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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6572 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 25 of 51 30 October 2014 at 11:01am | IP Logged | ||
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In Central in HK I've encountered people who respond to my Cantonese with "Your Cantonese
is very good!", in English. Only when someone pointed it out to me did I realize that some of those were ABCs and their own Cantonese is often somewhat shaky. Fortunately, people in the New Territories are always super excited to speak Cantonese, and in Guangdong people fall over backwards with joy if you just utter a "lei hou". 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4697 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 26 of 51 30 October 2014 at 1:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've never really encountered this problem very often. Even in Sweden I would invariably
get replies in Swedish. In tourist areas it's somewhat fuzzier (especially if I was hanging out with other expats). But I usually just continue speaking that language and they take the hint :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4612 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 27 of 51 30 October 2014 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think people wildly over-exaggerate this issue. I went through a spell of learning Dutch from cassettes and as a Scot with a knowledge of German, the guttural sounds of Dutch didn't really trouble me too much. I tried out a few phrases in Amsterdam (a place as touristy and international as you can get) and every single time I was answered in Dutch. I even mixed the languages said "A strippekaart please" in the main tourist office and the person behind the desk conducted the transaction in Dutch. I also began a conversion in English at the Centraal Station ticket office and then asked "which platform?" in Dutch. Number 12 came the reply in the local language.
Of course, the conversation never really went beyond tourist basics but it's all about showing people respect and speaking with a degree of confidence. Edited by beano on 30 October 2014 at 3:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4697 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 28 of 51 30 October 2014 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Dutch the leeway for using foreign words casually thrown into speech is huge anyway,
so if you add a "merci" instead of thank you, if you say "s'il vous plait" instead of "alstublieft", "tanks" , "yessss" or something like that you'll sound Dutch anyways. The only thing I have to add is that your accent shouldn't sound super-English, but as a Scot you have the rolled r so you're set. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4280 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 29 of 51 30 October 2014 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is the problem with being a native Anglophone--native Anglophones generally have
less chances to practise than people who speak no English, or to a poor level, no matter what people may say. The Anglophone seems to be viewed with some special mark by non-Anglophones, "Speak English with this person, not our native language". It seems less frequent that a Portuguese would start speaking for example, French, Spanish, or German to a French, German, or Spaniard than English to an American or Briton who struggles with the language instead of English. Likewise, no one is afraid of the Anglophone who switches to their language when they visit the UK, USA, or Australia like an Anglophone who visits Scandinavia or the Netherlands. Once I realised this concept, I made three strategies, the last whereof is my preferred plan: 1) Use a very difficult Anglophone accent such that they shall not understand you. HAving lived in Manchester and Newcastle, I can use accents of both places and their regional inner areas such that even C2 and native Anglophones from other Anglophone countries such as Canadians or Americans could have serious difficulties understanding me, meaning that there is no chance that a B1 non-native speaker would decipher, meaning that they must switch back to the target language. 2) Keep speaking the target language regardless of whether they comply or not. However, some still insist, so this could be annoying. 3) Pretend to be no native Anglophone. This requires some acting-type skills. I am born in an Anglophone country and grew up as a monolingual Anglophone until secondary school when I started language classes. My forename is Nicolás. This is obviously no Anglophone name, which gives me some advantages--I can pretend to be a native Hispanophone, which I do. My Spanish level is at least C1, so if someone in the country "tests" me, I can handle the situation and respond and converse with no difficulty, even if the person for example, happens to be a bilingual Dutch-Spanish, Swedish-Spanish, or Norwegian-Spanish speaker (I mention these countries because this is where this phenomenon is notorious). I have essentially two accents "in the pocket"--my everyday Peninsular Spanish accent, and for the past months, I have been trying to develop an Argentinian accent if I need to use it, a product whereof means that I can eventually pretend that I am either from Spain or Argentina, neither land known for their English skills (just an overall evaluation, this is no criticism). Sample conversation that might happen somewhere in tourist districts of Amsterdam: "Hoi hoe is 't met jou?" --"...Uh...Fine...you speak English?" "¿Cómo? No hablo nada de inglés hombre. Alleen maar 't Nederlands" --"Maybe we can speak a bit more slowly" "Bueno pues la verdad es que no te entiendo ni una sola palabra así que tienes que echarte a hablar en neerlandés que no voy a hablar contigo... [faster speech]...Dus hoe is 't met jou? Ik kom uit Spanje en 'k spreek toch geen Engels, ik ken bijna niet het woord "Hello" in het Engels, en ik kan 'm nog niet begrijpen. Ik heb 'm nooit geleerd, dus moeten wij in 't Nederlands even spreken." --"Ah, klopt, prima" The strategy in this case is that if they insist on English, I reply after a puzzled pause, «...