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Rude to Speak in Another Language? | ||
Tags: Foreign Languages | Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4763 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes  Speaks: Russian | Message 1 of 14 21 May 2012 at 1:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm a native English speaker and I have always thought it was unfair that non-native English speakers would struggle to speak to me in English to make me feel more at ease, as if everyone must cater to the English speaker, but on the other hand I'm no sure I would feel comfortable if they all started speaking Nicobarese either. I wouldn't feel very welcome, but I don't know if I would call it "rude".
What do you think? Is it rude to start speaking in a foreign language when others are present who don't understand the language? Apparently some people are deeply offended by this. Some Englishmen complain of going into Welsh pubs and suddenly being surrounded by Welsh-speaking monolinguals, undoubtedly joking and gossiping about them. Sometimes I feel that some, not all, Hispanic Americans make a point of speaking Spanish very loudly, almost to flaunt the fact that they are bilingual, and to make others feel excluded. Being excluded or not, I know it's difficult to put into words what a source of pride the Spanish language is for so many Hispanic Americans, even 5th or 6th generation. "If it ain't brown, it ain't down" is not a joke to them, but proudly speaking Spanish sometimes has the power to alienate those outside their ethnicity. Some African American city workers actually sued their employer because their Hispanic co-workers would only speak Spanish on the job. I believe the court ruled in favor of the English-speakers, stating that not speaking English created a divisive working environment. So, always having English as the default language is certainly more convenient for me, but when it's imposed on non-native speakers it requires them to sacrifice part of their identity. Is this the price we must pay for world peace? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tecktight Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States Joined 4961 days ago 227 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian Studies: German, Russian, Estonian | Message 2 of 14 21 May 2012 at 3:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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If those others are in your party or directly interacting with you, then, yes, I consider it rude to speak in a
language they don't understand. Though it may or not be true, speaking to someone else in a language the third person cannot understand gives the implication that you are talking about them, or saying something you don't want them to hear. And, indeed, if that is the case, it is better to wait until you have found some modicum of privacy to say whatever it is you didn't feel comfortable saying in-public. Edit: I should add that I think it's perfectly okay to speak a different language whilst walking around in public, or what have you. For example, speaking, say, French or German though you may be living in London. That's all fine and good. Edited by Tecktight on 21 May 2012 at 3:42am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4585 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 14 21 May 2012 at 3:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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No language should be imposed on anyone
and the price we must pay for world peace is for people... and governments to not stick their nose where it dosnt belong about the language thing... speaking another language humbly and kindly shouldnt bother anyone... if it does then thats the problem of whoever is eavesdropping... being obnoxious like you said about hispanics speaking loudly and quickly to brag their bilingualism, at whatever level it may be, could be rude, but unless they are harassing someone, is it really that hard to ignore? What it boils down to is, one can be polite or rude in any language, so be polite. Also, some people will just hate your existence even if its their first time seeing you, wether or not your behavior is socially acceptable. and their shouldnt be a problem... and if you find someone being rude or at least acting rude, then ignore them if they arent harassing you. so be polite but dont bother trying to please everyone, itss not going to happen. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6688 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 14 21 May 2012 at 9:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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We have had a similar discussion before, and it didn't lead to a general agreement. The common ground seemed to be that if you are in a small group where interaction is intended among all persons then it is rude to exclude some of them by choosing a language which some of them don't know. However it can also be rude to demand that everybody except one person speak a language in which they aren't comfortable just to accommodate one member of the group - especially if this person is an intruder who decided just to mingle into a discussion among speakers of another language. I simply can't see that the group has any obligation to yield to such a person and thereby sacrifice the ease of communication for everybody else.
The point where opinions differed with no chance of reconciliation was the situation where a fairly large group is assembled, and a few persons speak another language than the prevalent one among themselves. I would see it as extremely rude for a speaker of the prevalent language to interfere in the discussion between the minority members. Others found it extremely rude to use another language than the majority - which I simply didn't understand and to this day don't understand. But a clue to the explanation could be that those who wanted linguistic uniformity were Anglophones (although the example used in the old thread conveniently was a Hispanophone woman somewhere in Latinamerica). It makes sense that speakers of large languages have less to lose by demanding the same language from everybody in large groups, while speakers of smaller languages or language learners have no reason at all to bow to this demand. The same of course applies to large groups who speak small languages - I wouldn't dream of stopping a discussion among two English speakers in a corner of a room where everybody else spoke Danish, and I might even speak to them in English. But then the inverse must also be the case. The exception is of course meetings where there is a previously announced official language - cfr. HTLAL where English is our common language. But even here we have rooms for other languages, and I can't see why 8 persons in a room should force the last two to stop their discussion in a minority language just to achieve complete uniformity. It should be possible to find somebody to speak to in the majority language among 8 majority language speakers. Edited by Iversen on 21 May 2012 at 8:30pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4607 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 5 of 14 21 May 2012 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've heard this one before. Although the complainer never seems to stop and consider that the patrons may well have been speaking in their native Welsh before the arrival of the English customer.
Actually I agree with the court here. My wife (who speaks 3 languages) works in an office where people of many nationalities are present, but the designated company language is English. She found herself in a team of 3 where the other two guys kept nattering away in French during working hours, a language which she did not speak. She complained about this and her superior agreed with her. My wife had no objections to them speaking French during a break, but felt she was being excluded on the job. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5438 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 6 of 14 21 May 2012 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
Here it is: http://how- to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24195&PN =121&TPN=1 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5366 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 7 of 14 22 May 2012 at 1:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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There is no more a requirement to speak English in the presence of non-speakers of X
than there is a requirement to speak louder in the presence of hard-of-hearing people who aren't concerned by the conversation. If you aren't part of the conversation, you don't have any business hearing it anyway. There is an interesting situation in my workplace. I live in Central Canada where there is a small population of French speakers. I'm Québécois, so I grew up in a French monolingual environment. In MY culture, it's rude to speak English to another French- speaker, so I speak French with my Québécois colleagues, even when English speakers come by, but the French-speakers who were born in this English environment switch to English as soon as English speakers come! They obviously believe it's rude or that the English speakers will find it rude. Edited by Arekkusu on 22 May 2012 at 2:21am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4636 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 8 of 14 22 May 2012 at 10:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hmm, and this reminds me of a problem - is it rude for, say, a couple of D/deaf to sign to each other while out with their friends, for example?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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