Why Chinese people laugh at americans when they try to pronounce chinese, but we don't laugh at them?

Question

when chinese people speak to me in english, i welcome them and even if they have an accent i don't criticize them but when i try to pronounce they make fun and don't try to help me.. IN fact, they don't even want to tell me their chinese names. Why ????? they would not feel good if I said to them, "hahahahahah your accent sucks."

Answer 1

First of all, there's an assumption in your question that Americans do not laugh at Chinese trying to speak English. It is not difficult to come across with questions at Yahoo Answers which make jokes about Chinese speaking English.

As a Chinese, I do not laugh at foreigners speaking improper Chinese. On the contrary, I will appreciate their determination to tackle such a difficult language.

While I do not try to make an excuse for those who laughed at you, you may wish to understand that Chinese is a tonal language. Therefore, whenever you hit the wrong tone, it's not just a matter of accent in the ears of native speaker but a wholly different meaning. And this meaning may seem funny and amusing, hence their laughters.

Nevertheless, laughing at people is not good. And I think you need to tell them that if a foreigner learns Chinese, it means he is respects and appreciates the Chinese language and culture and he would deserve encouragement and guidance. The last thing he deserves is laughing.

Answer 2

I'm chinese. Even though you don't make fun of chinese people's accent, some people do. For me, when people pronounce something wrong, I laugh, but its not like I'm making fun of them. For me, I'm more of an asian american. I'm not all that great at chinese, but I can speak english with no accent. I try to help people to pronounce certain words and sometimes I pronounce them wrong too. I don't blame them for having a hard time pronouncing the chinese language. it's a hard language to learn, and I'm still having trouble too!

Answer 3

You're joking, right? Even if you don't laugh at them, many people do so maybe they think its just the proper thing to do.

Actually, I've heard that mispronouncing a Chinese word is much more likely to turn it into a totally different word while mispronouncing an English word usually just sounds strange. They may not mean any harm but the sentence you've actually said may sound really strange. Also, maybe you're hanging with the wrong Chinese people. Probably lots of them are very polite and helpful.

Answer 4

The Chinese culture is more open in their displays of emotion and feeling than is our American culture, believe it or not. It is not uncommon, for example, for friends in China to hold hands in public, without any sexual connotations AT ALL. Laughter at our (clumsy) attempts to speak Chinese may simply be part of that. They are a very expressive people.

Another thing: the oriental languages are often phonetic. Change even one sound in a word, and you change the word entirely. THAT can be REALLY funny, depending on how badly you butcher a word or phrase. You may think you are asking your waiter for a "Diet Pepsi", for example, and are actually asking him to remove your underwear and shove it down your throat....

If an immigrant came to YOUR place of business, and made such a mistake, wouldn't YOU laugh?

I think you would. And then, you would politely hand them a Diet Pepsi, right? (I hope so...)

Answer 5

Maybe you yourself are just nice enough not to criticize them. But I know many people who will criticize a Chinese person trying to speak English, mainly behind that person's back.

Answer 6

it's not a exactly a name but a surname. eg. Vera Wang? i think she's a pretty cool designer (: and nope, i m not laughing. what's there to laugh about?

Answer 7

Another joke question right? American's laugh at the chinese accent all the time, we even made movies about it.(charlie chan, anyone.)
the reason they don't want to tell us their real names is because they don't want to spend 10 min. trying to help you pronounce it.
you know that nice Indian fellow at the store, his name is not "paul" its just easier that way. i personally would love to call non-americans by their real names, i think its stupid we call china,"china" but it is pronounced different in their language shouldn't everyone pronounce it the same way. but we don't.
and they would rather give us a european name to call them by. oh well.

Answer 8

i guess some of them are mean. i'm chinese but i don't make fun of people when they tried to speak chinese

Answer 9

We make fun of them, they make fun of us. That's what happens. Just like we spy on them, they spy on us. We aren't exactly enemies but we aren't exactly friends either.

Answer 10

I'm a chinese myself, and I don't laugh at others trying to speak my language. in fact, I will try to help in their pronunciation. and my chinese name is Liu YiDe. =)