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Hi, my name is Irina... | ||
Tags: Language Banditry | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5419 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 9 of 31 01 January 2015 at 5:25pm | IP Logged |
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I think I came up with the perfect solution. Building on iguanamon's brilliant idea, I can speak Spanish,
Russian and English with my friends, (which I would do anyway) and if anyone asks where I am from I can say they can guess, and then simply let them make their own assumptions, without denying or confirming them. They would then probably guess Russian anyway (I'll make sure to wear high heels, make up and generally look as beautiful as I possibly can). Would faking a slight Russian accent still count as deception? :- ) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Einarr Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom einarrslanguagelog.w Joined 4698 days ago 118 posts - 269 votes Speaks: English, Bulgarian*, French, Russian Studies: Swedish | Message 10 of 31 01 January 2015 at 9:30pm | IP Logged |
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I've pretended to be Norwegian once. I was walking down the street and was literally
stalked by two girls who were doing something like a questionnaire and I was not in the mood for taking part of it whatsoever, so when they finally approached me I just said: "Jeg forstår ikke hva du sier." which was enough for them to go away. :D Then again, I usually do as Solfrid Cristin said above and let people just guess. I don't usually like being asked where do I come from as I've had some quite unpleasant experiences upon disclosing my nationality, due to the UK media presenting us in a negative light and general xenophobia. As I say jokingly to a friend of mine from India: "Next time when someone asks me where do I come from out of the blue I'll just say I'm from South Africa or Namibia so at least I could wish them a nice day in Afrikaans and shut them up." P.S.: Just recalled how I once got mistaken for a Hungarian, took it as a compliment, and started thinking how amazing it would be if I actually was able to speak Hungarian fluently, as it is's always been a fascinating language to me. Edited by Einarr on 01 January 2015 at 9:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4792 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 11 of 31 01 January 2015 at 10:15pm | IP Logged |
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I don't know... in the company of Norwegians, Swedes and Germans, I don't stick out like
a sore thumn - in the company of Colombians, Filipinos and Koreans, I do. I like to think that my Dutch nationality is boring in Europe (because I look like a fairly average northern European) but I don't really care what people think about my nationality. Although I'm sure I'll never pass for Chinese. I just don't look the part at all. Edited by tarvos on 01 January 2015 at 10:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5419 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 12 of 31 01 January 2015 at 10:32pm | IP Logged |
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I have passed as both Spanish and French, after all there are blond Spaniards and Frenchmen, and I pass as
a Russian on a daily basis. Every time I get accosted by salesmen or beggars I answer in Russian. It works like a charm:-) . Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 01 January 2015 at 10:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4375 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 13 of 31 01 January 2015 at 11:50pm | IP Logged |
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I would say 100%. When I go to the "no margin for error" countries, i.e. Netherlands,
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, especially, but just generally whitherever I go, I always pretend to be Spanish or Argentinian nationalidad, so that no one switches to English. If they switch to English, I have to maintain my caracter, so I respond in Spanish or seriously broken English, saying that I cannot speak English to any respectable capacity. I might even say, «¿Cómo? ¡No entiendo na'a lo que m'etá dicien'o! ¡No hablo na'a d'inglés!» in rapid speech to confuse them and stop their English switching antics. This strategy has worked insofar for me. This also helps because I am mixed race with Spanish, so actually it is not completely lying. My real forename is Nicolás, my real nickname is Nico, and this is actually how I am called whilst living in Anglophone countries. I suppose that it could possibly be a half-lie, since my grandmother was of orígenes asturianos, so perhaps this actually helps to look more convincing. Nevertheless, I quite like my strategy. I must add that since I lie like this, I have to make sure that I can speak Spanish properly enough to fool people into thinking that I actually am some sort of native. In the case that I go to Sweden or Norway and I pretend to be Spanish or Argentinian and they happen to be C2 minimum and even higher in Spanish, then that would be interesting. It would be a very interesting conversation, but I have maintained in previous conversations that I was from Barcelona, Madrid, Buenos Aires, or Santiago de Chile, changing the accent accordingly. A C2 could probably catch me because I am not C2 (yet!), but so far that has never happened, not even close. Although true, Solfrid is C2 and is from Norway.. Edited by 1e4e6 on 01 January 2015 at 11:54pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5419 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 14 of 31 02 January 2015 at 12:46am | IP Logged |
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I'd believe you :-) That looks like Andalusian.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4792 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 15 of 31 02 January 2015 at 12:47am | IP Logged |
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I think in that case you probably have other issues preventing you from speaking Dutch
or the Scandinavian languages. I have NEVER had problems with people switching to English in any of those countries, ever. Even in Denmark, and my Danish is very poor. I do speak acceptable Norwegian and good Swedish (the Norwegian is strongly Swedified though), so perhaps you need to find a few different remedies. 1) You need to understand on what grounds the switching take place. I find that the most common reason for the switch is not "detecting a faint hint of an accent" but detecting a sentence intonation that is so obviously foreign people give off the impression that they don't understand (when they may speak correctly, grammatically speaking). I know many people that complain about this, but the one thing they all have in common is that their sentence intonation is very foreign. They do not INTONATE like Dutch speakers, their sentence melody sounds very strange. One of my students, who is American, has this problem far less because she's a very good imitator of the correct intonation, and thus when she speaks, she sounds Dutch. The grammar gives her away, but her speech does not irritate any nerves because she sounds right and thus the tolerance for grammar errors becomes much higher. I recommend you work on intonating your Dutch properly. Pronunciation is a vital skill to avoid the switch. 2) You need to understand the social mores using English. The Dutch are the masters of consensus politics and switch to English to help other people and to make them feel welcome. If you are somewhere with a group, and people notice that there are lots of foreigners, they will speak English to ease negotations or navigation and help. This is how the culture works. Keep in mind that the Dutch are a highly pragmatic population and often seek the quickest way to a goal - and that's a reason for promoting foreign languages, especially English. Even if you're in a room full of a 100 people, if 2 people do not speak Dutch, the Dutch switch. That's culturally expected here. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5460 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 16 of 31 02 January 2015 at 1:12am | IP Logged |
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This thread reminds me of Kenny Chesney's "out last night" lyrics:
I was a doctor, a lawyer, a senator's son Brad Pitt's brother and a man on the run Anything I thought would get the job done 1 person has voted this message useful |
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