Approaching strangers using Chinese

I read through an interesting thread on the language learning sub yesterday (sorry I’m not sure how to link directly)

OP was a fluent Spanish learner in Miami who tried interacting with Spanish speaking waiting staff in Spanish, but they kept responding in English. Which left the OP feeling frustrated at putting so much effort in to learning seemingly for nothing.

Just wondering what people’s thoughts are about approaching random strangers, waiting staff etc, and launching into Chinese. And if anyone wants to share some good / bad experiences.

Points that kept popping up in the comments:

• Service environment is high pressure and rushed and it might be that service staff feel using English would be more efficient.

• people might take it as an insult about their English speaking ability

• it’s not their job to waste time coaching a noob they’ve never met before effectively slaughtering their language

• Often learners just assume people can speak a language, based on their perceived ethnicity. There were quite a few comments from Asians complaining how they get white guys blurting out whatever random Asian language it is they’re learning

• might be better to ask permission first

• keep trying. win some lose some, some will respond positively and some won’t

There’s only been a few times I’ve used chinese on strangers and it’s never gone particularly smooth. One time I got talking to someone in the college library, in English, and they asked what I was studying. So I said told them using English, but they couldn’t understand, so I tried chinese and I think they were too fixated on trying to hear English (also my major is quite obscure anyway) that they still didn’t get it. So they passed me their cell phone to type it into their dictionary. And I flipped the keyboard input to pinyin and typed the characters. And they literally just blushed bright red and ran away without saying a word lol. Maybe typing chinese was a bit rude?

Another time I was in a line for Burger King and a couple of Chinese were behind me complaining about how long it was taking. And I was thinking the same so after a while I tried to chime in along the same lines, and got the classic response in English: “wow your chinese is so good for a foreigner, how long have you been learning etc”

Usually I avoid interactions in Chinese because I don’t think my comprehension or speaking is up to scratch for a full blown conversation without them having to cut me a lot of slack. But also I think the few experiences I’ve had have knocked my confidence a bit.

Actually since, I’ve been guilty of the reverse of this as well. On the odd occasion where a native has found out I’m learning chinese and given me the opportunity to talk by offering me a simple sentence in chinese, I frequently will just awkwardly respond in English haha. I guess that’s an anxiety thing

Anyway...

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