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Ungrateful Natives | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 129 of 139 29 September 2010 at 3:39pm | IP Logged |
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I find monoglot Turkish speakers tend to be more severe about my Turkish than ones who can speak another language or two besides Turkish. I get mixed signals about my Turkish from Turkish speakers (my Turkish is "good" to some, "bad" to others), but it does more or less break down like that.
I attribute it, at least in part, to the monoglots assuming that speaking Turkish is the most natural thing in the world, so why should anyone have an accent/make grammatical mistakes/need to ask them to repeat what they said? Whereas the others have a better grasp of how difficult an L2 can be to acquire. Edited by William Camden on 29 September 2010 at 3:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5173 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 130 of 139 04 October 2010 at 6:20pm | IP Logged |
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I would probably prefer having an indifferent response from native speakers. I have had both contemptuous replies when I have attempted to speak my target languages, for example they tend to be pretty unforgiving in the South of Italy when they find you can only manage halting standard Italian. The French, as I think most of you would agree, expect foreigners to speak perfectly or not try at all, in my general experience, although there have been very pleasant exceptions when I have been able to help someone who couldn't speak French in France. I understand though it is nice to have compliments - we are making the effort to speak someone else's language and it's a sort of pat on the back for doing so.
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 131 of 139 06 October 2010 at 2:54pm | IP Logged |
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I once was laughed at by a Frenchwoman when I used a wrong liaison while speaking French (a tricky aspect of the spoken language). Rather annoying.
On another occasion, some French tourists asked me in English how to get to a landmark in London. I told them in French. They appeared surprised to run into a foreigner who spoke French, but at least I wasn't subjected to French taunting this time. Edited by William Camden on 06 October 2010 at 2:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lucas Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5167 days ago 85 posts - 130 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Italian, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 132 of 139 06 October 2010 at 3:53pm | IP Logged |
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I lived in Slovakia for four months and I'm very surprised by your experience...what kind
of "friends" did you have there? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| topaztrex Triglot Newbie Indonesia Joined 6169 days ago 20 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Mandarin, Indonesian*, English | Message 133 of 139 30 June 2011 at 2:52pm | IP Logged |
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I think native speakers aren't the ones to blame. Instead, the problem is with the us
language learners. 1. We language learners complain when we try to speak their language, but we are replied back in English. 2. On the other hand, we also complain when natives don't want to/cannot speak English and reply us back only in their language; even sometimes in a very fast, colloquial speech so that we don't understand. My point is that we have to stop complaining and keep on learning those languages if we are really in love with them. Don't let anything bring us down. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5009 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 134 of 139 01 July 2011 at 12:46am | IP Logged |
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A few things caught my attention during reading this thread.
1. at the first post. Why do you thing anyone on the earth should be grateful to you for learning their language? Yes, we, who speak minor languages, are often pleased or flattered but why the hell should we be grateful? We do know more important foreign languages and do not wait for you to come from your heights to exchange a few basic sentences with us. But of course, ridiculing you mistakes is a different thing. 2. at the first and other posts. Yes, stupid people are found anywhere. In Slovakia, France, Usa, Russia, among office people, military, artists, doctors, lawyers, men, women...just anywhere. You are free to search for friends that suit you and you have a good chance to find them if you look at the right places. Noone is spared from meeting a jerk from time to time (at least), this is one of the few fair things in this world. :-) 3. The second post, by languagegeek, was just horrible. The Slovak nation has much longer history than the 20 years of the state, of course (just for case this fact would matter to a language learner). I would kind of expect better knowledge from a european citizen. And for sure not this attitude. Unfortunately it is quite typical of many Germans, when we are at it. 4. What is that surprising about all of this? Most language learners have experienced the embarassing moment of switching to English. Many have seen the faces of natives disgusted by the mistakes. But most have as well experienced those moments when your asking for directions in foreign language starts a long conversation starting at your language experience and leading to anywhere up to the purpose of universe. So what is that surprising and new about it? 5. There are many ways how to solve the trouble. One of them is to learn a proper answer, be it a polite or rude one. I'd kind of prefer the rude one in this moment but that is matter of personal choice. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 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 135 of 139 01 July 2011 at 1:30pm | IP Logged |
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I have reread about half of this immensely long thread, but it still seems to me that the real problem has little to do with gratitude (which you hardly ever will meet, - but mild curiosity is a good substitute for gratitude).
The problem is that you normally communicate with people to get a meaning across. Sometimes native speakers of your target language are in a benevolent mood and have some free time, and then they may silently agree to be your sparring partners for free for a few moments - if they like you, that is. But don't count on it. Normally I don't try to strike up regular conversations in a language before I'm fairly sure that I can understand any reasonably clear answer (which happens some time after I'm ready to say things in their language). Until then I do something else: I speak in whatever language we have in common, and sometimes I include isolated sentences in their language, but I don't try to keep the whole conversation in a language which I doesn't speak well enough. Instead I replay the conversations in my mind and try to translate them, I think up phrases in the foreign language without using them (including reactions to street signs, advertisements and everything else I see or hear). This is not as efficient as having a real discussion, but better than nothing. And because of this attitude I have very few cases where people have been unfriendly towards me. Sometimes they have tried to switch to English or German or whatever, and then we just a have bilingual discussion until they give in and revert to the local language. But even this is rare, and I have to think hard to remember cases where anybody ridiculed me or became angry because I refused to yield. The biggest mental block in my case has been 1) Swedish and Norwegian, 2) minority languages or dialects. For instance a Scotsman might feel that I made fun of his accent if I tried out my mediocre Scots on him, so I just push my normal English pronunciation slightly in his direction. And the other Scandinavian languages are so close that Danes aren't expected to try speaking them - actually it could by some be taken as a sign that you didn't trust their ability to understand our language. But with major languages you don't have these diplomatic complications - just push ahead if you feel that you are on safe ground, that's my attitude. Edited by Iversen on 27 July 2011 at 5:30pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| strummer Diglot Newbie Switzerland Joined 4922 days ago 38 posts - 53 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 136 of 139 10 July 2011 at 4:03pm | IP Logged |
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My experience in China is very positive. When i speak in mandarin, the chinese are really
happy!- Also when for working reasons i have to take some courses in the french-speaking part of Switzerland, when i use my middle-school level french i get only encouragement from the other people and useful tips on how speak better the language, and not arrogance or ''my language is the best in the world'' attitude. About natives that are ungrateful or arrogant, i can say only this IGNORANCE: these people does'nt know the hard work behind learning a language and maybe they don't even know their language well, because if they do they will understand why we sometimes make mistakes and they will react in another way. Edited by strummer on 10 July 2011 at 4:08pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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