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I am from Brazil and there's this chinese guy who is super lazy. This guy lived almost all of his life in China and he almost dont know how to write or talk in portuguese. I always help this guy but he doesn't want to study or do anything to learn(I tried to speak with him by 3 languages but he is just lazy)! I am in USP (Saint Paul University) and I almost giving up on this guy. Is it right to do it? What would you do?
| Forget him | 16 | |
| Continue to help him | 4 |
1. Not knowing a new language doesn't mean someone is lazy. That's the only example you give, and it has nothing to do with laziness.
2. Other people are ultimately not your responsibility. It's nice of you to try and help, but his learning is not your responsibility.
Give him some easy material to read. Tell him to repeat the news out loud as he is watching it on TV. Then, don't help him anymore.
I'm confused: unless you're both at a university in a Portugese speaking country surely there's a common language you should both be communicating in? eg if in the usa, English?
How are helping him? If you're trying to communicate in different languages and neither of you speaks the other person's language, I don't get it.
My guess is that they probably both speak English. It's the international language, but it's only used up to a point.
Maybe, but I still don't understand why OP is expecting a Chinese person to learn Portugese just because it's OP's language?
I do know that in Australia there's been quite a bit of discussion recently about overseas students from some Asian countries, mainly China, having very little or no English and this creating problems for local students in educational institutions which require students to work on assignments in groups.
SMH. USP when translated to Portugese, the national language of Brazil, would be Universidade de São Paulo. São Paulo, of course, is a major Brazilian city. I don't see the problem. English won't help anyone in this case.
On my travels I have been genuinely surprised to see just how widely English is spoken as a 2nd or 3rd language. Not only that, but British and American film, TV, music etc. is in most of these countries too. It's not a huge stretch of the imagination to suppose that OP and their friend both have English in common.
From extensive international business travel, I have learned two things:
1. Most people in most countries know phrase book English. They can ask for/give directions, and order off the menu in restaurants.
2. Everyone thinks of English as an international technical language. Technical professionals read and write material for computer systems, publications in the hard sciences, and mathematics in English.
This would mean that it is reasonable to use English in São Paulo for any STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) class. Unfortunately, the OP does not give any details.
I'm Australian and not too well informed on South American geography. I assumed OP was from Brazil and studying in the USA.
Leave. He's in a situation where he either has to sink or swim. He'll survive.
You aren't helping him if you are doing things for him, instead give him advice on how to learn things himself.
He has one of the fastest ways of learning a language that’s through a friend who can speak it,if he really wanted to learn he could easily do it through you,I have to agree he might have little to no interest in learning the language or has other issues like being shy etc if you’re really opening up to him for a while and he still shows a lack of interest I think you’ll do both of yourselves a favor by not offering him any further help;this can’t go on forever anyway
What do you mean by helping him? If it's doing things for him, that's not helping.
There's been some public discussion recently in Australia about the issue of overseas students who can barely speak or understand English holding back other students, because some universities and colleges make students work in teams.
If you're not being compelled to help him and you're sick of it, stop doing it, but tell him why.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Give him as much as reasonable but after that don't waste time on energy, some people are hopeless and need to really fail to motivate them to try.
You can only do so much. At some point a person has to WANT to help himself/herself.