"It's too difficult for me to catch the subtle change of tones," said the French woman who started to learn Chinese two months ago.

For example, the pinyin word fanyi, can mean "interpret" or "antonym," depending on the tone.

Delobel is attending a Chinese language training class, learning the Chinese drills of "I have two cinema tickets. How about going to the cinema tonight if you are free?"

Despite the difficulties, many foreigners are learning Chinese in Shanghai; some because their jobs demand it and some for fun, according to sources with Shanghai Foreign Service Co Ltd (SFSC).

In the Chinese language training center of SFSC, every year hundreds of people from Japan, the United States, France and Britain attend the Chinese class.

"Since the late 1990s, the number of foreign people here has been increasing," said Yi Yuan, business chief of Foreign Education Department of SFSC.

Most students are business people and their spouses. It's common to see general managers, CEOs and chief representatives learning Chinese from a young Chinese teacher. About half of the students are Japanese.

"Most Japanese are sent by their company and attend a long period of all-day training," Yi said.

"In Tokyo, my business is Japan-China trade," said Yoshitaka Tomoto, account executive with Japan based Asahi Glass Co Ltd, "If I understand Chinese, the business will go smoother when negotiating with Chinese business people."

So the company sent him to China for 10 months of language training. After seven months of learning, he can communicate with Chinese people without much problem.

"I used to take paper and pen wherever I went and use sign language to make people understand me," he said. "But now I am proud that I can tell taxi drivers or shop assistants what I want directly."

For many others, learning Chinese is not for business but a life skill that helps conquer the feeling of strangeness in an unfamiliar city.

Coming to China with her husband, Delobel said she would remain for at least three years.

"Not many Chinese here can speak English," she said. "If I can speak Chinese, everything will go easy here such as travel and shopping."

Her words was echoed by Tina Lomholdt Larsen from Denmark. "Chinese people seem unwilling to talk with Western people in English," she said. "If you speak English, they will close you off."

Japanese people have an advantage in learning Chinese, since the two languages share many of the same characters.

But to Western people it is more difficult.

Larsen said she only recognizes the Chinese character ren(person), which has only two strokes. And Delobel said she can read and write 10 characters, the words one to ten in Chinese.

Among all students learning Chinese, Japanese study the hardest, most teachers agreed.

"Because most of them are sent by their employers," Yi said. "If they don't pass the HSK test (Test of Chinese Language), how do they face their bosses?"

Japanese students, even the big bosses, will follow the teacher and do everything the teacher asks, such as to recite drills and dialogues.

But Western people oppose recitation because they don't understand it is a common education method in China.

A common saying is that the best student is the one who can raise questions. Western people are more inclined to raise more questions than Asians, Yi said.

Once Yi let her students make a sentence with the word 'not old'. Most people said I am not old while Larry Ng from the United States said 'My heart is not old'. "He is so smart to learn the language," Yi said.

Ng said he can use Chinese to give speeches at his company, which makes him proud.

Another Japanese student, a man surnamed Hayashi from Marubeni (China) Co Ltd, now can act as master-of-ceremonies at the wedding ceremonies of his Chinese employees and not make any mistakes.

One persistent headache for these students of Mandarin is that many people here speak Shanghai dialect, Larsen said.

"When I see local employees speak in Shanghai dialect together, I don't feel good because I can't understand them at all," Tomoto said.

Some think the Shanghainese should join them in their Mandarin classes.

(Shanghai Star 05/29/2001)