Interviews with tourists in Mong Kok on the English standard of Hong Kong people


We, members of Magickingdom, really strolled on and took a closer look at the Magickindom --- Mong Kok on 14th October. We were strolling, hearing and seeing.

We wanted to find out how tourists of different nationalities view the communication in Hong Kong,a place with multilingualism.

Here we divide the interviewees into 2 groups. They are English native speakers and Non-English native speakers. We asked 5 questions in total.

Group 1: English native speakers	Group 2: Non-English native speakers
1. Where do you come from?
The two interviewees both come from London, Britain.	Two come from India and the others are from France and Turkey.
2. Have you encountered any difficulties when communicating with people in Hong Kong?
They replied "no" for this question. One of them praised Hong Kong people for their good spoken English. The woman said Hong Kongers would try their best to use English to help the tourists.	Two said they have problems in communication as Hong Kong people did not understand them even they speak in English. The other two said there is no problems at all.
3. How would you rate the English proficiency of Hong Kong people? 1 stands for the poorest and 10 stands for the best.
Interviewees in this group rated generally high. One gave 9 and the other gave 7 out of 10 points. They were very satisfied with Hong Kongers' English-speaking ability.	Three interviewees gave quite low points like 1.5, 3 and 5. Only 1 gave 7 like the interviewees in group 1.
4. What should be improved to upgrade English standard of Hong Kong people?
One told us that practice made perfect. The pronunciation could be improved but actually was fine and understandable. While the other said Hong Kongers' attitude should be improved rather than their English. She complained that Some Hong Kong people were rude and just walked straight to her.	They pointed out the basic communication skills should be improved in terms of accent and grammar.
5. Can you give one example of miscommunication in Hong Kong?
Both of the interviewees complained the taxi drivers often misunderstood them and took them all way round.	They have similar experience as the English native speakers. They thought it was difficult to communicate with taxi drivers as they knew little English. Also, two tourists figured out the English standard of people in different districts varied. They had poor experiences in the non-tourist districts as the salesperson there did not understand them at all.