Wow. You have made me remember that I also learned it like that at school. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that since school (maybe once in a blue moon, but it seems to be really infrequent), so I just forgot about it and say "have". It would be interesting to have the opinion of native speakers on this.
For the record, I'm now learning some Mandarin Chinese and apparently this kind of phenomenom is even stronger in that language (I say "apparently" because my Chinese level is still very basic, but that's what people who know more say). The first word you learn when studying Chinese as a foreign language is 你好 (nihao) for "hello", but apparently no one says that in China in real life, and the same goes for 你好吗？(how are you). There is also a controversy about a tone which is taught as a falling-rising tone but it doesn't actually rise unless the syllable is pronounced in isolation (and you hardly ever pronounce a syllable in isolation in real life...)
Weird stuff. I wonder what similar absurdities foreign students of Spanish (my native language) are subject to :)
People do say "你好" in formal, like "How do you do?" such as greet someone who just met for the first time. "Hello" is more like "嗨", casual greeting.
Having said that, learning spoken and writing English are hard for countries that have complete different language system such as Japanese and Chinese, Korean etc. Two reasons:
First, there’s no argument that they all have completely different style of writing and pronunciation. Nothing to piggyback on like Dutch or German. The English teacher in my school doesn't even speak good English, more like "Chinglish" as we mostly emphasize in writing. Many do write English well but have hard time communicate verbally. That’s a BIG problem.
The second thing is that the in the old days, kids don't get to learn English until in middle school. The best time to learn language is when one is still very young. It then becomes a second nature rather than a skills to master later in life. I think that it's different now. Kids are learning English early in school now. However, they don't get to practice outside of school.
For the record, I'm now learning some Mandarin Chinese and apparently this kind of phenomenom is even stronger in that language (I say "apparently" because my Chinese level is still very basic, but that's what people who know more say). The first word you learn when studying Chinese as a foreign language is 你好 (nihao) for "hello", but apparently no one says that in China in real life, and the same goes for 你好吗？(how are you). There is also a controversy about a tone which is taught as a falling-rising tone but it doesn't actually rise unless the syllable is pronounced in isolation (and you hardly ever pronounce a syllable in isolation in real life...)
Weird stuff. I wonder what similar absurdities foreign students of Spanish (my native language) are subject to :)