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Beware of "secret" languages ;-) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Jenne Newbie United States Joined 6705 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Latin, French | Message 49 of 173 25 November 2008 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm a military brat and so are most of my childhood friends. We speak a masala of languages with each other. It's not so much a "secret language" as it is how we think.
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| yar Diglot Newbie United States bytetrash.blogspot.c Joined 5586 days ago 23 posts - 24 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese Studies: Korean | Message 50 of 173 29 August 2009 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Living and going to school in Brazil, I had a Polish classmate. If we didn't want anyone to know what we were saying, we'd speak in English.
When I was flying back from Brazil, I ran into another American and we were rushing to get our flight. Speaking in a mixture of Portuguese and English, I was flustered bya bunch of people blocking our way and said exasperatedly "Look at all these people "atrapalhando-nos (getting in our way.) Even though the "bad" part was in Portuguese, as we made our way past the people this one woman shouted (in English) "Excuse me?!?" 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5908 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 51 of 173 29 August 2009 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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My aunt who's Russian (and looks like it too) was in France once and got into an elevator at her hotel, there were already a few people in there but it wasn't particularly crowded. As they were on their way up, two guys in the elevator starting talking amongst themselves about how the elevator was full, could this rude woman not see that the elevator was full? Just before getting out, she turned to them and said, in Russian, it doesn't look full to me.
Another member of my family once found himself in the rather unpleasant situation of being taped up in the trunk of a car while his Arabic-speaking captors discussed how to kill him. He understood every word... Someone else in my family said that a friend of his had spent some time in a rural area in Asia, and had used Norwegian as his secret language. Even there, he ran into another Norwegian who could of course understand him fine. No matter where we are in the world we can never be sure, and I don't know about other people but Norwegians tend to keep quiet about it and just mock whoever they overheard later... Edited by Lizzern on 29 August 2009 at 6:26pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| densou Senior Member Italy foto.webalice.it/denRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6131 days ago 120 posts - 121 votes Speaks: Italian* | Message 52 of 173 16 September 2009 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Finally, I realized why you aren't fond of Russian language .... lol *just kiiiidding, missy* :p Edited by densou on 16 September 2009 at 5:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5908 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 53 of 173 16 September 2009 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hmm. I don't see what my degree of interest in Russian has to do with the story. My aunt's lovely though, and it's fascinating to hear her speak it.
Quite frankly those guys should have at least suspected she may have been Russian and acted accordingly! Moving on... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7014 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 54 of 173 18 September 2009 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | ||
What happened to him, if you don't mind me asking? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5908 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 55 of 173 18 September 2009 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'll have to ask him about the details sometime (we rarely see each other so I found out about this through my mother) but he somehow got himself out of it unharmed. (Possible epic language skills win?) He works as a Middle East specialist in an oil company now, I think he was stationed there for work when this happened. I'm told he's one of those people that crazy stuff keeps happening to, and that this is just one of the bizarre experiences he's had while travelling...
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| Choscura Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5547 days ago 61 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Thai | Message 56 of 173 18 September 2009 at 8:28pm | IP Logged | ||
There is a grain of truth to this. One of my father's university students spoke fluent German, and went on a business trip there, I think something to do with high-end window tinting, like they do on skyscrapers. Anyway, after a few days of listening to the Deutsch-bags there insulting everybody from his side of the business deal and talking about what numbers they should use and what the real numbers were, they closed the deal and then- and only then- did he start speaking to everybody in German. Apparently the looks on peoples faces was something to behold. Here, my girlfriend and I both speak fluent Thai and English (although my grammar in Thai leaves a lot to be desired), and so we can switch between one, the other, or both very easily. Failing that, we've got our own personal insults ("beepy", "gary", "something korean", etc) which make no sense to people who don't know us or the stories behind these, and if even that doesn't work, she speaks passable Dutch, which I can understand, abe ik kanne sprekt en bejta. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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