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Getting people not to speak English | ||
Tags: Language Banditry | Convincing native speakers | Immersion | Swedish | Learning Technique/Method | Accent | English | German | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7381 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes  12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 169 27 March 2005 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Italy and Mexico I have been faced with a recurring problem. As soon as people realize that you are not a local, they start talking to you in English. This happens no matter how good your Spanish or that your mother tongue is perhaps not English. If they know English, they will want to speak to you in English.
Obviously for a language lover eager to practice is Spanish or Italian, this is not very good. It can also feel quite insulting - the asumption being that the person thinks his English is better than your Spanish. I have found a trick that works for me in 100% of the cases and only wish I had devised it sooner. Since it is not patentable, I'll gladly share it here.
This is a fun trick to play and I think the small dimension of trickery is well deserved by people who address you immediately in English no matter what. It works just fine as long as you do not have a strong English accent. Where I use Russian, you can choose another language that you are confident the person does not speak. You need to sound sincere in your praise of his English because half the reason they press for speaking English is because they want to look smart. If you offer Russian, they do not look so smart any more and will safely retreat to their native language, which they speak better than you do anyway. It has never failed me so far! Edited by administrator on 27 March 2005 at 2:24pm 21 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7196 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 169 27 March 2005 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've done that once or twice in Mexico, only I've pretended that my native language is French. This is a bit more dangerous than Russian since someone might actually speak French in Mexico and call me on it and since my French is inferior to my Spanish, I'd end up looking rather foolish.
I've found that this doesn't happen very often anymore, probably because I no longer have as many hesitations and errors in my Spanish.
It's not necessarily that. They may be just as eager to practice their English as you are to practice your Spanish or Italian. Edited by administrator on 27 March 2005 at 3:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7323 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 169 27 March 2005 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Francois, this sounds like a fantastic trick. I will definitely try it when I get to ever speak in the language I'm learning. Thanks for sharing it with us.
This might be frustrating when even English is not your native tongue. But like KingM said, people just want to have opportunities to try out their English. This situation is especially common outside of Europe and the Americas. People, seeing any Caucasian, will want to speak in the English they learned - and possibly ask for help in English right away. I do sympathize with those who are travelling outside of Europe/America who are not very good at English. I bought this book which teaches people how to approach "foreigners" (assuming they speak English) I think it will be much easier for me to use this trick in Europe. I might have mentioned this before - when I was in Japan, people start talking to me in Japanese and I simply stare at them in awe. Back then I didn't speak English either and we had to rely on broken English to communicate. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7381 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 169 27 March 2005 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I believe I understand why people would try to speak English with me - it clearly not to try and offend me. But sometimes, offend they do, so I give them a taste of their own medicine with my little fable!
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7196 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 169 27 March 2005 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | ||
Assuming you do it cleverly enough, this little white lie wouldn't offend anyone, since they'd assume that you really didn't speak English. I said earlier that I understand why people try to speak English with me, but that doesn't mean that I have to comply. After all, I've spent a lot of time and money to go to visit their country. They wouldn't expect me to eat at McDonald's when I was in their country. I hope I can be excused for preferring the local language, as well. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| souley Senior Member Joined 7246 days ago 178 posts - 177 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 6 of 169 27 March 2005 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think some sympathy for the English speaking natives is in place.
Imagine you've studied Russian for months and months and is so eager to try it out, then finally you met a vacationing Russian speaker on the street, of course you'de like to try your new language skills on him, and would be kind of dissapointed if he were to prefer your native language. This is the scenario I believe many native live, especially those who haven't had such a vast contact with English and its speakers, as we have. We have to remember that not all people have the financial resources to travel for the sake of language learning, so meeting English speakers in their own country is maybe all they have. So it's a give and take situation. Edited by souley on 27 March 2005 at 8:13pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7261 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 7 of 169 27 March 2005 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the early 21st century, getting people not to speak English to foreigners is indeed the greatest difficulty in immersing onself in a language, not just for native English speakers, but for all foreigners. English has indeed advanced to the status of "international language" to the degree that the instinctive and immediate reaction of many people is to speak it automatically to outsiders. Indeed, I can measure the progress of English as an international tongue in Europe from personal memory.
When I lived there from 1994-1996, the first language (and often the only language) in train announcements was the local language; when I visited there again in the winter or 1999-2000, the first language in all train announcements was English, then followed by the local language. In Korea, so many Koreans have been programed to speak English to foreigners than no technique, the adminstrators "trick," direct request, sarcasm, belligerancy, pleading, or anything else will work. As much as I love learning foreign languages, I fear that the future is indeed English and only English. Edited by administrator on 28 March 2005 at 11:43pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7228 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 8 of 169 28 March 2005 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've had a great deal of success with that trick as well. You often have to tinker with the specific details to be successful though. For example, my first time in Taiwan, whenever anyone tried to speak English with me, my standard response at first was something along the lines of "Duibuqi, wo shi deguoren" (Sorry, I'm German), mainly because I've always been told that I look very Germanic. Anyway, a lot of the time this didn't phase them one bit, so one day on a whim I changed it to "Duibuqi, wo shi helanren" (Sorry, I'm Dutch), and it worked like a charm that time and every time after. Well, except for the *one* time I met a person who was in fact fluent in Dutch, and even then we both had a good laugh after I'd explained myself.
My theory is that because of Taiwan's historic ties with the Dutch, the idea was more familiar to them, whereas a German was just another European and European's speak English. So, it is a good trick, but you should choose your persona very carefully. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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