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Beware of "secret" languages ;-) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
 LauraM Pro Member United States Joined 5337 days ago 77 posts - 97 votes  Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 121 of 173 19 December 2010 at 4:23am | IP Logged | ||
So are you saying all of the Japanese students there are fluent in Norwegian? Wow, I had no idea! (Altho I may be misunderstanding this!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Victor Berrjod Diglot Groupie Norway no.vvb.no/ Joined 5094 days ago 62 posts - 110 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese, Korean, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 122 of 173 20 December 2010 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Haha, no, I mean they would be Norwegian people from our Japanese class, so roughly the same level as we were. :)
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| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5320 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 123 of 173 23 March 2011 at 12:18am | IP Logged | ||
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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 … Little pitchers have big ears, I guess. :)
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| Phantom Kat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5048 days ago 160 posts - 253 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Finnish | Message 124 of 173 24 March 2011 at 4:59am | IP Logged | ||
Hehe, I don't know about them, but I would have been mortified! Where I live (south Texas), sometimes you really cannot tell who knows Spanish and who doesn't. Some students are white and do not know Spanish, others came from Mexico and know Spanish, others were raised with Spanish as their native languages, and others were born to Mexican parents but were never taught Spanish. With that in mind, I was sitting in my Pre-Calculus, when one of the guys in front of me said, "You get the the work, right?" I replied with, "Yeah, good enough, but I'm bad at math. If this was an English class I would totally help you." I then went back to my Finnish for Foreigners I. The guys behind me commented to the guy in Spanish about this, and then one of them said, in Spanish, "Oh yeah, this girl will help you in English because she doesn't know Spanish." I was shocked they would insult me so outlandishly. Without looking up, I just responded with, "Yo sí entiendo español." They were dumbstruck while I just shook my head at their utter stupidity. :) - Kat Edited by Phantom Kat on 24 March 2011 at 5:00am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5853 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 125 of 173 09 April 2011 at 1:52am | IP Logged | ||
This reminds me of my last experience as a teacher in an English School here in Brazil. In the first week, before even starting to give classes I was asked to join a teenagers classroom for a prank. I was supposed to be on some kind of exchange program, and as a Dutch man who knew nothing of Portuguese but "Bom dia" and "Obrigado". They all got very excited and they kept asking me questions in English all the time, and foreigners are rarely seen here in this area, so I guess you get the picture of the scene. Specially the girls, one of them said to the class in Portuguese "He's so cute! Oh, I wanna take him to this party tonight and later he's gonna sleep at me!" *laughs across the room* and I could just smirk to them and pretend that I wasn't understanding what was going on. Oh, she was so embarassed on the next day when she found out that I am actually a Brazilian and understood every word she said! Edited by koba on 09 April 2011 at 2:21am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| peachesdelmonte Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 4963 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 126 of 173 09 April 2011 at 4:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I live in Halifax, a city on the east coast in Canada. Mostly people here are monoglot
anglos, but there are a fair few English and French speakers, like myself. Anyway, I was on the bus the other day, just sort of idly not-listening to a group of kids behind me, when all of a sudden I heard one of them say to her friend "touche mon plotte" (touch my c*** in Quebecois French). I sort of gave a start and glanced around at them before I caught myself. That could have gotten awkward. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5192 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 127 of 173 13 April 2011 at 12:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good thread, just discovered it. I don't yet have any experiences of using a "secret" language myself but one occasion comes to mind. 4 or 5 years ago, a flatmate had a couple of female French friends staying over. I was introduced to them, and a few minutes later I heard them talking to each other in French and saying I was cute; even with my crappy high-school French I understood that. Unfortunately that was before I had any sort of confidence or skill with women so I wasn't able to... capitalise on the opportunity.
My Italian flatmate and her friends seem to have now realised that I can understand a fair bit of what they say to each other but sometimes I hear something that makes me laugh and it surprises them that I understood. I'm quite sure that my city's too multicultural to be able to use any Romance or Germanic or Slavic or Asian language as a secret language without risking being understood. It's probably a matter of when rather than if one of my Russian-speaking workmates will say something negative about me and I'll overhear and perhaps understand... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6650 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 128 of 173 20 April 2011 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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