A Foreigner Talks to Staff in Chinese
Convenience stores have a special offer on Latte: if you buy one, you get another one for free. I think it’s BOGOF in English. Last night, I went to one and saw a foreigner (A) talked to a staff member (B). “This sale is only for a big cup of Latte, ” B said. “那中杯的有折扣嗎?” A asked. “Yes, you can have 30% off your second medium cup of Latte,” B answered. “那其他種類的哩?” A continued. “These are the only two offers on coffee we have right now,” B replied. The conversation went on for a few minutes. The foreigner kept speaking Chinese and the staff insisted on talking in English* even though the foreigner had a good hang of Chinese and should be able to understand anything the staff said.
*Is ‘talk in English’ idiomatic?
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Corrections · 10
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A Foreigner Talks to Staff [Shop Assistant] in Chinese
Convenience stores have a special offer on Latte: if you buy one, you get another one for free. I think it’s BOGOF in English. Last night, I went to one and saw a foreigner (A) talked talking to a staff member (B). “This sale is only for a big cup of Latte, ” B said. “那中杯的有折扣嗎?” A asked. “Yes, you can have 30% off your second medium cup of Latte,” B answered. “那其他種類的哩?” A continued. “These are the only two offers on coffee we have right now,” B replied. The conversation went on for a few minutes. The foreigner kept speaking Chinese and the staff insisted on talking [replying] in English* even though the foreigner had a good hang fairly good command of Chinese and should be able to understand anything the staff said.
*Is ‘talk in English’ idiomatic?
I wouldn't consider it idiomatic.
I agree with Aurelio. "Good hang of ..." doesn't sound right here. "Good command" too may not be what you wanted to express. So maybe you can say "fairly good command of ..." I means maybe better than passable or good enough to get by.
Funny you should say this. My wife and I visited Taiwan a few years ago when I had only just been learning Mandarin online for about 1 year. My Chinese is still pretty bad now so it was really pathetic back then. Our tour guide spoke fluent English and Japanese. But when I was on my own, I did try to put into practice what I had learnt like asking for directions and buying stuff. The locals always tried to patiently reply back in as simple Mandarin as possible for me to understand. But back home in Australia is different, the younger generation almost always reply in English. The older generation would usually reply to me in Chinese even if they could speak English.
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In the U.S., at least, it's "BOGO," pronounced to rhyme with "no go."
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Thank you. :) Actually I laughed at that time.
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Haha, the same thing has happened to me on a flight back from Guangzhou to Shanghai ... the conversation went on for quite a while, as if for some comedy program on TV :-). English is not my native language so I'll refrain from correcting + your text already looks very good to me. I would maybe suggest "the foreigner had a good command of Chinese" or "spoke good Chinese / fluent Chinese" rather than "had a good hang of Chinese" ... "getting the hang of it" is a fixed expression, "having a good hang of XYZ" sounds a little off to me.
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