Grace
confusion about something

I am a native chinese speaker,i want to improve my spoken english ,while i can teach mandarin .

i just have no idea about why i can not find a lanugange partner? my avatar? it is just a photo of my little sister .actually ,i am 22 years old .

Honestly,my frinds just find language partners,while i have no .i am upset .so anyone can help me with my spoken english?

Dec 2, 2015 6:37 AM
Comments · 32
19

@Nico - you should write "really really bad", not "real real bad" - we wouldn't want to reinforce our non-native speaker friends' bad habits, would we! ;-)

December 2, 2015
14

Nico, you're definitely right that a native speaker would be preferable, but I think the way you give the advice it sounds like it's the only way, which is probably the reason for the downvotes.

 

I think it can be useful to practise with non-native speakers as long as their level is well above your own. At least, it's better than nothing. Paying 7000$ is more than two years of spending all your disposable income if you're an average Chinese citizen. I can understand how one might feel (s)he doesn't have a choice in that situation, and might not appreciate it if someone tells them they're doing things really, really bad.

 

As more general advice (@Nico), I think you generally give good language learning advice on here. But it often sounds rather absolute and/or condescending to me personally. Which is of course fine if that's your style, just thought maybe you'd want to know.

December 3, 2015
13

@Nico - A little friendly advice: use the notebook feature a little <em>more</em> and the discussions feature a little <em>less</em>.  Clicking on your profile, I don't think you've ever corrected someone's English notebook, much less written an entry yourself...

 

That's not a personal attack, just a code I believe all Italki users should follow as a matter of practice. The fact is, most people come here to practice language, and there are hundreds of people here who would really appreciate your very valuable contribution as an English native speaker in improving their notebook entries.

 

We're all learners here and need to help each other. Hope this comment isn't the horribly dreadful garbage all my others have been ;-)

December 4, 2015
10

There is not a lot of demand for people who speak English to learn Chinese.  It's one of the hardest languages for an English speaker to learn.  Most people can't even handle Spanish.

 

Additionally, you're not going to find a lot of people who will be serious and help.  I've had probably 20 Chinese people add me to help them with English.  When it's time to practice English, they just want to chit chat in Chinese for an hour.  It's a waste of my time and theirs.

 

I'm not the only one this happens to, so I wouldn't be surprised if people didn't take you seriously.  You're also not a paying member, so I would also question if you actually want to work on English or if you just want to chit chat because you're bored.

December 2, 2015
9

@Alan, I found it as entertaining as the person to it refers to. I hope it won't be taken down.

December 4, 2015
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