandarin at Duke, I find that I'm far from comfortable in speaking in formal settings in Mandarin simply because my vocabulary is insufficient and I often get my sentence structure mixed up.

So for a Chinese ed person to make the transition to speaking English, to me, is actually a pretty impressive transition given that I have a sense of how difficult it is for an English educated person to make the transition to Chinese. Tony is pretty impressive in that he, like myself, was English ed but his Chinese is much better than mine and he's much more fluent in delivering off the cuff speeches in Mandarin compared to myself. Of course, I don't have to face the same frontline scrutiny and pressures as he does. But still, this only highlights the difficulty of making such transitions be it from English to Chinese or the other way round.

So the next time you meet someone who might not speak perfect English and if this person happens to be Chinese educated, think of how you would fare if you were asked to speak in Chinese. Or if you're Chinese educated listening to the poor grammatical structure and vocab of an English educated person speaking Chinese, give the poor guy / gal a break because he or she is at least trying.

I can extend this to those who are fluent in both Malay and English (and to the rare few who are fluent in Malay, English, Mandarin and perhaps even a few dialects) and heap kudos on them to. (though having the same script for Malay and English obviously helps)