你会说中文吗？

[Umbagar]

thanks for the quick lesson! It's nice to know other people learn the same things as I do. As far as my Chinese is concerned I studied it for 4 years, but now I've fallen into a lull since I moved, but it was cool to drag it out of the back of my brain for conversation.

That reminds me of my foreign language classes in secondary school, I've basically forgotten more than half of it xD Lack of practice, I haven't used it for about 3 years? (Back then I was lazy and took Japanese, since I thought it'd be easiest to learn by guessing the meaning from kanji.)

Erm. Would you like me to switch back to Chinese?

no, I gtg soon. I went to Japan during the period I was studying Chinese, but I didn't understand very much. I do remember that I recognized 蛋 on a menu though.

[Panzerjaeger]

The Moonspeak it burns my eyes!

[Political Pilgrims]

我们不是陌生人的爱。你知道规则，所以我也是一个完整的承诺是我想到的。你不会得到任何其他人的。

[Anogen Dys]

We speak english in Internet. If you don't like it you can git out.

Not neccesarily.

[Nazi Flower Power]

I do know some Chinese, but I am much too lazy to type in it. Sorry.

[L3 Communications]

I'm sure that's what the people in China think about Chinese.

Probably, but majority of the world speaks english, not chinese.

Not at all true. It's just that English is the business language of the world, although this might soon be changing it China becomes a economic rival to the USA.

[St George of England]

scary language is scary.

that said, I'd rather have learnt chinese than french or german at school.

[Carbarosia]

Probably, but majority of the world speaks english, not chinese.

Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world, we've got more than double the number of english speakers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

My mistake. We beat them by only about a hundred million or so.

However, it's mostly spoken round China and it's area's and there are 1 billion people in China so, it isn't that fair.

[Exemplis]

Ahck. cbf getting software to write chinese.

Wo shi da lu de lai de. ni men zhi dao zai da lu neng bu neng shan NS?

[Risottia]

I'm Singaporean and we're forced to learn this silly language.

If english is good enough for me its good enough for everyone!

You meant "it's".
Evidently, English isn't good enough for you. Or you aren't good enough for English.

[Nazi Flower Power]

Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world, we've got more than double the number of english speakers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

My mistake. We beat them by only about a hundred million or so.

However, it's mostly spoken round China and it's area's and there are 1 billion people in China so, it isn't that fair.

And they count people whose dialects are so different we may as well count everyone that knows German as English speakers.

[St George of England]

However, it's mostly spoken round China and it's area's and there are 1 billion people in China so, it isn't that fair.

And they count people whose dialects are so different we may as well count everyone that knows German as English speakers.

of course, it's nothing to do with the millions of ethnic chinese in the us...

[Barringtonia]

Ahck. cbf getting software to write chinese.

Wo shi da lu de lai de. ni men zhi dao zai da lu neng bu neng shan NS?

Ni cong shenme sheng (省) lai de - problem with pinyin, especially if you're not adding tones is that it becomes hard to discern what, for example, 'shan' means, also I would somewhat re-write your sentence as..

Wo shi Dalu de lai de. Nimen zhidao zai Dalu neng bu neng shan NS?

That would indicate Dalu (Mainland) is a proper noun rather than, say, big road,

Still, what do you mean with 'shan'?

[Vecherd]

你会说中文吗？: 不，我不这样做，我只用谷歌, No, I do not, I just used google Transelate.

[Anemos Major]

ま、日本語を好む私には分からん気持ちだな。

[Grandais]

卵が好きです。

[Barringtonia]

ま、日本語を好む私には分からん気持ちだな。

I once traveled through Southern China with a Japanese friend where his ability to write in Chinese script complemented my ability to speak the language, where I had a vocabulary issue he could write the word, it was a great trip.

[GeneralHaNor]

I'm Singaporean and we're forced to learn this silly language.

If english is good enough for me its good enough for everyone!

I'm sure that's what the people in China think about Chinese.

Actually in the North, they would say that about Catonesse
and in the south they would say that about Mandarin

There is no "Chinese" Language

[Strategion]

Ahck. cbf getting software to write chinese.

Wo shi da lu de lai de. ni men zhi dao zai da lu neng bu neng shan NS?

Ni cong shenme sheng (省) lai de - problem with pinyin, especially if you're not adding tones is that it becomes hard to discern what, for example, 'shan' means, also I would somewhat re-write your sentence as..

