|
 |
Thread on "Language Banditry" | ||
Tags: Language Banditry | Immersion | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Goindol Senior Member United States Joined 6076 days ago 165 posts - 203 votes  | Message 49 of 140 19 January 2009 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I think you're making a lot of assumptions regarding who I will and will not criticise etc. from my very brief posts. On the contrary, all I have done is to ask a very simple question based on what you yourself have written: "Are we talking about the same phenomena, AT ALL? I'm in this filthy country for just one reason, the language."
Time is precious, namely mine. I would appreciate it if you could muster the mercy to convey your points simply and directly without spinning a lengthy screed of questionable prose. Edited by Goindol on 19 January 2009 at 10:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| musigny Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6023 days ago 57 posts - 61 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2, Japanese Studies: Italian | Message 50 of 140 19 January 2009 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | ||
|
removed Edited by musigny on 19 January 2009 at 11:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5879 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 51 of 140 19 January 2009 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | ||
I understand your frustrations there. In Quebec they complain that if a single anglophone is sitting at a table, then all the francophones will speak English to each other to accomodate. But I think what your father was teaching you was something different. Some children grow up in Montreal fluently and natively bi-lingual (in that they learn both languages concurrently from birth and have no native language ... usually with a francophone mother and anglophone father or similar). These children are amazing in that they build an ability, even as 3 year olds, to speak the correct language to the correct person. They have no preference for one language or the other. They seem to have a 6th sense for which language to speak that adults who become bilingual later never aquire. Now, I think it is important that children learn to modify how they speak according to their audience ... not just which language, but level of respect, word choice, etc. I think that is what your father was hoping to teach you. That said, I use all my foreign languages as secret languages when it suits me, intentionally choosing to speak a language to exclude other people in the room if what I am saying is none of their business. I especially do this with sales-people. But I have a little anacdote that you might enjoy. In 1999 I was travelling in Pakistan with a Swede from Luleå. We went into a tea house and ordered something from the moustachioed guy on the counter. He spoke to us breifly in English, then turned and made a joke about us in Urdu or Punjabi or Pashto or whatever they spoke there to the room of men sitting behind him and they all laughed. My Swedish mate turned to me and made an offensive derogitory statement about them in Swedish which is not worth repeating, which made me kind of laugh too. The Pakistani's stopped laughing at us mid guffaw. The message was clear: we can both play that game ... now how about we just speak English and get on with it. That was very cool for me as an anglophone. Letting people know that English just the common language, not 'my language'. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6000 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 52 of 140 19 January 2009 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | ||
Don't even get me started on Singapore! It was a bewildering experience at times, and if I was there for a protracted period I don't know what I could do except perhaps go insane. I spent a week there with a Chinese friend who has been studying there for several years. We spoke exclusively in Mandarin, which seems to have bewildered quite a few people. Ofttimes when we went to a food stall or convenient mart to purchase something we would say exactly what we were getting to each other in Mandarin within full hearing range of the shop keeper, and then turn to them and repeat the same in English. They always looked confused, and it didn't help that when they asked back "do you need a bag" I had to get my friend to tell me what they said because I didn't adapt as readily as I'd hoped to the accent. I think a good number of them might have tried to process our conversations with the English part of their brains, and so ended up just bewildered with no idea what language we were speaking. Only once did a fruit stand guy notice and suddenly say to me in Mandarin "Oh! Your Mandarin is really good. HA HA HA! " with total surprise. The most uncomfortable and perplexing incident happened when we were getting food at one of the "hookers". There were no seats so we asked an old guy if we could take two empty ones at his table. He proceeded to try to make friendly conversation in Singlish, which I'm quite sure he believed to be comprehensible as standard English. I couldn't make the case for him being a bandit of any sort, because I'm quite sure his Singlish was native or near-native, but with the best of my attempts to be polite I couldn't make out more than 20% of what he was saying. Meanwhile, and totally unexpectedly to me, my friend was following 80%. Thus a language he was speaking ostensibly for my benefit was incomprehensible to me, while when he threw out an occasional Mandarin sentence to my friend I used this to "guess" what he must have been saying in Singlish and try to improve my attempt to fake it. Normally I wouldn't be such a jerk to "pretend" I understood when I didn't, as that is one of the Chinese behaviors I find most despicable, but after asking him to repeat every sentence during the first 5 minutes and still failing to decipher many things, I just gave up.... a nodded my head while my friend had to answer all his questions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6779 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 53 of 140 19 January 2009 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I have not had any problems with language bandits in Japan. People really are not brave enough to approach someone they don't know. They might do it only if they thought they could be helpful. I would only consider a person a bandit if they just came up to me to speak English. But anybody who was somehow connected to me, either through work or some introduction, who spoke English to me, I would consider that person an opportunist.
