2013 China Russia Joint Naval Training
- Thread starter A.Man
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kwaigonegin
Colonel
Does anyone know the level of English proficiency among PLAN officers? In international exercises how good are the Chinese sailors interacting with navies of other countries?
steve_rolfe
Junior Member
Well having recently returned from a trip to China.......all i can say is that i was quite surprised at how many Chinese people speak English.
Well not Chinese people from say 25 years of age onwards, but the youngsters up to age 25 i found could speak English very well, and some could speak it with an almost English accent.
When one considers how alien English to Mandarin is, you realise how studious today's school generation of Chinese children must be.
From what i gathered Chinese children are taught English from a very early age at school.
Yes, some adult Chinese could speak English, but not many..........i would imagine though that some senior personnel in the Chinese military could speak English.......but as time goes by and the younger generation of Chinese, English speaking people join the military then there are going to be more English speakers, right?
Well not Chinese people from say 25 years of age onwards, but the youngsters up to age 25 i found could speak English very well, and some could speak it with an almost English accent.
When one considers how alien English to Mandarin is, you realise how studious today's school generation of Chinese children must be.
From what i gathered Chinese children are taught English from a very early age at school.
Yes, some adult Chinese could speak English, but not many..........i would imagine though that some senior personnel in the Chinese military could speak English.......but as time goes by and the younger generation of Chinese, English speaking people join the military then there are going to be more English speakers, right?
Well... people might be surprised at the level of efficiency in English that the chinese could speak. I mean I communicate to all my vendors through emails and written english, and so far they have no problem understanding what I wanted. Also, the custom officers actually speak english to me when I enter China.
I remember seeing some westerners and Indians in a flea market in Shenzhen haggering on prices of some items in English and the salewoman (seemed to be in her fifties) could speak quite ok english too.
Also in my country near the place where I stay, I saw hordes of Chinese students staying there and learning English language.
If you switch on the CCTV English news channel, the news anchor english was even better than many of us here. Sooo... yeah, I believe it really was not that much of a surprise that mainland Chinese do speak english... might not be as proficient as those that use English as their first language, but they are actually not bad.
I remember seeing some westerners and Indians in a flea market in Shenzhen haggering on prices of some items in English and the salewoman (seemed to be in her fifties) could speak quite ok english too.
Also in my country near the place where I stay, I saw hordes of Chinese students staying there and learning English language.
If you switch on the CCTV English news channel, the news anchor english was even better than many of us here. Sooo... yeah, I believe it really was not that much of a surprise that mainland Chinese do speak english... might not be as proficient as those that use English as their first language, but they are actually not bad.
if you're in china and need help in English just look for young people. kids that are high school-university age are you best bet. if they can't speak to you well enough they should be able to read and write basic English. so just write it down on a pad
and girls are usually better than the boys when it comes to learning foreign languages.
steve, this might not be the right thread to be posting this. We have a member's club room area where you can talk about this. I'd like to stick with joint naval training here.
escobar
Brigadier
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