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Most surprised reaction from natives? | ||
Tags: Native Speakers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4622 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes  Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 49 of 91 21 May 2012 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Keep in mind that all of these countries (Norway, Holland, etc.) have large numbers of immigrants most of whom do not know English very well when they move. It's not like they communicate with the natives in English!
There's a whole other thread about this issue, so it might be nice to keep this one about surprised reactions from natives. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| KimG Diglot Groupie Norway Joined 4977 days ago 88 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Portuguese, Swahili | Message 50 of 91 21 May 2012 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Beano, where I live people is not so used to speaking English, so its quite simple to find people who simply can't speak English, or understand passable, outside cities. Especially people from, say, the age of 40 and up. In big cities you'd never need to learn Norwegian at all, outside of there, it's simpler to speak Norwegian to natives.
My biggest difficulty speaking to foreginers learning Norwegian have been speaking without too thick a dialect for newbie learners, and I think they seem to have no issues finding people who'd want to speak Norwegian, if they want to, bigger issue is understanding what they say. That besides, we DO got an good school system who know how to teach English. But only the ones who uses it remain fluent, lots of people seem to loose it slowly but shurely by never using it. I was worst in my class, I just started using it afterwards. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Skai Newbie United States Joined 4627 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 51 of 91 21 May 2012 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I usually receive a very positive response from Japanese people when I speak to them in
their language. I have been able to connect very quickly with many Japanese I have met. They never seem to have any expectation that an American would learn their language, especially since they have to study so much English. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| COF Senior Member United States Joined 5831 days ago 262 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English* | Message 52 of 91 21 May 2012 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | ||
When I visited the UK I noticed there were plenty of foreign workers, mainly Eastern Europeans in jobs in the UK who had less than perfect English and they didn't seem to have much trouble finding jobs. Admittedly, most of these people seem to work in unskilled, low pay positions like coffee shops and restaurants, but I'm just saying that even in the UK you don't have to be fluent in English to find work, so that situation must be even more true in Norway, where the population is mostly fluent in English and do not expect foreigners to speak Norwegian. 1 person has 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 53 of 91 22 May 2012 at 1:23am | IP Logged | ||
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yes yes, but where have the surprised reactions gone in this thread?
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| buchstabe Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4702 days ago 52 posts - 108 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: Czech, Swedish, Japanese | Message 54 of 91 22 May 2012 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | ||
I tried it after a year of Dutch in a university course (so really not very impressive skills). In Amsterdam I always got replies in English - some very friendly, I guess they just wanted to chat a bit and expected that it wouldn't work that well for me in Dutch, but also some (in shops and one restaurant) that seemed not too pleased and rather impatient. In Nijmegen however, people replied in Dutch. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| buchstabe Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4702 days ago 52 posts - 108 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: Czech, Swedish, Japanese | Message 55 of 91 23 May 2012 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||
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About surprised reactions: Some years ago I was working at a small company where the graphics designer was a Czech expat. We had been working together for over a year without me ever mentioning that I was studying Czech, when to this birthday I went over to him with a small cake and said a few sentences in Czech. As to be expected, he was surprised and he asked if I had memorized that for his birthday (funnily enough, he did so in Czech!).
When I replied to that in Czech, he seemed completely taken aback and gave me, although normally a quiet person, a spontaneous hug. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4902 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 56 of 91 23 May 2012 at 3:37am | IP Logged | ||
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After an hour lesson this weekend during my trip to Budapest, the lady I was buying
sausage from in the Central Market Hall continued to speak to me in Hungarian after I placed my order and greeted her without the usual switch to English. Unfortunately I didn't know what she said back, but she was impressed. Not amazing, but after one hour of formal study of such a hard language, I was presently surprised with myself! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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