Are Chinese surprised that foreigners are learning Chinese?

They are very pleasantly surprised!

In general, the Chinese know more about “us” than we know about “them”. Life in the USA is seen widely in TV shows and movies, while life in China remains a bit of a mystery. Therefore, they are usually surprised and happy to find that I’ve spent so much time learning their language.

Here are a few reasons that they seem to be pleasantly surprised by foreigners speaking Mandarin Chinese in China:

• “We” look so different! My Korean and Japanese classmates have mentioned that the Chinese people they meet almost expect them to speak Chinese. Maybe it’s because they are all neighbors with China and maybe it’s because they are less “exotic” in appearance than we are. Their written languages are more related than “ours”. Even though Japanese and Korean languages are much different from Chinese, there seems to be extra surprise when us “外国人 (wàiguórén)” speak Chinese. For those of you who don’t know, “外国人 (wàiguórén)” is a term that refers to non-Asian foreigners in China.
• They know that Chinese is a difficult language for native English speakers. Chinese has hundreds of spoken dialects. Even Mandarin has different accents and slang vocabulary from region to region. Chinese is a complicated language.
• Everyone in China and sprinting to learn English! Why would we run the other way? With the market for English-learning in China at its peak, it seems strange to them that we are devoting time and money to something to a language that “everyone” in China already speaks. I think there is a bit of a lack of knowledge in how Mandarin language skills can benefit an English speaker.
• The vast majority of foreigners traveling, living or working in China have little-to-no Mandarin Chinese ability. Granted, some of us are here studying Chinese, and a few others are using the phrasebook in their travel guide, but there are plenty of foreign executives in China that can barely say “hello” in Chinese. Most backpackers rely on hostel staff to help out when needed and there is a lot of pointing at food stalls among foreigners.

Overall, practicing Mandarin Chinese in China is a very simple and dependable extracurricular. The locals never run out of interest and conversation!