When I first came back to China in the late 1990s, my friends advised me to refrain from the practice, then habitual only among new returnees. I explained to them that Chinese people in America insert English words in otherwise Chinese conversations not to show off, but as a necessity, because it is more practical to retain the original English for proper nouns than to transliterate them into Chinese homonyms. By no means does it speak to one's English proficiency or even preference, I said.
But in the past decade and half, things have developed in interesting ways.
The ubiquity of English learning among the Chinese population, or rather, the urban young, has triggered an avalanche of unintended humor. Phrases like "people mountain, people sea" and "seven up, eight down", which are verbatim translations from Chinese, float like golden fish among certain crowds. The recent inclusion of "no zuo, no die" in the Urban Dictionary, a Web-based slang dictionary that contains 7 million entries, is seen in China as a confirmation of the practice.
Honestly, I do not think most of these Chinese-flavored terms are able to cross over from expatriate communities in Chinese metropolises into North America or Europe. And they would probably bring no more than a chuckle, if not a blank stare.
Whether you think this is tainting the purity of English or enlarging the sway of Chinese, I believe it is quite innocuous. The real adverse effect of a great number of people learning a little English is the illusion that you can turn to anyone for a job that only well-trained professionals can perform. Bad English is so widespread in China that some signage in big cities has started to draw Westerner tourists.
When I hear accusations that Chinese tend to be rude when talking to foreigners, I come to the defense by saying that much of the fault should be attributed to language ability, or lack thereof.
Most Chinese students have learned to read, but not to verbally communicate, in English. The tones of emphasis are much harder to master for those who speak the four-toned Mandarin.
If you don't know what I mean, all you need is to take a bus or subway in Beijing and listen to the announcements. "Get off the train" is not wrong on paper, but with a slightly strident tone you'll feel you're being kicked off.
I once attended an opera performance of The Peony Pavilion, a classic piece with great beauty. The projected English titles essentially turned many of the passages into bawdy humor. I learned that the hack job was delivered by some translating agency, probably staffed by people rolled off the college assembly line.
I told the show's producer that a certain Chinese professor spent his whole career fine-tuning every word of his English translation of this piece. This is not a job for which a four-year education is adequate preparation. Why not license that high-quality version?
China does not need a billion people who speak English poorly; it needs a much smaller population whose English skill is adequate for their jobs. Let each individual decide how much English he or she should master.
And the new testing mechanism is a right step in that direction.
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