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Claiming to Speak a Language - Pet Peeve | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4644 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 121 of 164 13 December 2012 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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beano, a good observation. The current Chair of the Nobel Peace Prize committee and former Norwegian Prime Minister Torbjørn Jagland is always ridiculed by other Norwegians because of his accent when speaking English. However, I have never heard any non-Norwegians make any fuss about it, and especially not native English speakers. And frankly, how many international high-level politicians speak English without an accent (apart from David Cameron and Obama).
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| Jax Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4376 days ago 15 posts - 27 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 122 of 164 13 December 2012 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
I was always under the impression that this generalization was the other way round. If someone laughs at you in a way that is malicious or spiteful when talking in a foreign language, it says so much more about them than it does about you. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 123 of 164 13 December 2012 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's easier at least for most other Europeans, if they are willing to make an effort. Edited by Serpent on 13 December 2012 at 4:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 124 of 164 13 December 2012 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4605 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 125 of 164 13 December 2012 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
well, I think we should be used to accents, with English being such a popular language... I myself cant always spot a non native by accent alone 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5339 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 126 of 164 13 December 2012 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh trust me, when it comes to Thorbjørn Jagland you would hear an accent. We Norwegians cringe to the
verge of getting muscle cramps when we hear him. A part from the accent his English is quite good, though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuaDUT8m0Pk Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 13 December 2012 at 8:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6914 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 127 of 164 13 December 2012 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not impressed - nor surprised. Sadly, Swedish politicians/celebrities/whatever don't hide their accent any better. Some regional prosodies are more neutral (or less "singy-songy") and thus function a bit better, but here are some samples of Swenglish:
Karl-Johan Persson (H&M) (not a catastrophy, but not that convincing from someone who has studied in Australia and the UK (for several years) Fredrik Reinfeldt (Swedish Prime minister) (not a catastrophy either, but I'd expect more from an official person) Phrobia (anybody remotely familiar with the Gothenburg accent will find this parody amusing) Jann of Sweden (a Swedish "cowboy", this is what his English sounds like after ~37 years in the States...) Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 14 December 2012 at 12:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4437 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 128 of 164 14 December 2012 at 5:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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Very recently I stayed in a hostel in Montreal and hung out in the mornings in the common room
studying my Arabic, making flashcards or doing grammar exercises. Every once in a while I would have a brief volleying of conversation between this other old guy sitting at the table all morning like me, or a visitor coming down from the bedrooms to grab coffee or toast. I remember when the old guy's friend came in. I didn't let him upset me but I definitely raved about it later that evening to a poet friend I spent the day with. What happened was that the two old guys and me were sitting around and this old guy's friend decides to enquire what I'm doing studying Arabic, whether I was involved with al-Qaeda and some other jokes. I said, Mon Dieu absolumment pas, I just like to study languages. This, paired with my mix of anglophone-slash-Acadian-slash-Montréalais accent, led him to ask me what languages I studied. Seeing a world map in front of me, I laid my pen down and stood up, marching over to it and began pointing to the geographical locations where I had Skype-partners and spoke the language of, for instance, my Portuguese is only Brazilian, and Malay is only really spoken in a small location in comparison to Spanish. For Arabic I pointed to Egypt because that's the dialect I study. I figured since many of the Romance languages are related I could use cognates and speak slowly so that they would connect the sounds and the finger-pointing to the language with me having to name it. I exemplified each of my languages except for English since it was evident I was an anglo, then sat down without any smug look on my face. The old guy's friend non-chalantly casts his glance towards me and says in broken English, I speak all those languages and I didn't understand a f***ing thing you just said. Turns out he's ex-CIA, you see, and even showed me a photo of himself in a Portuguese newspaper article from a couple years ago. But he certainly didn't seem to be very good at English, his native language, which has been estranged from him through decades of living in France. And there was no will that he exhibited that he would actually help me practice my Arabic (one of my main reasons for going to Montréal in the first place). When a German speaker came down later that morning I had a quick conversation with him before he left because I told him if he were staying another night he should help me practice, and also, there's a funny German cartoon grafittied on the wall on the second floor ("Kunde: Ich möchte gerne Rumkugeln. Fleischer: Aber bitte nicht in meinem Laden!") and the next morning sitting with him again, an Arabic- speaker came in for his breakfast and asked me a couple of phrases which I responded to (although the one about my age was a little hard to understand because I've never come across it in my grammar exercises or Pimsleur recordings yet, how embarassing!) Anyways, I remember ranting to my friend about the old bastard because he seemed silently offended by the immodesty of my little presentation. The next morning though, he was a bit softer and made sure to tell me in accented English on my departure, 'don't do anything I wouldn't do'. Well I've made sure not to swear at tourists who say they speak foreign languages I'm too shy to speak! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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