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Coming out | ||
Tags: Silent period | Native Speakers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes  Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 1 of 12 06 February 2015 at 11:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi guys,
did you ever had to face this situation? - your boss (or a person with whom there is respect but not too much confidence) is a native speaker of a foreign language that you don't speak yet. - then you study his native language and you don't say anything just not to pass into the embarrassing phase where the only thing you can say is "a beer please" with the other person that tests your knowledge of his language - then you can speak his language and at this point you would like to talk with him in his language How do you manage this language come-out? :) I did it already with another language and another boss :P I said "oh, I forgot to tell you, I speak French! Nous pouvons parler en francais" :) (yes, no french characters available now, sorry :P) Did you do it differently? Do you have a nice and funny story about it? Well I have a funny one. I started to study French at the Alliance Francaiase along with two colleagues of mine. They started from A1.1, I started from A2.2. I came out with another French manager (I was doing the B1.1 in that moment) that knew that also my two colleagues where attending the lessons. We talked about work in French for 20 minutes. What the manager didn't know is that we our levels were different and my colleagues just started from scratch. After some days, he met one of my colleagues and started to speak in French to him about important work stuff. The conversation has been something like this: - Manager (speaking French): blablablbalblablablablablbablablablbalbalblabablbalbalblabla blbalblablabla. bla? - Colleague: oui, les pommes frites! - Manager (perplexed): blablbalbala? bla bla. bla? - Colleague: non, la tour Eiffel! - Manager: ... - Colleague: sorry, I still don't speak French that good! - Manager: but Tristano does! And then my colleague explained him that I've already studied some French before and I was B1, so our level were completely different. It is too bad that I didn't assisted to this conversation :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 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 2 of 12 06 February 2015 at 11:58am | IP Logged | ||
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I just talk. Most of the time they get slightly confused. People at my school here in
China (that is, where I study Mandarin) are consistently confused when I speak fluent language X to them anyways. By now I've had conversations in English/Dutch/German/French/Swedish/Russian/Mandarin (and some Norwegian/Danish). Only no Romanian yet or any southern European languages (or Greek/Hebrew/Korean). I don't just tell them but I find a nice quiet spot in a conversation. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 3 of 12 07 February 2015 at 10:38am | IP Logged | ||
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nice! :)
sounds like a good strategy! I would like to see their faces :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 12 07 February 2015 at 2:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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My collegues have discovered that I have a thing with languages, but it is not something we discuss, and I don't try to 'exploit' collegues with other native languages. I remember once I was to a gathering of some kind and an employee from another department with a Latinamerican background had brought his hispanophone wife. Just for fun I greeted them in Spanish, and that developed into a conversation in Spanish - but I wouldn't speak Spanish to him if I meet him as part as my job. I don't think it would be seen as appropriate to switch languages in a professional setting, based on the origin of my collegues. Edited by Iversen on 07 February 2015 at 2:37pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lumisade Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 3584 days ago 3 posts - 6 votes Studies: Polish, German*, English Studies: French, Dutch, Norwegian, Esperanto | Message 5 of 12 07 February 2015 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a Dutch friend who doesn't know I speak Dutch. Well, we don't talk very often. But
when we first met I didn't know any Dutch and I don't know what to say when I meet her next time. "Hey, guess what, I learned Dutch in the meantime!"? People always think I'm weird as hell because I like learning languages. I have a good friend who thinks I'm a total freak because I listen to Norwegian music and understand the lyrics. :D 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 6 of 12 07 February 2015 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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meh. one that think that you're weird because you like languages is definitely much weirder than you.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 12 07 February 2015 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||
Really? I find it's quite common that people think I'm weird because I like languages. Very few people do, after all, so even I think I'm weird. Fortunately, I'm in good company on HTLAL! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 8 of 12 07 February 2015 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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We are hugely off topic here but if someone thinks I'm weird is definitely his problem, not mine. At the end we are
all different so we are all weird. So learning many languages, discovering different cultures and broadening one's own horizons is to be considered an activity for weird people? Thank God we're all weird in HTLAL! Much better than wasting time watching stupid TV shows eating trash food! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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