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Should I keep this up? | ||
Tags: Language Banditry | Native Speakers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| 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 9 of 23 23 March 2015 at 2:32am | IP Logged | ||
What people do you hang out with? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3535 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 10 of 23 23 March 2015 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||
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The response can be either or. When I was studying Japanese in college I had two main
reactions when I attempted to speak with Japanese - On one hand, some people were really surprised you knew even a little bit and would interact with you a little bit in it and on the others were basically puzzled you were attempting to speak to them in Japanese and would just continue speaking in English and in my experience it was mostly the later reaction. With people from other countries, the reactions really vary. I know a couple of phrases in a bunch of languages that I use to use when I worked in touristy area and people mostly loved it. On a couple occasions I'd get a negative reaction, but it was almost overwhelmingly positive - except with the Japanese (at least in my experience). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4443 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 11 of 23 23 March 2015 at 6:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't see any problems greeting a customer in his/her own native language. Like if you see an Italian you
might say "Buon Giorno" to make a person feel welcome. In a local Chinatown I've seen a few foreigners come up to Chinese people and say something like "I know how to say nihaoma for hello". Even when their level of fluency may be minimal saying a few basic phrases isn't meant to be offensive. About 10 years ago Mark Rowswell (now the Chinese actor Dashan) was still living in Canada. In the east-end of Toronto he came across 2 people. The first lady spoke Mandarin to the other Chinese lady asking for directions. The other lady who is a Cantonese-speaker looked puzzled. Mark the White Canadian who studied Mandarin for a few years and can pick up a bit of Cantonese explained to the lady which bus she should take. She was surprised that a White person spoke fluent in Chinese. 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 12 of 23 23 March 2015 at 10:33am | IP Logged | ||
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There was one aspect of the problem which hasn't been mentioned yet, namely that OP said something in response to overhearing a telephone conversation. Some people might react to that rather than to the choice of language itself.
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| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4098 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 13 of 23 23 March 2015 at 10:57am | IP Logged | ||
I'd generally think that was a bit rude too, but it depends on the situation. If you're working the till at a shop and you're scanning items while the customer is standing right in front of you loudly speaking Language X, that's a bit different from overhearing someone speaking quietly on the phone somewhere in an empty aisle of that same shop. The only way to speak Language X to the latter, in my opinion, is to start off by very sheepishly apologising for accidentally overhearing a clearly private conversation. But you don't do that just to show them that you know how to say "hello" and "thank you" in their language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3541 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French | Message 14 of 23 23 March 2015 at 11:29am | IP Logged | ||
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If you want to use foreign words and phrases, there's really no reason to limit yourselves to people who you think may be in that language. After all, everyone can recognize an uncountable quantity of foreign words and phrases such as buongiorno, bon appétit, Gezundheit, c'est la vie, konnichiwa, et cetera, etc. The only reason you know what these mean (without having studied the languages from which they come) is because people used them without feeling so self conscious.
On the other hand, communicating with someone in another language is very much a different thing. Saying a fixed greeting or phrase to someone in any language is not a deep level of communication. You have to connect to another human so that you are exchanging thoughts and ideas with each other in realtime. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4289 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 15 of 23 23 March 2015 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | ||
Not with those people thankfully, but it happens in unpleasant experiences throughout life. There is probably more forgiveness and understanding when trying to speak and you are B1, but being below A1 or just knowing several words, I notice that some think that you take the mickey or think that perhaps you try to "infiltrate" their culture as an outsider. And thankfully these attitudes are not the majority, but still happen time to time. I still give credit to Hispanophones, because no matter how much you struggle they give you forgiveness and conversation. I remember when I was in Mexico in 2005 as a 16 year old and was A2 maximum, needless to say much much worse than my Spanish level now. I stumbled and struggled, trying to find where some shopping centres were and then which one sells what, but each person whom I asked just talked slowly and clearly with a smile. A different attitude, I suppose. Edited by 1e4e6 on 23 March 2015 at 8:40pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tyrion101 Senior Member United States Joined 3912 days ago 153 posts - 174 votes Speaks: French | Message 16 of 23 24 March 2015 at 4:57am | IP Logged | ||
The person in question was standing next to me waiting for her boyfriend and not speaking very softly, in this case I just enjoyed my first experience with spoken Mandarin in person. So that really didn't feel like eavesdropping to me. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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