A lot of the time, Chinese people will respond to a foreigner speaking Chinese with "wow your Chinese is so good!" What is a polite way to respond without sounding rude or full of yourself? Especially when you have studied Chinese for multiple years and you would like to just have a normal conversation.
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1standard phrase: ：不敢当! jukuu：You flatter me. 你过奖了。你太捧我啦。6. You flatter me. I wish I could deserve such compliments. 好说！好说！ 您太夸奖了。– user6065Feb 1, 2017 at 9:36
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user6065's comment is a lot better than answers below– Mou某 ♦Feb 1, 2017 at 11:01
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8 Answers
是嗎？ (or 有嗎？ or 真的嗎？) 我覺得沒有很好吔。
Really? I do not think it's very good.
Really? I don't think my Chinese is very good.
or
沒有啦！謝謝你。
No. Thank you.
Not at all. Thank you.
You don't have to worry about this. It's just like somebody asks a foreigner, "Where are you from?".
There are many good suggestions in the answers, for example:
user6065 wrote:
standard phrase: ：不敢当! jukuu：You flatter me. 你过奖了。你太捧我啦。6. You flatter me. I wish I could deserve such compliments. 好说！好说！ 您太夸奖了。
But a slight drawback of using standard phrases is it makes you sound a little bit too formal and distant. If your Chinese is actually great, it would make your modest sounds false.
you would like to just have a normal conversation.
It can be done by simply say "謝謝"(thanks) or "过奖" (it is too high a praise)-- A short reply without too much emphasis. Then go on with the conversation.
Phrases to brush off compliments
A humble response should be brief and low key. Long phrase felt more like a speech.
過獎 =太過/過於( too much / overly) 褒獎 / 誇獎 ( greatly praise / overly praise) Usually, you use 過獎 as a polite/ humble respond to a great compliment
The polite Chinese response to flattering comments is to deny them. 哪裏哪裏 (approximately: “'good', where?”) is a common phrase that can be used, or 不好 “not good”, or 還差得遠了 “far from it”, or 還要多學 “I have to study more”. A more literate phrase is 見笑 ("[people] laugh at [my skills]").
You can say，真的吗？我的中文能得到一个中国人的表扬，太棒了！ really？ it is awesome that my chinese gets complimented by a chinese！ he or she will be flattered.
1 - If you say "谢谢", people will think you are rather proud 2 - If you say long sentences like: "真的吗？我的中文能得到一个中国人的表扬，太棒了！" people won't even listen until the end of such a long answer and will mainly think you are trying to show off and boast... 3 - Whatever the answer, it is not because you get a smile in return that people won't think u're rather arrogant. West and East react differently aka 直接 (zhíjiē) and 间接 (jiànjiē)
So what should you say then? Just: "哪里哪里!" is the simplest and the BEST option as it is exactly what the (Chinese) person who praised u is expecting you to answer :-)
One common answer is “哪里哪里” which literally translates to "Where? Where?" But it is kind of a coy way to humbly accept the compliment.
Well I know answers are well-meant, but I do not particularly recommend false modesty. If I were you (or as I am speaking as a L2 learner), I would probably say something like: "謝謝啦！口說還行，才學了一兩年。" (revise to fit your case) Or if you really want to show an air of modesty, consider: "您客氣了。中文博大精深，還要加強呢！"
I like the "you flatter me" response but since I just learned the phrase here I say 不太好。It seems to work. And it's true!