Does English really "unbelievable important" in China as you described?? I doubt it. What makes u think that way? maybe its the case in Wuhan Not in Beijing tho.. As far as I know, many people around (including myself) never consider 'English learning' as high as you believe... there are some people learn English for utilitarian reasons... e.g. some wanna pass TOEFL/GRE/ETS to study abroad, some intend to work in a foreign corp; some's in hope of impressing the society... yet, it's just specific phenomenon. As to the CET 4/6 certification, its de facto one of the basic requirements for undergraduate to acquire a bachelor degree. Passing that exams is a piece of cake as long as you put fair time into it... and getting good marks on it means nothing but your "expert" in taking multiple-choice exams testing obscure grammar points and little-used vocabulary. I didn't mean to be arrogant toward you, lee. That's simply a fact. btw, mastery of a couple of foreign languages is quite a common thing for Beijinger. just wander the streets at downtown, pick 10 people(under 40 yr old) there, 7 of them can speak english, 5' have the ability of basic communication with foreigners, 2/3' have good pronunciation. Here in Beijing, we'd take 'mastery a couple of foreign languages' as a fundamental stuff you should possess, a 'bonus' to push u more competitive; that's all. A guy who's excellent in French/English or whatsoever languages while fail to get outstanding achievement in his own major/field won't have a promising prospect anyway... with sole language skills, you are a nobody and hardly get a creditable job without Bachelor/Master/PHD backgrounds or some favorable momentums especially for those non-Beijinger natives. 呵呵, "how poor"? don't you feel proud to live in a country with more than 1.3 billion people who speak chinese as mother tongue? and do you think its that difficult to make foreign friends?? Perhaps that's relevant to your circles in wuhan, i dunno. Here every day we've chance to meet with a dozen of foreigners from Korea, Canada, Russia, America etc in library, cafe, sports club... they seem more enthusiastic about chatting with us... among them there is also a trend of learning Chinese. some of them become my friends, esp. a girl from Korea, I first meet her in the library, now we hit it off and share common interests in many aspects... seriously, I'll see what I can do to help... and recommend you some source/sites if u like --(当然是用中文, 仁兄, 建议你去http://www.manfen.net/forum/ , 也许会看到一些你感兴趣的东西 it's a waste of time to improving your english by making friends on an english BBS, in my opinions. btw, I could have emailed you through BBS here(in Chinese of course), but I think it'd be proper to input sth here in English... for what you have said might have misled some posters who seldom know or have never been to China.
well in the middle east, MOST people speak arabic, different slangs, but all in all its arabic. If you go from one country to another you will understand whats up, except ofcourse the special insults, curse words, and slangs. In a country like india, you could knock on 10 houses in a neighbourhood and be greeted with 10 different languages. The largest spoken language there is hindi(the national language), but i think that english has easily surpassed that since the last time i checked.
nice to know how you really feel ayears are you saying that your command of English and the nuances of Western lingo and customs hasnt been improved thru your interaction with this board and others you may visit? Seems to me you have certainly become more fomfortable in your posting style since I first saw you post.
so you know little about how I really feel before? I mean it's unwise to make friends on a board just for purpose of improving his foreign language. That's just my piece of advice to jjryulee according to implicit info i got from his posts. Certainly, I'm not quite clear about his situations, also that's his business, not mine. So he decides. C'mon, Dude, don't mistake my meaning... How could it possible that I read Dudes' nice posts day after day, month after month without any improvement? imo, wide reading of the original sources is the key to learn a natural and fluent foreign language, but internet including BBS thereof is not an ideal source. Apart from the access it offers to major foreign news/stories, There is much of great value and interest on line, but bobbing in a vast ocean of trivia, irrelevancies and garbage... personally I visit here because I love Basketball as a sport, and pretty enjoy to have interaction with posters like you. Dude, wouldn't it be better if we moved on to other place we know to share our take? Guess my early posts might suck enough to keep dude impressed 'till now.
ÈÊÐÖ (who says that anymore, btw), I have to disagree with you here. while i agree with you that engish is being over-emphasized, you can't understate its importance. maybe it's because your english is good already. but i have cousins and friends slaving over it all day because it's a barrier to their success. wizkid83... you dissed two dialects i like a lot. haha... but of course we're all entitled to our own opinions. i used to can't stand cantonese either, but after doing a volunteer program in chinatown for 4 years i learned to speak it fluently. it's not a beautiful sounding language, but it is very fun to speak. it's informal and colloquial, and very fun in conversation. there are actually tons of jokes and idioms that work real well in cantonese, and that's why you can't watch dubbed versions of HK films you need to watch the original. as per the beijing dialect... haha, i'm not from beijing but i was born rather close to there. so i like the way it sounds. the thing about the beijing style mandarin is that if you give me two lines with the same number of characters each, i can rhyme it into a song. haha.
ayears! Thank u for your advices firstly.i really agree some of your advices is reasonable. And i quite admire your pretty eng.did you major in english before? " http://www.manfen.net/forum/ " is nice link to me, i will keep it. while i dont assent i misled someone here. i dont deny a part of the purpose i make friends here is improving my english while that is not my major intention. i wanna participant in some threads but i always dont know how to put it. also i am interested in sth abroad, curious about what is attentived by foreigners and how to consider things these guy.certainly attention to rockets and yao&mac is another reason i make friends here. as to learning english, i consider discussing with others in a foreign BBS is a comfy way to improving my english.i have no intention of any exams,i wanna simply be able to talk with foreigners or talk in the place where we communicate necessarily in english. i dunno some university in beijing permit students fail to pass cet 4/6 graduate.as you mentioned ,i agree CET 6 means nothing .it wasted my a large amount of time to pass it .despite i pass finally,i still cant write ,cant listen,cant speak ,only read some english.while we have to admit it is difficult to pass cet 4/6 for a part of students in china ,especially for some sudents from country without creditable foundation.i saw so many students around me cant eat your "a piece of cake" ,even if they spended large time into english. how long is the "fair time" for them? about "how poor" i said, i make sure that everyone understand my meaning.i am simply disappointed that i counldnt find out somebody to talk with english around. thank your advice "A guy who's excellent in French/English or whatsoever languages while fail to get outstanding achievement in his own major/field won't have a promising prospect anyway... "
Manny Ramirez i am sorry ,zhangziyi told me she dont like man already. hehe. but nobody around me like her and think she is pretty.
adeelsiddiqui thank u ,that is chinese-english Manny Ramirez just a joke. besides herself,nobody knows whether Zhang Ziyi like men or women
It was cool in europe though..gonig to burger king and having a choice of Bottled Water, Coke, or a Cold Beer for your value meal.
Isn't she dating some other Chinese entertainer? And if people in China doesn't think she's hot, why is she keep getting roles in Chinese/Asian movies that doesn't get released here, or get commercial.
Zhang Ziyi is beautiful-looking but what I don't quite like her is her kind of arrogant attitude and not so sweet personality. At least that's my (a Hong Kong girl's) opinion.
