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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 17 of 27 12 December 2014 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Depends on the situation and my mood.
"Why?" "What do you want me to say?" In that language: "What do you want me to say? I don't know what I should say." In that language: A random bit of song lyrics or a quote that is stuck in my mind. Possibly followed/preceded by: I find it a bit hard to say something in a foreign language when I know the other person can't understand me, because for me, language is a means of communicating ideas and being social, and when there is nobody to listen and understand, I can't think of anything to say. But maybe you want to hear the sound of the language? Also, people usually ask me to translate whatever I just said in the other language. For me, translating somebody's cue to a foreign language is roughly as difficult as coming up with something to say when you have nothing to say in a foreign language, so sometimes I'd rather have the cue. Edited by Bao on 12 December 2014 at 11:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 18 of 27 12 December 2014 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Either smth like "what do you want me to say"/"i don't know what to say", or something that sounds beautiful to me and makes at least some sense. Tonguetwisters can also work.
I generally get asked this by those who honestly have no clue what Finnish (or another language) sounds like. I'd be less patient if asked about a popular language (Spanish, German, Italian) or if I don't feel a genuine interest. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4771 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 19 of 27 13 December 2014 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah I also usually can't think of anything more creative than "What do you want me to say?" in the language. The only language for which I have a stock phrase that springs to mind instantly whenever I challenge myself to say something in it is Abkhaz (the phrase being "Аҟәа Аҧсны аҳәынҭқарра аҳҭнықалақь ауп" - "Sukhumi is the capital of the Republic of Abkhazia"), but no one has asked me to say something in Abkhaz so far.
A bit of a tangent, but I'm also reminded of a job interview I had once. In the résumé that I had submitted I included a short list of my stronger languages (English, German and Kazakh; not sure if Japanese was there at the time), and also wrote "good memory" as one of my strengths. At one point one of the interviewers said "It says here you have a good memory. Perhaps you could recite a poem for us. Maybe even in English, or in any of the other languages you've studied". At that point it had been almost a decade since I've had to recite a poem, and in my nervousness I couldn't think of a single poem... except for Philip Larkin's This Be the Verse. You can probably guess whether or not I got the job ;) (for the record, no I wasn't stupid enough to actually start reciting the poem the moment in sprung to my mind; however, in retrospect, it probably would have been better to honestly tell them that I'm not really into poetry than to ask permission to recite a poem "with dirty words in it" :D) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tyrion101 Senior Member United States Joined 3912 days ago 153 posts - 174 votes Speaks: French | Message 20 of 27 13 December 2014 at 7:05am | IP Logged | ||
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If I say I am fluent in French, people ask really? I say something along the lines of Je fais, or Oauis. People are always trying to get me to say oui oui. I just wont bite. I was half tempted to respond to someone hearing me listening to a hockey game in french to say "assez." But I figured that might be taken the wrong way. Certain French words sound exactly like English curse words. Que je peux faire? I'm gonna start saying something longer the next time I get asked.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5099 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 21 of 27 13 December 2014 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I always tell people that I only speak English so this doesn't really come up. If someone
discovers that I can converse in French, it usually occurs while I'm speaking French so naturally they don't ask me to say something else... That said, the last time anyone asked me to say something in French I said: Qu'est-ce que tu veux que je dise? What do you want me to say? Edited by Darklight1216 on 14 December 2014 at 1:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4664 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 22 of 27 13 December 2014 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | ||
I had this exact thing happen last night and I ended up with something along the lines of "what shall I say". Sadly I expect that "performing seal" wouldn't translate directly into Japanese (mind you, what are the odds that the audience would know :-)) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4333 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 23 of 27 13 December 2014 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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As of late this hasn't happened much. The people that are aware of me speaking several languages are friends and family who've known me for a while, so I am not as much of a novelty. :p
When it does happen, I write it up to their curiosity about foreign languages and ask to be given a subject to speak about. People truly interested will think and give me one, upon which I'll give them a line or two; the ones that see me as a parlor trick usually lose interest upon being requested for the topic (since they didn't think that far and aren't really interested). It's happened before that when I spoke well and clearly, the person became interested in the language or culture, and that's always a positive result. It used to strike a sensitive fiber when I was younger (like many others have said before, first and foremost I'd think "I am not here for your amusement"), but since I noticed that it sometimes is an educational opportunity, I've become more laid back. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 24 of 27 13 December 2014 at 10:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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This thread has made me think, it's high time I learned how to say, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" in French. That should be a suitable response, right?
6 persons have voted this message useful |
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