Although some of the people here have given me
negative comments on my English, most of the readers and writers in this salon confess my English is good. I've never said my English is
unique, No.1, bravo, excellent or among the tops before. Here, I want to talk about the way I speak English.
It's funny though. The first time I went to visit a customer of mine in Singapore, I met a funny case. After I introduced myself and told my purpose of visiting the company in English, the receptionist, a 20-over-year-old girl, asked me: Are you American Chinese? Are you from Taiwan/Hong Kong? Are you Japanese? Wondering why she asked that many questions to me, I said I am from
mainland of China. And then I saw a big surprising face from her. It looked as if she could hardly believe in me.
Soon after that, I was doing my cold-calling when I suddenly saw a VCD store in a street not far from Chinatown, where I could see all sorts of songs and movies. I thought they might need a photocopier, fax or
printer or something to produce their
document. So I went
upstairs to pay a visit to the boss. According to the international rules of selling in Singapore, I needed to speak English no matter what race the customers were. I always did it like this: Hi, I'm Danny from Fuji Xerox. I'm here to see your person in charge of office equipment. Since Fuji Xerox is a well known world-wide company, I didn't need to explain about my company, which saved pretty much time for me. The boss was a mid-aged Chinese gentleman. He was polite to me and gave me enough time to explain my products. Having
finding out that he would not need my products because of his business situation, I then turned my interests into his VCDs. I asked him if there were any songs suitable for me, and then he surprised me again! He replied: But I'm afraid we don't have Japanese songs here. I was so astonished that I almost yelled to him: Why? I'm Chinese!
100 percent of my customers would tell I am not local immediately after I spoke my English out, while 70 percent of them would not take me as a person from
mainland of China. So I asked them how they told it. Most of them would say: the way you speak English.
Once I joined a party held by one of my American friends in Shenyang. There were people from America, Canada, England, Australia, and South Africa...etc. We sat down at a round table and started talking about things about China. They talked about the Chinese colleagues of
theirs and started commentating their English capabilities. They quite enjoyed talking about that until I realized no one mentioned about me. With great curiosity, I interrupted them and asked: What do you guys think about my English? Dave, the funny American young boy, answered: well, sorry we didn't count you in, cause we think you are no difference from us.
That's the highest comment I have ever heard in my entire life. I guess it's because I speak English at a very fast speed. And I don't need to transfer their English into Chinese on my mind, thanks to the three years selling experience in Singapore. That's why I have little problems
dealing with any English speaker. Because I take little/almost no think-before-answer time to
response to them, not like most of our Chinese people do when facing English-
speaking foreigners.
I'm not praising myself here. I want to let you know that the way you speak English matters. When you're
speaking English, try not take it as your foreign language, and try to add your emotions onto your English. Make it more naturally and fluently. And you'll find it interesting, cause the faster you speak English, the more you understand other's English. Try it! You will be surprised!
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