There is one type of person who thinks you cannot understand Japanese and so therefor speaks to you in English. Often, this person has made such an assumption without due diligence. There is another type of person who speaks to you in English even though they know you can understand Japanese. Usually this is a person who has gone through extensive conditioning and they automatically go into white man language mode when speaking to the white man. They are not doing it because they have to, but because it has become a kind of involuntary reflex. Such a person has usually been conditioned this way by years of English conversation classes and private English tutors who can't speak Japanese or don't allow their students to speak Japanese. Listening to this person speak English is quite a burden. Since I rarely run into or meet Japanese who can speak English, I just let them do so. None of them have ever become a problem. I do hate it, though, when somebody is asked to translate to me since I don't need it. But just because someone might translate Japanese to English doesn't mean that I need to speak only English. I would just speak Japanese. If you do speak Japanese, or any foreign language for that matter, it is easy to tell if you sound like a beginner. In my opinion, there is a low probability that you will encounter a language bandit in Japan. That would be because the English level of the general population is very low. Also, as Musigny stated, many Japanese have never spoken to a foreigner in Japanese, so whatever their reaction might be, it may be a whole new experience for them. If they can't speak your language, they would find it interesting to be able to speak directly to a foreigner instead of through a friend. I do find it a bit frustrating when you have just been introduced to someone new and then that new person doesn't ask you directly if you can speak Japanese, instead they direct the question to the person who just introduced you. I try to be understanding and not let such a little thing get to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6000 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 54 of 140 19 January 2009 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes I said what you quoted, and it's very simple: your actions determine your moral status as a human being. If one hates some race with all his heart and hope to die but never outwardly treat persons of that race in a hundredth of a degree different from persons of any other, has he made a transgression in this world? No. When I accuse someone of English Banditry I am accusing them of an actual moral default and not a thought crime. Your statement seems to be conflating the two. Thoughts in and of themselves are as good is nonexistent so long as the have not been transmuted into metaphysical actions of some sort. THUS it doesn't matter what I think or say of the Chinese, there are a great many banditing my English via fraud (pretend friendships), while I am doing no such thing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5879 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 55 of 140 19 January 2009 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | ||
|
musigny, why did you remove your post? I thought it was good.
A metaphor: I know a guy who really has a lot of trouble with dating. And he aggressively complains about it. About women. He says they are all teases. And he has such a chip on his shoulder that when he is speaking to a girl, they can sense his anger. His facial expressions, his tightness, and he is hyper-sensitive and he takes things the wrong way. And therefore it is his attitude that causes his failures. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| musigny Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6023 days ago 57 posts - 61 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2, Japanese Studies: Italian | Message 56 of 140 20 January 2009 at 12:43am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks. I thought it was inappropriate here so I removed it. I agree wholeheartedly with your post. Thinking back to me years in Japan, I now recall that I tried not associate with foreigners and only Japanese. For two reasons, one was that I wanted to immerse myself in the culture and language and secondly because foreigners would incessently point out the negative aspects of Japan for a foreigner to me which would denigrate my experience. In Paris you can either look at the trash or the river Seine and the Eiffel Tower; it's your choice. Edited by musigny on 20 January 2009 at 12:44am 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
