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How to respond when you are praised by others?

One of the most outstanding examples is the change of the title meaning. In the past of China, the titles of “小姐,太太(xiáo jiě , tài tɑi)” represented dignity, while they became derogatory terms after the establishment of the new China. Talking about the response for compliments, it also changed a lot. For example, in the old days of China if a man tells a young lady, “你长得很漂亮”(nǐ zhǎnɡ dé hěn piào liɑnɡ), it will be thought that he has ulterior motives to this lady. After the reform and opening, Chinese people may be influenced by western culture, to praise the beauty of young ladies becomes a courtesy. And the one who is praised will feel very happy and say “谢谢” (xiè xiè)in response.

The author used to target on Chinese university students and set 3 kinds of situations of praising, aiming to have a research on Chinese university students’ responses. At last, the result of this research indicates that the rate of responses of accepting compliments is obviously much higher than that of denying. The fact suggests that nowadays Chinese young generation turns to accept compliments instead of being humble, which is like European and American people do. This trend is more obvious when the one agrees with the comments from the opposite to him. However, if he doesn’t agree with the comments, the rate of denial responses will be higher than that of accepting. Maybe it is suggested that Chinese young people is loyal to their own judgment and inner heart and it is difficult for them to do anything against their values.
Most of Chinese course teaching materials published by Japan are edited for university students of learning Chinese as their second foreign language. Therefore, although a large amount of Chinese teaching materials will be published one after the other every year in Japan, most of those materials belong to the primary level and their contents are relatively deficient. 
Moreover, despite that many Japanese university students take Chinese as an elective course and the number is just next to students who take English, most of these students have to leave the Chinese class only with a primary level, for the limited teaching courses and class hours. It is because of this current situation of Chinese teaching in Japan that many students’ Chinese level is limited. Hence it is not that natural for a Japanese university student uses “哪里,哪里”(nǎ lǐ , nǎ lǐ) or “过奖”(ɡuò jiǎnɡ) in response, when he is praised for how to speak Chinese well by others.
To sum up, as the development of the society, languages will keep developing and changing successively in inter-culture communication. As language teachers, we can never ignore the change and development of languages, but to bring the most idiomatic expression patterns into our teaching contents with the times.

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