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How to get Germans to speak German to you | ||
Tags: Convincing native speakers | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4235 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 17 of 51 16 March 2014 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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I could summarise my method quite quickly: to avoid even the slightest chance for an
Anglophone to have a German (or anyone, even in Netherlands and Scandinavia) from speaking English is for the native Anglophone to pretend to not be an Anglophone at all, i.e. to pretend that one is a native Hispanophone, Lusophone, Francophone, etc., depending on region. If I remember correctly, I have around a 97% success rate therewith. I seemed to notice that Anglophones have the most likelihood of being switched to English than an Hispanophone to Spanish, Italophone to Italian, etc. This avoids worrying about anything about the interlocutor switching during the conversation. If they think that you cannot speak English (although you speak it since birth), they would generally not dare to switch to English, because it would just make the conversation even more cumbersome. If you have A2 or B1 German and pretend to have A0 or at the most, below A1 English, switching to English on their part makes no sense. Obviously other factors help; I have a Spanish forename (despite not being a native Hispanophone), so I almost invariably pretend to be a non-Anglophone Hispanophone whilst in most parts of Europe, especially Northern Europe. «¿Cómo? No inglés» is what I have used if anyone switches to English with me. Surprisingly it works more than the anxiety that I had previously. Obviously the major risk is that they discover that you are a native Anglophone, or speak English to a reasonable level. That is a risk/reward ratio: I simply give no damns about whether they find out or not--practising is more important. I suffered extreme anxieties when people and switched to English to me, and worrying about whether they might or not each second. But nowadays, still would I say, «No inglés» anyway. Edited by 1e4e6 on 16 March 2014 at 10:50pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Martien Heptaglot Senior Member Netherlands martienvanwanrooij.n Joined 7050 days ago 134 posts - 148 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, French Studies: Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Swedish, Arabic (Written) | Message 18 of 51 17 March 2014 at 1:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I am Dutch and most Germans will answer in German when I speak German to them, besides
actually my German is better than my English. Once I met a very arrogant German who insisted in speaking English to me every "th" sounded like "s" or "z" like "zees ees a good seeng" and finally I couldn't stand it any longer and I said, "Sprechen Sie bitte Deutsch mit mir, denn mein Deutsch ist besser als mein Englisch und ausserdem ist mein Deutsch auch besser als IHR Englisch" ... (please speak German with me as my German is better than my English and it is also better than YOUR English) ... but of course you have to get a reasonable knowledge of German before you can say something like this 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4235 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 19 of 51 17 March 2014 at 2:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Well this is general for any country, if they are so rude to insist not only several
times to speak English, especially if their English is poorer than your level in their language, it is fairly simple--I would simply leave the conversation and never talk to the person again. That is doubly insulting--he or she believes that not only your German (or whatever language) is poor that they must switch to English (which is extremely insulting for native Anglophones; "I must speak to you in your native language as your level of mine is so low"). But to continue in English with a non-native Anglophone, not only asking insistently, but ignoring the request of the interlocutor is trebly insulting. I would simply find someone else with whom to speak. Edited by 1e4e6 on 17 March 2014 at 3:41am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Falkenstein Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 3868 days ago 20 posts - 38 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Modern Hebrew Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 20 of 51 17 March 2014 at 3:35am | IP Logged | ||
Omg, I HATE when people sound like that. It's so embarrassing, it makes me sick. The only thing that makes it even worse is when they're full of confidence up to the point of arrogance thinking they're doing really well. I'm asking myself if they don't hear a difference between their pronunciation and how it's actually pronounced. It's a mystery I will never be able to understand. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tollpatchig Senior Member United States Joined 3952 days ago 161 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Maltese | Message 21 of 51 17 March 2014 at 3:47am | IP Logged | ||
You're a lot braver than me. I would've been afraid of looking like an "Ugly American" and would've probably just stood there nodding and smiling and pretending I understood that gibberish. Edited by Tollpatchig on 17 March 2014 at 3:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5279 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 22 of 51 17 March 2014 at 10:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I heard a nice one the other day. A couple were at a restaurant, and when their waitress misunderstood what they said, the guy switched to English, wanting to be kind to her. The waitress simply said. "Oh please continue speaking Norwegian to me, I'll learn it faster that way". Which they then of course did.
In my stronger languages I am not much bothered by people speaking English to me, except when I am in shops or hotels in Paris and they see my name. We may have been speaking French for several minutes without any problems, but the moment I produce my passport or my credit card, BAM, they go into English immediately. Sometimes I get so mad that I ask them why they do this, or pretended not to speak English, and they then appologize and continue in French, but most of the time I just continue speaking French until they switch back. On Mallorca they used to speak German to me (I seem to have a very German, Ukrainian and Russian face - they all speak to me in their own languages :-) and I used to have to pretend that I did not speak any German to make them speak Spanish to me. It did not bother me - I don't look very Spanish - but it did bother me if they continued to speak German to me after I had spoken Spanish to them, as my Spanish was far better than their German. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 17 March 2014 at 11:46am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Martien Heptaglot Senior Member Netherlands martienvanwanrooij.n Joined 7050 days ago 134 posts - 148 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, French Studies: Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Swedish, Arabic (Written) | Message 23 of 51 17 March 2014 at 11:15am | IP Logged | ||
When they act like that in a shop you could just say that you won't buy anything there if they don't speak to you in their local language. One in Spain I bought a (Spanish!) newspaper and the shopkeeper repeated serveral times the price in some gibberish that was supposed to be English, from a Spanish mouth fifty, fifteen, sixty and sixteen all will sound like theeth-tee (especially in Andalusia) after asking him several times to say it in Spanish he took a piece of chalk and wrote it on the desk, so I gave the newspaper back and said "if you assume I am unable to ask for the price of a newspaper I suppose it makes no sense for me to read it either" . The reluctance of Spaniards to speak Spanish with me is one of the main reasons why I stopped visiting the country, nowadays I prefer to chat with Spaniards by Facebook where my language skills are more appreciated. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4584 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 24 of 51 17 March 2014 at 11:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I really can't get angry with receptionists or waiters speaking to you in English (or German in Solfrid's case). After all, from their point of view they are supposed to be service-minded, and talking to the customer in what they think is their language, or in English as the lingua franca of the day, is probably part of the "customer service concept".
I have an anecdote in this regard: Once in a hotel in Canary Islands, there was a Dutch guy at the reception trying to explain something in rather poor English, whereupon the young lady at the reception replied in impeccable Dutch. Turned out it was a Finnish lady who worked there, and she was almost as big a language enthusiast as myself. If I remember correctly she spoke Swedish, Spanish, English, French, German and Dutch, in addition to Finnish of course. We had a pleasant conversation, and she told me that she had taken this job as a receptionist because it gave her a great opportunity to practise all her languages. To turn to the original question about Germans: I live at the border and go to Germany almost every week, and my experience is that most people here (in Baden Württemberg) are not that good in English and more than happy to engage with me in German. The only exception is in very touristy places, like the city of Baden Baden, where they will assess whether you are French, Russian or something else, and adapt their language accordingly (I am talking about shop keepers, waiters and attendants at the spa). 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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