Wo shi Dalu de lai de. Nimen zhidao zai Dalu neng bu neng shan NS?

That would indicate Dalu (Mainland) is a proper noun rather than, say, big road,

Still, what do you mean with 'shan'?

They mean 上 NS right? As in, access NS?
Not sure about that. I mean, NS is kind of political, but maybe the website is too small for them to bother blocking it? xD

Actually in the North, they would say that about Catonesse
and in the south they would say that about Mandarin

There is no "Chinese" Language

By Chinese language everyone means putonghua.

[Barringtonia]

I'm sure that's what the people in China think about Chinese.

Actually in the North, they would say that about Catonesse
and in the south they would say that about Mandarin

There is no "Chinese" Language

Well, 中文 does mean Chinese technically, given 中 signifies Middle in Middle Kingdom, it's generally understood to mean Mandarin, which is also putonghua (普通话), the common language. The Chinese government promotes Mandarin as the commonly spoken language of China as well and most Chinese understand it since it's taught heavily at school.

That's not to say there isn't some resistance to this, just the other month there was a demonstration in Guangzhou or Shenzhen, I forget which, over some Cantonese TV station, or something - very hazy on details, I might look it up - being considered for dropping.

They mean 上 NS right? As in, access NS?
Not sure about that. I mean, NS is kind of political, but maybe the website is too small for them to bother blocking it? xD

I guess 上 makes the best sense, I was thrown by 'zai' to mean 'where' so 'you know where mainland(ers) can xxxx NS?' where NS is asking the board rather than being the object itself, hence pinyin can be hard to decipher.

A funny thing people do in China, which makes sense if you're Chinese, is that where a word is hard to decipher in context even when speaking, they'll write the character in the air and I always thought it a bit presumptuous to think that not only could I read Chinese but actually well enough to read air signs given my halting spoken Chinese.

I've never had an issue accessing NS in China, I can imagine they might have software that blocks a thread talking about something specific such as Tiananmen, anyway one generally uses a proxy to access the Internet anyway if one needs to.

[Dazchan]

I'm Singaporean and we're forced to learn this silly language.

If english is good enough for me its good enough for everyone!

I believe that should be, "If English is good enough for me, then it's good enough for everyone!"

[Strategion]

I guess 上 makes the best sense, I was thrown by 'zai' to mean 'where' so 'you know where mainland(ers) can xxxx NS?' where NS is asking the board rather than being the object itself, hence pinyin can be hard to decipher.

I took 在 to mean 'in', and I took 'shan' as 'shang'. So I read it as '我是大陆的来的. 你们知道在大陆能不能上NS?'

A funny thing people do in China, which makes sense if you're Chinese, is that where a word is hard to decipher in context even when speaking, they'll write the character in the air and I always thought it a bit presumptuous to think that not only could I read Chinese but actually well enough to read air signs given my halting spoken Chinese.

I've never had an issue accessing NS in China, I can imagine they might have software that blocks a thread talking about something specific such as Tiananmen, anyway one generally uses a proxy to access the Internet anyway if one needs to.

It's nice being outside the great firewall, haha. Not that Singapore doesn't ban websites either, but I'm pretty sure they just ban porn sites.

[Barringtonia]

It's nice being outside the great firewall, haha. Not that Singapore doesn't ban websites either, but I'm pretty sure they just ban porn sites.

The weird thing about censorship is that you don't notice what's not there as such, it's only when you're out that you can suddenly access everything you're missing. About 8 years ago a guy ran into the Reuters office in Beijing with what looked like explosives strapped around him screaming that if they didn't tell the world about the corruption in China he would blow the place up and the reporters were like 'dude, we always report on corruption in China, you just don't read it' - partly because it's an English-language news source though.

Sometimes if you venture into the delicate area of Tian'anmen people will say 'oh you know about that', somewhat not realising how big it was overseas.

[Cirona]

大家好! 我會講普通話, 廣東話及福建話. 我其實是澳洲華僑, 福建話(廈門方言)是我的母語.

大家好! 我識講普通話, 廣東話同咪福建話. 我其實係澳洲華僑, 福建話(廈門方言)係我嘅母語.

大家好! 我會曉講唐人話, 廣東話甲福建話. 我其實是澳洲華僑, 福建話(下門方言)是我的母語.

[Cirona]

By Chinese language everyone means putonghua.

That's exactly what I hate. Mandarin doesn't deserve to be the standard Chinese. Oh well.