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Beware of "secret" languages ;-) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5904 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes  Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 73 of 173 04 October 2009 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
Me too, 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| NapoleonsLunch Newbie Australia napoleonslunch. Joined 5529 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: FrenchB2 | Message 74 of 173 05 October 2009 at 1:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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Swedish is an excellent secret language of Australia ;-)
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| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6186 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 75 of 173 05 October 2009 at 5:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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I use English as my secret language in Korea since hardly anyone knows enough to know what my friends and I might be talking about. When I know someone nearby can understand me I just speed up. I've only met one English learner who has poor speaking but can understand nearly everything I say even at full speed. She's my teacher this semester so it's a good thing I don't ever say anything negative or inappropriate in her presence!
Japanese was my secret language on a few occasions. I prefer keeping my knowledge of it secret because sometimes Japanese people will say something completely inappropriate that they wouldn't have said around me otherwise. It's hilarious! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6125 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 76 of 173 05 October 2009 at 6:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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This reminds me of the Madventures Burma episode. They were worried about being overheard by the Burma military, so instead of doing the show in English, they reverted to their secret code language -- Finnish.
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| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5904 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 77 of 173 05 October 2009 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
oh be careful about that, just the other day I was talking in English and we briefly mentioned the person sitting next to us (something about where she got her jacket, really stylish) and she turned on the spot and answered in English... Actually Koreans can often understand English better than speak it, which makes that it's easy to misjudge ^_^ 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6186 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 78 of 173 06 October 2009 at 12:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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I try to be careful. I don't outright talk about the people who can definitely hear us, especially if I can't at least see them and see if they might be trying to listen. I was once at a restaurant and a Korean man nearby made it the most obvious thing in existence that he was trying to get his English listening practice; he was leaning in so much that his chair was on its hind legs and turned his head a little.
And because of my speed even Koreans that know English at least at a conversational level have a difficult time hearing me. About once a month I say something that even my native English friends don't understand. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wilco Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6330 days ago 160 posts - 247 votes Speaks: French*, English, Russian | Message 79 of 173 09 November 2009 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My girlfriend and I speak russian (she's Chinese, I'm french) and I have to say it's quite useful having our own secret language... It must be very weird for Russian though, having to hear 2 non-natives speaking the language of Pushkin.
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| Reisender Triglot Newbie Italy Joined 5451 days ago 30 posts - 44 votes Speaks: German*, English, Italian Studies: Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek, French | Message 80 of 173 22 December 2009 at 10:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm studying in Italy right now and since the people i hang out with come from all over Europe, every language i am capable of speaking eventually turns into a "secret language". Even Italian, oddly enough, since there are a lot of tourists around here who don't understand a single word in Italian.
I remember one time though when a french friend of mine (who doesn't speak English) had a friend coming over who wasn't capable of speaking Italian. So we had this weird situation where we had no shared language spoken by the three of us which we could use. I was talking in Italian with my friend and English with the visitor and they were talking french with each other. I really have to improve my french some day... 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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