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Should I keep this up? | ||
Tags: Language Banditry | Native Speakers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 23 30 March 2015 at 11:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I've had quite a few experiences of native speakers making fun of me and laughing at me for mistakes, bad pronunciation, or saying a few words in their language to be nice. It can be upsetting at the time, especially if I've put a lot of hard work into the language, but it's just part of the experience and I like to think it's given me a thicker skin.
Even a few weeks ago I had been talking to a French girl in English, then when I left I said "à la prochaine", to which she just looked at me, paused a couple of seconds, then laughed a little and replied with the same thing in a condescending tone. These situations can feel like making a bet: you try to use a little of their language, and they might react well or they might react badly. You just have to not let the bad reactions upset you, as they're worth it for the good reactions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4101 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 18 of 23 30 March 2015 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | ||
Well, that was rude. No question about it. But, I too would find it a bit odd to have a fluent conversation with someone in one language and then suddenly have them throw a stock phrase at me in my own language (or worse: English), at least if my language is not the local language. When it comes to reactions, though, it might partly be a matter of developing thicker skin (although I can count the negative reactions I've received speaking a foreign language on one hand), but from my own experience it mostly comes down to putting yourself into their shoes and giving everyone you speak to the benefit of the doubt. For example, if I have a nice longish nice and fluent chat with someone in French, never once pausing to find words, using fairly complex constructions, understanding every single word uttered, and then, when they tell me a time or a number, they stop and spend forever figuring out how to translate that one thing into English... I could take offence at this comment on my French skills, after all I've clearly shown how I merit to be taken seriously rather than as another stupid foreigner who doesn't understand French, or I could be grateful for the effort made to help me based on their experience that "all foreigners" have trouble with French numbers and 24H time. Thus, I'd also ask myself: did the French girl, who really shouldn't have laughed, feel exoticised or maybe condescended when you suddenly spoke to her in French, or was she a bit taken aback and handled it poorly, or was she just a really rude person? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5238 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 19 of 23 30 March 2015 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | ||
But 你好 (NiHao) isn't the same as 你好吗 (NiHaoMa), since 你好吗 would translate better into English as "Are you feeling better?" or "Are you ill?". I think I would be offended if some stranger asked me if I was sick. Or have my Mandarin course books completely failed me? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 20 of 23 30 March 2015 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Actually it just translates as "are you all right." 你好 is more used as hello. But
illness can be the implication, yes - when you say 我好了 it means you are all cured :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3538 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 21 of 23 30 March 2015 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | ||
For what it's worth, I've noticed that when people are not expecting it, they will often get confused and not really hear what you say and it takes them some time to process it before they can respond (especially if your accent is not the best). So it might not really be a negative reaction as you think it is. I've learned to sorta segue a bit better now because I used to get a lot of reactions of blank stares and then "ooohhh" *awkward laugh and curt response in that language*. I remember the last time it happened to me was with a Brazilian waitress. I was trying to figure out her accent since we don't have many Brazilians here (or really anyone from South America) and when she mentioned she was Brazilian we had a bit of a chat about it and after I finished and was heading off I said "obrigado" she just had this deer in the headlights look before figuring out what I said and laughed and said what I presume to be good bye. Edited by basica on 31 March 2015 at 12:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 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 22 of 23 30 March 2015 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sometimes people just get surprised when a foreigner speaks their language - and in the concrete case the girl may also have assumed that Garyb didn't speak French because he had been speaking English to her until then.
I remember a case in Barcelona where I had asked for the Catalan version of the movable information gadget in a museum, and I had added "si us plau" (= s'il vous plaît). That made the two women at the counter giggle, and they repeated "si us plau" with obvious amusement and even more giggles. But I didn't take this as a condescending reaction - they were just not used to hearing that phrase from foreigners and were greatly amused by hearing it from a tourist. Edited by Iversen on 30 March 2015 at 4:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 23 of 23 30 March 2015 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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You're all probably right that in that case she was just confused or taken aback rather than rude. She knew that I spoke French, as that had come up in our conversation, but it was still probably a surprise since we had previously spoken in English. And it could well have come across the wrong way, as condescending as opposed to a friendly gesture, especially since it's a stock phrase that anyone could know without necessarily having much knowledge of the language.
I agree that putting yourself in their shoes can help you make a better guess about whether their intentions are really bad. As I say, I've had my share of experiences that did seem like genuine rudeness, but also other ones like this that are less clear and are probably just from surprise. Italians in particular find it quite strange to hear a foreigner speaking their language, so these days I more or less expect some sort of strange reaction and I don't take it personally. Maybe in this case with French I took it more personally than I should have because it's a language I don't get to practise much and because of previous bad experiences. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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