Ah, language!

Having studied German and Latin in my youth, I can “sort of” get around in Europe. I frequently can understand signs and menus, and when I can’t, there typically are fluent English speakers nearby. I recall trying out my German on a shopkeeper in Austria who smiled sympathetically and then said: “Let’s talk English, OK?”

Well, Chinese is so different that I have absolutely no clue what people or signs are saying. The upside is that I can ignore chatter on the street, and choose to be oblivious as to whether people are talking about me, although on the buses I sense, frequently, that they are. In fact, as a former Portuguese colony, much of the signage – on buses, in public offices, etc. – is in both Chinese and Portuguese, and by necessity, I’m learning to make sense of some Portuguese!

Foreigners’ (particularly Asian) attempts to communicate in English are often the source of politically insensitive yet very funny anecdotes. There’s even a Web site dedicated to signage of this sort. We Americans can be assured that our efforts to communicate in Japanese, or Chinese, or Thai are often equally silly, if not more so.

However, two recent incidents have been enlightening as well as amusing. First, I’ve had to impress repeatedly upon my students the need to cite their sources in the papers they write. It’s a professional courtesy to indicate where one finds information, or to provide attribution for a quote and to enable the reader to go to the source for further information. On the whole, Chinese students are not accustomed to doing this. In a recent paper submission, I was gratified to see several footnotes, and, curious to explore further a point made by the student, went to the Web site he cited – only to discover that it was in Chinese! Serves me right, I guess.

The second incident was during a recent presentation by an alumnus to students in the business school here. After introducing himself and his topic in halting English, he launched into his native Cantonese. Sitting in the front row, I considered this to be a good idea on his part, even though I couldn’t understand him. After all, the room was full of Chinese students. What I didn’t realize until later, however, was that the majority of the students were from the mainland, and spoke Mandarin (known as Putangua here). They couldn’t understand him either!