http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIV8jHnfwP8

Now on the topic:
It’s a cute name, but I think from a learning perspective it’s not a good idea. I have/had a couple of language partners with whom I will proceed the way Ingo suggested: one hour Chinese, one hour German. I even do this with my best Chinese friend whenever we agree on having a proper lesson. And I think it’s much better to be immersed in just one language at a time. I find myself picking up new phrases from other people’s talk all the time and I would really miss these opportunities to learn vocabulary in its context.

Besides, my best discussions with my Chinese friends are always in Chinese because they are more comfortable speaking their language, I can completely understand their ideas and express mine with a little help. I haven’t met any English pirates until now, in fact, for me it’s the other way round: I accompanied some friends to an English corner and met another girl there. After the lesson, when she heard me talking Chinese, she’d happily switch to Chinese instead of using the “real foreinger live” opportunity.

Ryan,
Thanks for the tips about Star Wars. Nice to know that English is just going to be called “Basic” in the future (seems more appropriate since so many people outside England speak it now)

Deedles,
Thanks for the link. I would have liked a LITTLE more detail and explanation as to what the change really is. If more grey matter means my brain is more tired when speaking Chinese because I’ve got to keep track of those darn tones, then yes, I agree. My brain has changed.

Ingo,
Yep. That’s a good one too.

Erick Garia,
You’re living the dream man. If anyone wants to contact him and find out where he is, that’s the place to go to learn Chinese (although…it seems Sichuan might be a listening comprehension nightmare).

Rachel,
I hope that’s not mean. I call them “Yingwen Bandits” in my book. Yikes! Better wake up the legal department.

Rob,
You’re right about native languages being reversed. I called myself Chewbacca because I’m just imagining my mom or someone listening in on this, i.e. I’m the one saying gibberish. And it’s very kind of you to be concerned about my friend’s English, but I should say that was not a very good representative sample of his English ability. I just did a “quick ‘n’ dirty” recording on the spur of the moment because I just wanted to show an example of the two languages interacting. I’ve got a few other friends who I use the Chewbacca method with as well but I couldn’t get recordings of them in time for this post (you know what a hurry I’m always in to post new things)

齐育林,
Obviously, just speaking and listening Chinese all the time is better. I’m just looking for a solution to when that’s not possible (or preferable) with your Chinese friends/associates. There’s no ignoring the fact that when most Chinese people see a foreigner they think: “now THERE’S a chance to practice English.” That’s why kids get shoved at us and told to “Speak English! Go!”

ChineseQuest,
Hahaha! Yes! Brad Pit (amazingly) uses the Chewbacca method in that movie.

trevelyan (David),
Your right. If communication is the goal, the language used should be the best shared one. But if language practice is the goal, you can artificially “put fetters on” for the sake of improvement. But that’ll be hard work (or at least boring) for the one who’s a higher level in that language (i.e. the native speaker) so some compensation is in order (see here for more about compensation).

Cecilie,
Hahaha! Yes! Censor every**ing! (YouTube is not a “bad” word as far as I know.) Too bad we can’t see that film. In reference to the Poodle Phenomenon, I’m constantly amazed at HOW LONG I can speak with someone in Chinese and then still, at the end of the conversation, it will dawn on them and they’ll exclaim with genuine surprise and delight, “You speak Chinese!” not “you’re Chinese is really good” or anything like that.

William Fitzgerald,
I guess I’m up to 4 years this month. How shijian flies!

Greg,
I love that you’d like a name for that. Um…ok, since you put me on the spot, how about the “I swim as long as I can and when I get tired I climb into the boat with everyone else” method? I’m sure someone else can come up with a better name.

Fedi,
Who said Chewbacca and Han can’t correct each other? When I do this with my friends, I’m constantly correcting their English and they’re correcting my Chinese. It’s never 100% avoiding speaking your own native language (at least when I’ve done it it hasn’t been). I’m big on accuracy too and I suppose it’s up to each speaker how much accuracy correction they want to incorporate in this (and really every) language practice activity.

***********
Whew! If you read all those comments and you were really just looking for a reply to you, sorry about that, but you deserve a T-shirt or gold star or something.

In terms of my conversations, I find that I tend to start speaking Mandarin with my Chinese friends as long as I can … and when I run out of vocab, we switch naturally into English and carry on from there.

What would you call that??

Well about the language thing; if you can get onto 面書

please watch this film which shows my trouble learning Cantonese over the last … at least 16 years. The film is in two parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFaCDyPPk7s

It really doesn’t take a lot of time focusing on a language to make significant improvements. I’d suggest watching half an hour of television a day, or sticking on a podcast while working out, or doing an HSK test once a day. That is usually enough to get constant exposure to new language if you don’t get it at work/school/wherever.

Cheers,

–david