EnglishClub ESL Forums

Hello everybody,

It has been a long time since I came here last time.

I have a question :

I would like to exchange French and Chinese. But the other person speaks only Chinese (she doesn't speak French, doesn't speak German, doesn't speak Spanish, doesn't speak English... Conclusion : four languages are not enough. ).

Is it possible me to teach her French, her to teach me Chinese, without a common language ? Have you ever tried such an experience ? Two people with no common language teach each to other their respective languages. Have you some ideas ? body languages ? touch(ing) languages (like with people who are deaf and blind) ? with picture associations ?

Moreoever the Chinese language and the French Chinese haven't the same characters. I must begin to learn the Chinese alphabet. It will be my first language with different characters.

It's awful when a person comes to a country without knowing any local language,
but awesome when a person is open to learn many languages.

It is very interesting.
Body language is of course the one that can be shared, so there must be something in common between people from different places, otherwise one is human being, the other monkey or elephant.
I happen to know Chinese, English, and French, of course, with different proficiencies,just like I know Arabic because I can write 1,2,3 and I know Roman,because I can wirte I,II, III.
Forget about the poor girl if what you want is learning a language not seeking an affair or a wife.
Perhaps I can help...

Thank you for your answer, Nanning,

Nanning wrote:Forget about the poor girl if what you want is learning a language not seeking an affair or a wife.

What would you say if it was a boy ?

Peux-tu parler français ? oui ou non ? (Can you speak French ? yes or no ?)

I am wondering... because Chinese and French (or English) have different movable types. It may be a challenge to create softwares and open source operating systems (OS OS ) which can be used in all these languages. And it's not enough... Russian have different letters, Arabic too, etc.

Hi Shokin.

What does it means that Catalan flag in your avatar?
Perhaps have you any relation with my country?

Best regards.

It's quite difficult if there's no common language spoken. I mean how do you know you're talking about the same things? What will happen after bonjour and nihao? Let me know how it'll go since I'm interested to know.

I thought about showing things with finger and naming/writing them.

But first I must learn chinese alphabet and find a big dictionary French-Chinese Chinese French.

For the Catalan flag, it's about the sovereignty. Free Catalunya, Free Quebec, Free Tibet, Peace and nature !

Chinese doesn't have alphabet like Roman alphabet. You mean pinyin? From my experience, it's easier if you try to learn the first 100 common Chinese words. Recognize them in everything you can like books, movies with sub, songs. Don't try to remember them because your memory will fail you as time goes. Try to know why they are the way they are. I knew 100 characters after two months of self-study compared to a three-month Chinese course I took in college yet forgot everything afterward. I desperately tried to remember the characters so I could pass the tests. It wasn't an effective way to learn something new. Once you know the common characters it's easier to make sentences. You have one big advantage here is that you have a live instructor to learn pronunciation.

Actually, my goal is to write correctly (as for any language I learn ). And, of course, to pronounce correctly. To understand the links between phonems and graphems.

I think I will learn alphabet (and train to write them ) at the same time as the very common words (How are you ? Hello ! Yes ! No ! Goodbye ! Please ! the most used verbs...)

I will ask her : Hey, is it possible to meet each other more than twice a week ? (google translate, and I print ) I know that, when we begin a language, there are always many things to learn. And I have motivation. Like I had motivation for English and German.

好啦，兄弟，如果不是来泡妞的话，就得认真地学习汉语了，因为说汉语的人会越来越多的，不学不行呀！
你在考我会不会法语？当然会一点了，至于一点是多少，因人而异了。
OK, my friend, try to understand the above without using any help or just suppose that you and me have no common language, what you can do?
Chinese and western alphabet languages are so different.
Korean language used to follow Chinese language in forms, later the Korean guys thought it would be much easier to learn the language by following western ones by using alphabet and spelling, well, it was good in reducing numbers of illiterates,but it also was effective to cultivate one-track minds, or put it bluntly, fools or imbiciles. Koreans are hot tempers, don't you notice?

It's interesting how I can regconize 2/3 of the characters you wrote above (the simplified ones took me some time to read). But there's one thing I still haven't been able to grasp til now is Chinese grammar. I mean, no offense, but it just sounds so awkward. No wonder a Chinese person who can speak Vietnamese most of the time sounds funny to me. I never understood why til I learned Chinese grammar. For instance, I can say 我姓陳 but I cannot say 我貴姓陳. I really don't see the difference， yet there's a rule that it's a no no to say the latter. Strange. This is just one little thing among others that I cannot understand.

I will use google translate.

And download some books to learn Chinese.

I've tried doing a language exchange with little to no common language in between. And it was hard. Though I did learn things from my partner in the language exchange I would still recommend having a partner that speaks a common second language of sorts, say English even if its just basic for both of you which doesn't seem to be the case for your side.

PS. after typing the above comment I noticed that my answer is 6 years too late.LOL

shokin wrote:I will use google translate.

And download some books to learn Chinese.

I don't know how accurate Chinese google translation is but I know Vietnamese one is ~. I translate English books into Vietnamese as my new habit. I thought it'd be much faster if I just copy and paste the whole chunk of text to be translated in couple seconds. However, I ended up switching and changing the wording because it came out all wrong. Maybe the Chinese version is much better, I don't know. Ask your friend first before you start learning the phrases from google translation.

adle wrote:I've tried doing a language exchange with little to no common language in between. And it was hard. Though I did learn things from my partner in the language exchange I would still recommend having a partner that speaks a common second language of sorts, say English even if its just basic for both of you which doesn't seem to be the case for your side.

PS. after typing the above comment I noticed that my answer is 6 years too late.LOL

How did you do it? Do you still remember the language?