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Ungrateful Natives | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| rlf1810 Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6337 days ago 122 posts - 173 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Slovak | Message 1 of 139 14 December 2008 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello all,
I'm wondering how many of you have problems with natives of your target language being ungrateful of your efforts. Since I've been in Slovakia, I've had numerous people make fun of and otherwise ridicule my mistakes, no matter their seriousness. I really didn't expect such a harsh reception and it is somewhat discouraging. How do you deal with these types of people? -Robert 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| LanguageGeek Triglot Senior Member GermanyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6104 days ago 151 posts - 159 votes 4 sounds Speaks: German*, English, Hungarian Studies: French, Russian | Message 2 of 139 14 December 2008 at 3:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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So far I never heard good things about Slovaks...
My advice is to study Hungarian instead: Friendlier people, richer culture and much more glorious history. ( not just 20 years...) Slovaks: Don't flame me, I won't even bother to respond 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6031 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 3 of 139 14 December 2008 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Uh.. maybe you're just not in the right company. There are morons in every country (though, admittedly, some places yield higher concentrations ;p.) Edited by Sennin on 14 December 2008 at 3:40pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nissimb Tetraglot Groupie India tenjikuyamato.blogsp Joined 6411 days ago 79 posts - 102 votes Speaks: Marathi*, Hindi, English, Japanese Studies: Korean, Esperanto, Indonesian | Message 4 of 139 14 December 2008 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, in my case, the Japanese. Although I would not call them "ungrateful", as nobody made fun of my mistakes when I was in studying in Japan and spoke Japanese with them. They were just unappreciative and disinterested. I always felt that their attitude was like "you are interested in Japan and have studied Japanese, so what?". I had really wonderful experiences with Koreans and Indonesians, even though my knowledge of Korean and Indonesian was (and still is) pathetic.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Goindol Senior Member United States Joined 6071 days ago 165 posts - 203 votes | Message 5 of 139 14 December 2008 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Why do you feel entitled to gratitude?
26 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5995 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 6 of 139 15 December 2008 at 12:33am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know why you think you should get gratitude, the greatest respect, something I would hope for, is just to be treated as and spoken to as any other random person on the street in the local or national language of a place. It's pretty rough in China. You have the people who take no particular interest in you (not implying they should), and then you have the people super enthusiastic to meet you. The problem is the ones super enthusiastic are exactly the ones you don't want to meet because you'll have nothing in common. They want to go on and on about America TV shows, Britney Spears, and Justin Timberlake, and if I cared at all about that why would I have come to China? Then when the realize you are not the "stereotypical X" they were looking for and worse yet you study Chinese, you'll really feel despised.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7153 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 7 of 139 15 December 2008 at 12:47am | IP Logged | ||
No offence, but I can see the point of Goindol's response. I wouldn't expect gratitude from Slovaks just because I'd be making an effort to speak Slovak in Slovakia. After all, Slovak is the official language so all that I'd be doing would be trying to follow the rules and do as the locals do things. No gratitude expected. In any case, your experience still strikes me as very odd. I myself have an accent, but apparently some Slovaks seem surprised that I can speak with relatively little accent (if they only knew how many years it took for me to develop my accent in Slovak!). Whatever grammatical mistakes that I make in speech (and I make plenty of them) seem offset by their overestimation of the accuracy of my accent just on hearing my uttering of a few words in Slovak. Whenever I've been in Slovakia I've never been ridiculed (or at least I haven't been within earshot to catch it :-P) when speaking or writing in Slovak. The only things that I can think of are that you may be speaking Slovak with a thick accent or using it with grammatical errors that they deem to be worse than what a Slovak child would make. I don't know about your background, but maybe their expectations on your ability in Slovak are relatively high in comparison to mine. Do Slovaks think that you are of Slovak ancestry? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7153 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 8 of 139 15 December 2008 at 12:59am | IP Logged | ||
Very interesting. My Hungarian friends are shocked that I speak some Slovak, while my Slovak friends are shocked that I speak some Hungarian. It seems that some people on both sides of the border still have hard feelings. :-( For Slovakia learning Hungarian doesn't go that far. Trust me, I've tried to use Hungarian in Slovakia and got nowhere unless I had run into someone who's part of the Hungarian minority - and that was only twice in the 6 years that I've gone to Slovakia. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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