Most travellers from mainland china and japan hardly speak english

Huangfemu wrote: I can say their english knowledge is miserable.
I never been to mainland china before...and Iam a chinese oversea guy

Is english not seen as important language in mainland China? because of the patriotism reason in their school system?

The same shit I read about Japan too...a very rich and a well industrialized country but many older tourists have a problem with english as well..
Exceptionaly some japanese who study in Australia or USA...they do speak.english fluently.

Does this bother you? What’s your point? 😎
Does everyone need to speak English?

@greensheep

Who are you even talking to? Me or Huangfemu?

And what's wrong with Chinese people placing importance on English? It's indeed silly if they only just intend to use it superficially for only traveling/tourism. I think OP was wrong to criticize them for not knowing English if they are only visiting. But regardless people have deeper reasons to pick up a new langauge. And many People learn English as it's pretty useful. So is Spanish and french. It's kinda funny how English is a mandatory subject in china. In some other countries next to china like Nepal, Uzbekistan, etc - Chinese are a compulsory language to be learned at their schools because of china's growing global importance. People wanting to learn second language have their own reasons but it's usually made mandatory for economic reasons.



Some Chinese don't really care about mastering English. But some do.

It used to be that western universities were the most prestigious and hence English was utterly essential in order for them to be recognized by employers. But Chinese universities like Tsinghua are rapidly rising up the ranks in computing science and engineering so maybe it's not that essential anymore. However English is still useful for travelers.

I just watched a youtube vid where a Chinese tourist tries to communicate to similar aged Japanese but he was using Chinese Homophones as a prank. I noticed whenever the Chinese tourist and Japanese can't communicate with each other using their own native language, they at times both resort to broken English to talk to each other as it's their common lingua franca/bridging language so english obviously has its usefulness for Chinese people.



And yep, it's not so much education but really more how motivated they are to learn the second language. Some people just have a knack for languages. Others don't. However the most determined can generally learn another language as average people regardless of how smart they are, after putting in a minimum amount of hours, are able to reach the basic fluency level at a good enough level.

I was just stating to OP not to judge or stereotype someone by their cover and cut the non-english speaking Chinese tourists some slack. I've known too many westerners flat out assume the younger gen FOB or international students mostly don't know any English. Despite being accepted as an international student in America or Australia, they all have to pass an English fluency exam but are just shy in using it. However they are at least expected to know English well enough. Tourists REALLY don't need to learn it. It's not an easy feat to pick it up obviously. They may not seem to speak English but if you ever yourself learned French in high school for a few years, then suddenly found yourself in Paris talking to fast speaking french people. It would just be overwhelming. Not easy to master a second language for anyone, so it's perfectly normal if they don't know English.

Just plain ignorant for OP to go shame them for that.

^responding to huangfemu obviously...

and i would have denoted a ^ as im doing here if i was responding to you.

Since most people from Mainland China and Japan have English class in their schools, but hardly speak English, I know the reasons why:

1. It's not their native language, just a second language or other language.

2. Their native friends or relatives don't speak English.

3. They expect respectful, mature, and intellectual foreign travelers to study to speak, read and write their language.

4. They don't want to embarrass themselves in front of the foreigners with their English accent.
( don't worry I don't make fun of foreigners who try their best to speak English since both my parents are Immigrants who speak Spanish).

But the good news is that there are some native Mainland Chinese and Japanese who traveled to English speaking Western countries and already studied English and have the courage to speak, write and read English since they had Western friends to help them with English.