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Beware of "secret" languages ;-)

  Tags: Turkish | Polish | Japanese
 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages Post Reply
173 messages over 22 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 17 ... 21 22 Next >>
hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 5139 days ago
1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 129 of 173
21 April 2011 at 3:44am | IP Logged 
Marc Frisch wrote:
ReneeMona wrote:
I remember when I was a kid, I think I was about 11, my after school teachers would sometimes talk about their periods in English to make sure none of us kids understood. They eventually stopped doing that after they noticed how I was always smiling knowingly during those conversations


I don't know if I'm more shocked that your teachers would talk about their periods or that you already were afflicted by this at such a young age.

Now see, I read that and totally thought period meant "class period", not what you're referring to.

R.
==
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ReneeMona
Diglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 5344 days ago
864 posts - 1274 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2
Studies: French

 
 Message 130 of 173
21 April 2011 at 11:21am | IP Logged 
hrhenry wrote:
Marc Frisch wrote:
ReneeMona wrote:
I remember when I was a kid, I think I was about 11, my after school teachers would sometimes talk about their periods in English to make sure none of us kids understood. They eventually stopped doing that after they noticed how I was always smiling knowingly during those conversations


I don't know if I'm more shocked that your teachers would talk about their periods or that you already were afflicted by this at such a young age.

Now see, I read that and totally thought period meant "class period", not what you're referring to.

R.
==


Sorry about all the confusion. I did mean they talked about their menstruations and suffice it to say that I was not afflicted by this at the age of 11.
1 person has voted this message useful



Marc Frisch
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6674 days ago
1001 posts - 1169 votes 
Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Persian, Tamil

 
 Message 131 of 173
21 April 2011 at 11:10pm | IP Logged 
ReneeMona wrote:
I did mean they talked about their menstruations


You did?
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psy88
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5600 days ago
469 posts - 882 votes 
Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French

 
 Message 132 of 173
22 April 2011 at 4:21am | IP Logged 
ReneeMona wrote:
hrhenry wrote:
Marc Frisch wrote:
ReneeMona wrote:
I remember when I was a kid, I think I was about 11, my after school teachers would sometimes talk about their periods in English to make sure none of us kids understood. They eventually stopped doing that after they noticed how I was always smiling knowingly during those conversations


I don't know if I'm more shocked that your teachers would talk about their periods or that you already were afflicted by this at such a young age.

Now see, I read that and totally thought period meant "class period", not what you're referring to.

R.
==




Sorry about all the confusion. I did mean they talked about their menstruations and suffice it to say that I was not afflicted by this at the age of 11.






Which reminds me of the story about the teenage vampire who said to his high school girlfriend "I'll see you next period."

















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Matheus
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5090 days ago
208 posts - 312 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*
Studies: English, French

 
 Message 133 of 173
25 April 2011 at 6:39pm | IP Logged 
Some months ago, I was in love with a native Chinese speaker. She used to speak in Chinese with her friend, who was also a native Chinese speaker. I remember that we worked together, not really together, but on the same street. I can't speak anything in Chinese and she knew that. Everytime she was around me, she only spoke Chinese.. and I thought, well, maybe she is talking about me. Then I was at the front of the store, helping the clients, and I saw her coming with her friend, (who was also her boss)both speaking in Chinese. When they were close to me, her boss stared at my face and said something in Chinese, and the other girl (the one I loved) started to laugh.

I still don't know what they said and I think it's a lack of education.

If someone can help me, I'd appreciate that help. Since I don't know how to write the sounds properly in English, I'll write in Hiragana (I know, Hiragana is Japanese, but what she said sounded like that).

Maybe they could be speaking another dialect, but I heard something like:

てが　Or　ぺが。　

What could it have been? any words which sound like that?

Thanks in Advance.

1 person has voted this message useful



Tz_LtZ
Newbie
United States
Joined 4971 days ago
1 posts - 1 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 134 of 173
26 April 2011 at 2:10am | IP Logged 
acadien wrote:
Haha! Anyone who uses *English* as a secret language is going to get what's coming to them ^__^

Absolutely... It's incredibly daft of people to speak English in front of foreigners and assume that they can't speak it too, when probably 9 times out of 10 it will be the opposite. XD

I think that can apply to all romance languages as well.

I'm reminded of a funny story from my math class during my sophomore year of high school. We had a substitute teacher one day. He was white, elderly, and was very quiet and only spoke to us when asked a question. Being kids, most people took that as an excuse to act rudely and take advantage of the substitute. A lot of the Spanish speaking students were particularly rowdy that day (as were the English speaking ones), and he just stood meekly in the back of the class, seemingly helpless and overwhelmed. Well, the next day our original teacher was back, and she politely informed us all that our sub was fluent in Spanish. Needless to say a lot of students got in trouble that day. Thankfully I was a shy kid, and didn't socialize much.

Edited by Tz_LtZ on 26 April 2011 at 2:18am
1 person has voted this message useful



canada38
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5504 days ago
304 posts - 417 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French
Studies: Portuguese, Japanese

 
 Message 135 of 173
26 April 2011 at 1:10pm | IP Logged 
For one year I shared a house with several other students, all of whom were Chinese.
Accordingly, the house functioned in Mandarin except for when I was around, when the
lingua franca usually switched to English. Occasionally, I'd hear their nickname
for me in a few sentences of Mandarin. In retrospect, they could not have said anything
too insulting about me, as we have all remained friends even after I moved to another
province. Nonetheless, to spite them, my girlfriend and I would do the same thing but
speak in French. Needless to say, on many occasions they looked quite confused!

Edit: One of my biggest regrets is not having learnt to speak Mandarin whilst living
there.

Edited by canada38 on 26 April 2011 at 1:11pm
2 persons have voted this message useful



kraemder
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5193 days ago
1497 posts - 1648 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 136 of 173
23 June 2011 at 1:35am | IP Logged 
I actually have a response to this. A number of years ago when i was living in Boston I was shopping at
the Coop a bookstore in Harvard square. I was young and good looking at the time (or better looking than
now anyway). There were some attractive young German girls right near me talking and one blond was
pointedly looking at me and talking to her friend she called me a her traumman or dream guy in German.
She was like 5 ft away from me and it blew my mind to have that happen. No I didnt have the balls to do
anything about it but I'll never forget it. Not everything people say about others in a secret language is bad!


1 person has voted this message useful



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