hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5129 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 129 of 173 21 April 2011 at 3:44am | IP Logged |
Marc Frisch wrote:
ReneeMona wrote:
I remember when I was a kid, I think I was about 11, my after school teachers would sometimes talk about their periods in English to make sure none of us kids understood. They eventually stopped doing that after they noticed how I was always smiling knowingly during those conversations |
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I don't know if I'm more shocked that your teachers would talk about their periods or that you already were afflicted by this at such a young age. |
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Now see, I read that and totally thought period meant "class period", not what you're referring to.
R.
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ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5334 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French
| Message 130 of 173 21 April 2011 at 11:21am | IP Logged |
hrhenry wrote:
Marc Frisch wrote:
ReneeMona wrote:
I remember when I was a kid, I think I was about 11, my after school teachers would sometimes talk about their periods in English to make sure none of us kids understood. They eventually stopped doing that after they noticed how I was always smiling knowingly during those conversations |
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I don't know if I'm more shocked that your teachers would talk about their periods or that you already were afflicted by this at such a young age. |
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Now see, I read that and totally thought period meant "class period", not what you're referring to.
R.
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Sorry about all the confusion. I did mean they talked about their menstruations and suffice it to say that I was not afflicted by this at the age of 11.
1 person has voted this message useful
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Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6664 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil
| Message 131 of 173 21 April 2011 at 11:10pm | IP Logged |
ReneeMona wrote:
I did mean they talked about their menstruations |
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You did?
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psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5590 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French
| Message 132 of 173 22 April 2011 at 4:21am | IP Logged |
ReneeMona wrote:
hrhenry wrote:
Marc Frisch wrote:
ReneeMona wrote:
I remember when I was a kid, I think I was about 11, my after school teachers would sometimes talk about their periods in English to make sure none of us kids understood. They eventually stopped doing that after they noticed how I was always smiling knowingly during those conversations |
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I don't know if I'm more shocked that your teachers would talk about their periods or that you already were afflicted by this at such a young age. |
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Now see, I read that and totally thought period meant "class period", not what you're referring to.
R.
== |
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Sorry about all the confusion. I did mean they talked about their menstruations and suffice it to say that I was not afflicted by this at the age of 11. |
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Which reminds me of the story about the teenage vampire who said to his high school girlfriend "I'll see you next period."
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Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5080 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French
| Message 133 of 173 25 April 2011 at 6:39pm | IP Logged |
Some months ago, I was in love with a native Chinese speaker. She used to speak in Chinese with her friend, who was also a native Chinese speaker. I remember that we worked together, not really together, but on the same street. I can't speak anything in Chinese and she knew that. Everytime she was around me, she only spoke Chinese.. and I thought, well, maybe she is talking about me. Then I was at the front of the store, helping the clients, and I saw her coming with her friend, (who was also her boss)both speaking in Chinese. When they were close to me, her boss stared at my face and said something in Chinese, and the other girl (the one I loved) started to laugh.
I still don't know what they said and I think it's a lack of education.
If someone can help me, I'd appreciate that help. Since I don't know how to write the sounds properly in English, I'll write in Hiragana (I know, Hiragana is Japanese, but what she said sounded like that).
Maybe they could be speaking another dialect, but I heard something like:
てが Or ぺが。
What could it have been? any words which sound like that?
Thanks in Advance.
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Tz_LtZ Newbie United States Joined 4961 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 134 of 173 26 April 2011 at 2:10am | IP Logged |
acadien wrote:
Haha! Anyone who uses *English* as a secret language is going to get what's coming to them ^__^ |
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Absolutely... It's incredibly daft of people to speak English in front of foreigners and assume that they can't speak it too, when probably 9 times out of 10 it will be the opposite. XD
I think that can apply to all romance languages as well.
I'm reminded of a funny story from my math class during my sophomore year of high school. We had a substitute teacher one day. He was white, elderly, and was very quiet and only spoke to us when asked a question. Being kids, most people took that as an excuse to act rudely and take advantage of the substitute. A lot of the Spanish speaking students were particularly rowdy that day (as were the English speaking ones), and he just stood meekly in the back of the class, seemingly helpless and overwhelmed. Well, the next day our original teacher was back, and she politely informed us all that our sub was fluent in Spanish. Needless to say a lot of students got in trouble that day. Thankfully I was a shy kid, and didn't socialize much.
Edited by Tz_LtZ on 26 April 2011 at 2:18am
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canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5494 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese
| Message 135 of 173 26 April 2011 at 1:10pm | IP Logged |
For one year I shared a house with several other students, all of whom were Chinese.
Accordingly, the house functioned in Mandarin except for when I was around, when the
lingua franca usually switched to English. Occasionally, I'd hear their nickname
for me in a few sentences of Mandarin. In retrospect, they could not have said anything
too insulting about me, as we have all remained friends even after I moved to another
province. Nonetheless, to spite them, my girlfriend and I would do the same thing but
speak in French. Needless to say, on many occasions they looked quite confused!
Edit: One of my biggest regrets is not having learnt to speak Mandarin whilst living
there.
Edited by canada38 on 26 April 2011 at 1:11pm
2 persons have voted this message useful
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5183 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 136 of 173 23 June 2011 at 1:35am | IP Logged |
I actually have a response to this. A number of years ago when i was living in Boston I was shopping at
the Coop a bookstore in Harvard square. I was young and good looking at the time (or better looking than
now anyway). There were some attractive young German girls right near me talking and one blond was
pointedly looking at me and talking to her friend she called me a her traumman or dream guy in German.
She was like 5 ft away from me and it blew my mind to have that happen. No I didnt have the balls to do
anything about it but I'll never forget it. Not everything people say about others in a secret language is bad!
1 person has voted this message useful
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