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Beware of "secret" languages ;-) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6189 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 113 of 173 26 April 2010 at 9:45am | IP Logged |
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I tend to talk about the people around me all the time in English when I'm in Korea or Japan or around a large group of their people. I never did it at work since sometimes they spoke English but in the countries they rarely understood English, and even the ones who did understand almost never listened anyway. It was fun though, seeing one man in a restaurant LEAN BACK IN HIS CHAIR in an attempt to hear the conversation my friends and I were having. We started making very light-hearted jokes about him to see if he understood but all he did was turn his ear closer to us. Either he understood nothing or was gathering data...
There have been numerous times when Japanese women would say I'm hot or sexy before finding out I knew Japanese. And there was one time when a Korean girl, who I just met through some friends, told those friends that I wasn't attractive (this wasn't a date, luckily). That was our intention before we picked her up, and so my friend asked me in Korean what I thought of her answer and she couldn't look at me after that for a good 10 minutes. hahahaha It's humorous although also annoying when people will lie to your face about what they or someone else said if they don't know you understood. It doesn't even have to be particularly important. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5594 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French | Message 114 of 173 27 April 2010 at 4:00am | IP Logged |
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This is getting off topic but I need to say it: ReneeMona you have a great outlook on life and people!. Not to sound cliché but things would be a lot better if more people adopted your attitude.I am from New York where people can literally get killed just for looking at a person the "wrong way"
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| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5338 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 115 of 173 27 April 2010 at 5:11pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, psv88, thank you. Sadly, that kind of people exist in the Netherlands as well. Edited by ReneeMona on 27 April 2010 at 11:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| markchapman Diglot Groupie Taiwan tesolzone.com/ Joined 5475 days ago 44 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Portuguese | Message 116 of 173 01 May 2010 at 10:05am | IP Logged |
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I've never used a secret language to insult people. If I wanted to do this enough I would do it to their faces. I used
to use Chinese as a secret language to talk about more personal issues in public places. I've stopped doing this now because too many people in the world speak the language. I think using any of the world's major languages in this way is dangerous. I'm a white guy, and I often sit in the metro in Lisbon and listen to Chinese conversations taking place around me. I've never heard people use the language secretly, as has been described in this thread, but if they did it wouldn't be as secret as they might think. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5337 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 117 of 173 03 May 2010 at 12:34pm | IP Logged |
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Two girls who studied French in Orleans at the same time as I did, went to the bank one day. The queue went on for ever, and when it was finally their turn, the lady behind the counter just sat there writing, and did not even look up at them, or ask them to wait for a minute until she was ready. After this had gone on for a few minutes, one of them lost her patience, and said in Norewegian, "Oh come on, move your big fat ass", at which the lady replied calmly in French, still without looking up: "That is exactly what I am doing, young lady."
Needless to say, they got out of that bank double quick, and never came back. 11 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Euphorion Hexaglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5343 days ago 106 posts - 147 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Czech, EnglishC2, GermanC1, SpanishC2, French | Message 118 of 173 07 May 2010 at 1:13am | IP Logged |
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When I was a child, me and my parents were flying from Sao Paulo (Brazil) to Frankfurt (Germany) when a black gentleman sat next to us on the plane. He removed his shoes and my father told my mother in Slovak "I hope his feet wont stink". The gentleman looked at him and answered in perfect Czech "Excuse me sir, but I wash myself regularly". Unfortunately there were still 17 hours of flight to go... :)
Btw thats why the Irish appreciate their old language when travelling abroad Edited by Euphorion on 07 May 2010 at 1:16am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| starst Triglot Senior Member China Joined 5517 days ago 113 posts - 133 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, Japanese, EnglishC2 Studies: FrenchC1, German, Norwegian | Message 119 of 173 07 May 2010 at 4:34am | IP Logged |
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When my boyfriend visited me last week in Tokyo, it did bother me quite much that he constantly expressed his views (mostly not positive) on Japan in public in Chinese. Chinese serves very poor as a secret language in Japan!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Victor Berrjod Diglot Groupie Norway no.vvb.no/ Joined 5112 days ago 62 posts - 110 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese, Korean, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 120 of 173 18 December 2010 at 5:54pm | IP Logged |
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A friend of mine and I were having a conversation in Japanese at the metro in Oslo. The people who understand Japanese there – especially since most people at this particular one were students – would be people we knew, and there were nobody around. Anyway, I don't remember what we were saying, but suddenly a girl behind me asked (in Japanese) "excuse me, are you speaking Japanese?". We were both surprised, but the girl was very nice, and I met her again later, so it was a good conversation starter.
Now that I'm in university in Japan, we exchange students are using Norwegian as a secret language, and as far as I know, nobody speak Japanese to each other. Maybe they feel everything they say has to be confidential or something, but whenever I say something to them in Japanese, they reply in Norwegian… 1 person has voted this message useful |
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