听不懂 (tingbudong)

I'm sure people in China right now are already laughing. When you move to China you will hear this phrase a lot 听不懂 (tingbudong) means "to not understand (through listening)." Firstly, yes these three characters - though surprisingly- are in fact that specific. Sometimes Chinese is extremely articulate and sometimes you can't explain English in Chinese at all. Yes, in Chinese there are different ways to say that you don't understand something that is written (看不懂- kanbudong) and that you don't understand something that is spoken 听不懂 (tingbudong). You also use these two different phrases to mean you don't understand something you see or read (看不懂- kanbudong) and you don't understand something you hear or was said 听不懂 (tingbudong). There is another way to say "I don't understand" in general like we do in English (不明白- bumingbai).

听不懂 (tingbudong) is a phrase I hear a lot in China and often unfairly so. Chinese people are quick to assume foreigners don't speak their language, which I guess is fair considering during my time in China I have met foreigners who have lived here for years and don't understand much of any Chinese. Yet, I feel that one of the reasons why people don't understand much Chinese is this horrible attitude!

Chinese is a very difficult language in some ways but at the same time some Chinese phrases are so much simpler than English that not only I but also my friends have taken to using them instead of the equivalent English phrase.

The truth is my Chinese is not very good and I constantly find myself not understand one or two words in a sentence or maybe understanding the words but not understanding what they mean in the sentence being used. Or sometimes I know exactly what the person means but I just can't respond. These are all very common problems to have when in a foreign country and speaking a foreign language but people are not always understanding of it. Of course people in every country have negative reactions to interactions with foreigners who don't understand their language, my own country-mates included.  But here's my problem with China. In China many people naturally assume foreigners will not be able to speak their language and not even give me a chance! Many interactions begin with the person saying a sentence and without even taking a breath ending it in 听不懂 (tingbudong) often followed by a 外国人 (waiguoren or foreigner). It's so common I even made a joke about it. When Chinese people have this attitude about foreigners I turn to my friends and say 听不懂 听不懂 外国人外国人 to them and we all precede to laugh, because sometimes it seams as though those are the only words Chinese people know!

There are other common Chinese reactions to foreigners, some of them get really quiet, refuse to talk, and then go search for someone else who speaks English. A friend recently told me that he waited for a half hour in a restaurant with friends before someone got up the courage to come in and say in English, "What would you like?" The men found it so ridiculous that they responded by looking at one another in a confused fashion and speaking in Chinese they said, "What is she talking about?"It's probably important to note that the man who told me this story is German.

Where I live is so close to Russia that people often assume that all foreigners are Russian. The other day I wanted to buy a shirt at a clothing stand on the street, when I walked up a man said "привет" instead of "hello" and when I asked him "多少钱？" or "How much?" he responded with Russian numbers. Now I can understand привет but I have never learned Russian numbers so of course I responded with "什么？" or "what?" he then said the numbers in Chinese and after I told him I spoke Chinese I told him I was American at wich he responded "There are so many Russians in our city and not many Americans so I speak Russian but I don't speak English." Which makes me wonder why so many people shout "Hello" at me across the street but not "привет!" I think that younger people assume all foreigners are American, or maybe they just hope.

Now it's not just that Chinese people assume that no foreigners could ever know Chinese, many Chinese people have the "al or nothing" notion. The options are that you can either be fluent in Chinese or speak no Chinese. When I start speaking Chinese with people they often "take-off." They use complicated words and grammar while speaking really long sentences in a row without any breaks! It's like admitting that you know any Chinese is saying "talk normally to me!" Then the person becomes frustrated again when they learn that "you really don't speak Chinese."

My favorite Chinese people are the reasonable ones, they stop their friends and say "you just have to speak slowly." I always respond to this with a smile and know I'll have a good experience with the person. Often I'll get into situations where a lot of Chinese people are trying to talk to me and one becomes the "translator." by translator I don't mean that they translate into English I mean they translate into simple Chinese. Usually these people are the ones with the best "普通话" or Mandarin, the ones who don't have a heavy accent. This type of Chinese person is rare but they're really wonderful. They will often defend me amongst other Chinese people and will change the word their using if I don't know it or even use hand gestures to get their point across. I find it funny, I feel like in America the first thing we do when we know someone is a foreigner is dumb down our language and use hand motions to express our point often to the point where we offend the foreigner because their English is much too good to need that. But here I've only known two or three people to use hand gestures to get their point across and less than 10 who have been the voice of reason saying, "just speak slowly!" And I have only had one person try to explain words to me when I say I don't understand them instead of just giving up or looking it up on their cellphone. The man was even able to explain the word "dialect" to me (方言 fangyan) which I thought was really impressive. But honestly it took me a long time to catch on to what he was doing because people never do it here!