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I fooled a native speaker | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| matematikniels Tetraglot Groupie Denmark Joined 6254 days ago 78 posts - 84 votes  Speaks: Danish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 49 of 56 09 December 2007 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think I did anything wrong, but I always felt bad about this episode:
August 1979, I was with my father in Leningrad as tourists. One afternoon he took a nap and I went for a walk in a beautiful park. I was young and my Russian not so rusty, and a guy not much older than me asked for a match. I told him I don't smoke. He asked me where I got my jeans, and I said, "From Denmark". "How did you get them?", he asked. "I bought them", I said. He looked puzzled, and suddenly I realized why, and added, "I'm a Dane". Remember, in those days Average Ivan could not go abroad. His expression changed to something between sudden lack of interest and contempt, he switched into English, turned his face away, and mumbled, "Ah, go to hell, my friend!" 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lloydkirk Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6415 days ago 429 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 50 of 56 11 December 2007 at 11:28am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for informing me about those, but isn't it better to not use these contractions? In the English world, contractions are widely used, but sneered upon and forbidden in formal writing. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 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 51 of 56 11 December 2007 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you are going to speak informal spoken French then you have to use those contractions, but you wouldn't use them in the normal written language (apart from certain genres in literature). A teacher that didn't teach them to his pupils would not be worth his salary. Edited by Iversen on 11 December 2007 at 5:50pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6188 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 52 of 56 19 December 2007 at 5:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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My ability in Japanese is incredibly scattered. My grammar is at a high intermediate level while my vocabulary is at a low-intermediate level, etc.
My ability to speak is low in most contexts, but rather high at work. It's high enough, in fact, that I fool several Japanese customers a day into thinking I'm either native or fluent. Starting from my typical introduction all the way to handling most transactions I am capable of maintaining a good accent and speedy speaking pace. Occasionally I slip up or I'm asked a strange question and I'm out though. The only unfortunate thing is that none of the customers have shown a good reaction to finding out I really don't speak that much. In fact they're usually a bit irritated. I'm waiting for my frequent swearing in Korean to be heard by a native soon so they can be utterly shocked. :D 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MarlonX19 Diglot Groupie Brazil Joined 4167 days ago 40 posts - 51 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: French | Message 53 of 56 10 July 2013 at 4:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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I haven't fooled anyone so far. At least not in spoken English but I remember last year I was on one of these chatrooms that connects us to people from anywhere in the world, if Im not mistaken it happened on ''anicechat.com'' or something like this: There was a girl from the United States who I was talking to for some minutes, I told her I was an American and lived in Texas, she easily believed, she didn't even doubt about my ''nacionality'' hehe. I felt kind of pround because she commited more grammar mistake than me!
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4446 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 54 of 56 04 November 2013 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In this part of the world you don't hear Mandarin when you are calling somebody on the phone. You don't know
who may be on the other end of the line. Most people would start with a friendly "Hello, can I speak to Mr. / Mrs. so and so". Sometime ago I picked up the phone. The caller dialled a local # so I started off with the usual "Hello". The caller said in Mandarin something like: "Is Mr. Li there?". I answered back in Mandarin with something like: "Sorry, you dialled the wrong number". I had no idea how fluent this lady's English was. Most Chinese calling their relatives & friends would start off with "Hello..." instead of the Chinese "Wei" unless you're in Hong Kong or Taiwan. If the lady happened to call somebody who only spoke English, she probably figured she called the wrong house (of a White person) who she didn't understand. Once I was down in New Orleans in the US for a family gathering. There are all sorts of gift shops in the French Quarter. I was outside a gift shop with several other people. A salesman came out to greet us. We looked Asian so he said: "ni hao ma?" or "how are you?" in Mandarin. Someone in the group answered back in English: "Continue"... His face turned red and he he paused for a few seconds before switching back to English. Obviously he wasn't fluent besides knowing the simple greeting. Edited by shk00design on 04 November 2013 at 5:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| oziohume Bilingual Hexaglot Newbie Belgium Joined 4740 days ago 30 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan, Italian, French, German Studies: Dutch | Message 55 of 56 01 September 2015 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I find this topic particularly interesting because it has been a motivation for my language learning for some
time. It already happened for some of my languages: Catalan, for which almost everyone believes I am a native speaker, and even don't believe the contrary. Italian, pretty much the same, since I hang around with many Italians and am in Italy almost everyone takes me for a native speaker, which I absolutely adore. German, granted it has happened only once and I am pretty sure the other party was not completely sober, but it made me super happy. In short conversations when I lived in Germany it used to happen as well. Never happened in French yet, though I am hopeful this year it does. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lootrock Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5754 days ago 18 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Mandarin, Arabic (Egyptian), Russian | Message 56 of 56 09 May 2016 at 5:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm an African American in the US so I'm not fooling anybody with native status in general
since most of the languages I speak are European or Asian. However, when it comes to French, typically it is assumed that I grew up speaking the language, but nobody knows from where because I don't have a distinct accent as many French speaking Africans do. Frankly, most of the time I'm met with sheer confusion. Non-native french speakers tend to think I'm french, but I guess that's not really saying much. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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