¿Cómo?» or something similar, or start saying «Bueno es que no hablo inglés, tienes que volver al neerlandés/sueco/noruego/danés, que no sé ni jota qué dices» as fast as I can, and continue to speak in Spanish to their English. They either I) realise that I am annoyed and am doing this deliberately or II) realise that I really know no English and it is futile to speak English with someone who is A0 or A1 at best if my Dutch/Norwegian/Swedish/Danish is higher than this poor English level. Of course this requires "cojones" because this is essentially straight up lying. But because of my name, I can geninuely be a native Hispanophone, and this is not exactly so silly, as I have part Spanish ancestry, despite being born in an Anglophone land. If you have a similar situation, you could pretend to be a speaker of something else, especially if you are B2 minimum, even better C1 or C2. This also requires a "poker face", sheer boldness and the ability to say, "Ik kom uit Spanje" or "Jeg er argentinske" with sheer coldness and confidence when you know that it is just not true. But how much do you want to speak? I really do not care about making such statements because people really believe it, and it so far has worked for me. I have missed so many opportunities to speak that lying like this really is immaterial. Again, this can be stressful and poker-like, but just like in poker, whoever bets more has the chance to gain more (but I do not play poker by the way). No one has insofar "tested" to see if I really knew English (much less a native Anglophone) or if I were or not from Spain or Argentina. My guess is that they felt that speaking English with an A0 in English would make little sense if for example, their Dutch or Swedish were minimum B1. Why insist on English if it just leads to nowhere? This is the crux of this third strategy. Edited by 1e4e6 on 30 October 2014 at 11:13pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4089 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 30 of 51 30 October 2014 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | ||
While I obviously cannot speak from the experience of someone who comes from an English-speaking nation, my own travel experience, mostly around Europe but also a but of the Caucasus and the Middle East, would indicate a much more general "foreigners speak better English than <local language>" attitude. Obviously, I don't know how different things would be if I stated that I was from the UK, but claiming to be from Sweden has never stopped people from speaking English to me (on the other hand, my experience also indicates that it's not hard at all to get people to not speak English, as long as you're not in a super touristy area showing around family members who only respond to English). On the contrary, people are happy to try to work their five English catchphrases into the conversation, because I'm a foreigner and foreigners speak English. I don't think it's a conscious thought, really... our veterinarian, having just been told in French that we're from Sweden, turns to our dog and starts giving him commands in English, all while carrying on with his French conversation with us. Foreigner equals English (language) in a whole lot of places. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4697 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 31 of 51 30 October 2014 at 11:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Do people really enter in that kind of conversation? I would find that kind of rude.
Besides that faking your origins really isn't conducive to a long-term relationship. In some tourist shop I wouldn't care either, but if you're trying to make friends... Like I said, I've gone to Denmark, Sweden and Norway and even in Denmark and Norway people took my Swedish in shops, and I certainly don't sound like a native. Edited by tarvos on 30 October 2014 at 11:52pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5324 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 32 of 51 31 October 2014 at 5:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I find this to be more of a problem in the early stages of speaking a language. In a conversation, you tend to
go for the language you both speak best. If you are an A1/A2 in the local language and they are a B2/C1 and you are fluent in English, then that is the obvious choice. My strategies are a bit different from country to country. In France, in the beginning I sought out people who spoke no English. That was still no guarantee that they would speak French with me, as some found it so outrageous that one could speak anything but fluent French, that they quite literally turned their back to me, and pretended that I did not exist. Fortunately that phase did not last too long, and since in those days almost no one spoke decent English, it would go in French from there on. Nowadays I get really angry if they speak English to me, and the typical situation in Paris is that we speak French for a few minutes without any problems, then I am for some reason forced to hand in my passport or credit card so that they see my name (hotel, shop etc) and BAM they go into English. I will then either just continue in French, or ask them straight out why they switched to English. They will then normally excuse themselves and we continue in French. In Spain this is usually not a problem. Most Spaniards only speak Spanish, and even if they do speak other languages they are very encouraging when you speak Spanish, even if your Spanish is atrocious. The only time I can recall where I had any problems was in Mallorca many years ago, where there were so many German tourists that they equaled foreigner with German, and with my blonde hair I was put squarely in that category. Then on a number of occasions I was forced to lie, and claim that I understood no German, because I was damned if I was going to speak broken German when I was a fluent Spanish speaker. In Italy I have never come across the problem at all. If you speak any kind of Italian they will speak Italian with you, God bless them. I know the person from the OPs example was Italian, and in that case I would probably just say that I was focusing so much on learning Italian that I found it difficult and confusing to speak English. Of course that one is slightly harder to pull off if you are a native English speaker, but it usually works. In Germany I have also also found them more than willing to speak German. It was a bit harder in the beginning when my German was really bad, but I solved that one by visiting a friend from Eastern Germany whose English was also really bad, so that German was still our best option. In Russian my main obstacle used to be my own inhibitions, but being in Russia and Ukraine, I found that everyone was more than willing to speak Russian with me, so as soon as I deared to say anything in Russian I was fine. I usually start the conversation by excusing my bad Russian, they assure me that it is fine (overjoyed that they won't have to speak a foreign language) and do everything in their power to make me understand. Swedish is a case apart, since I would normally speak Norwegian to them, while they speak Swedish to me. Sometimes when I come across very young people, or foreigners who struggle to understand Norwegian I will switch into a sort of Swedish. If they had turned into English then, I think I would have become physically violent :-) Fortunately that has never happened. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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