|
 |
Rude to speak a foreign language? | ||
Tags: Language Banditry | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5730 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes  Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 1 of 17 30 September 2013 at 9:58am | IP Logged | ||
|
I'm wondering if anyone else feels this way, and how you handle it:
I'd really like to practice my Spanish with native speakers in a certain part of town and in businesses that cater to the Spanish-speaking population, but I feel it's rude to open the conversation in Spanish - like I'm insulting their English ability, or denyin them the chance to practice English. The only time I really get to practice Spanish is if someone's English is so bad they're obviously struggling and then they're grateful when I switch to Spanish. I just feel so awkward about it because if it's a shop owner or something, even if my Spanish is better than their English overall, their English is usually more fluid (if accented) when it comes to the limited and repetitive interactions that happen in a store, and then they're giving me this weird look. Interestingly enough, I haven't had this problem with Cantonese - they're so happy you bother to learn at all they'll praise and encourage you even if you only speak a few words badly. It also helps that native Cantonese speakers, very generally, tend not to speak English as well as Spanish speakers, so it makes more sense to speak Cantonese with them. How do you go about practicing your language with minority groups in your country? Can you relate to what I'm saying, and is there a way to make it seem less rude? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4356 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 17 30 September 2013 at 10:35am | IP Logged | ||
|
Suppose you actually tell them you need the practice, for learning purposes?
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mike245 Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6970 days ago 303 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese Studies: French, German, Mandarin, Khmer | Message 3 of 17 30 September 2013 at 10:48am | IP Logged | ||
|
If the shop is having a slow day or if you are dealing with a family-owned restaurant
and/or friendly waitstaff, you can usually ask them if they wouldn't mind speaking to you in their native language so that you can get some practice. That way, it comes across as asking a favor of them, rather than looking like you are insulting their English abilities. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nicozerpa Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 4324 days ago 182 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English Studies: Italian, German | Message 4 of 17 30 September 2013 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I agree with Renaissancemedi, simply tell them that you want to practice Spanish with them because you're learning. In general, we like helping other people learn our language, this applies to both Latin Americans and Spaniards.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 17 30 September 2013 at 12:58pm | IP Logged | ||
A few thoughts based on my experiences using French in Montreal. Some of this won't apply to English/Spanish in the US, but maybe you can find some ideas here. 1. You will probably find lots of Spanish speakers who are actually more comfortable speaking English. I can't find the statistics right now, but there's a huge number of Americans for whom Spanish is actually the weaker of their native languages. These folks can function fine in Spanish, but they still prefer to use English when they can. (The Montreal version of this is either fully-native bilinguals, or actual anglophones who normally speak French in public, but who will always use English with other native speakers.) 2. Convincing people to use their native language gets radically easier once you reach a certain level. For me, this was somewhere between B2 and C1. If you can carry on a conversation fluently, without seeming stressed, a lot of people will be happy to humor you. This goes double for paying customers. 3. You can affect which language people speak to you by using "props". For example, you could carry around a book or newspaper in your L2, or you could wear a T-shirt with a joke written in your L2. In Montreal, this completely sidesteps the whole language negotiation dance, and people just start speaking a torrent of hide-speed French. Also, reading something in your L2 gives you a socially acceptable reason to greet people in your L2—if I'm interrupted in the middle of a book, I'll often greet monolingual English speakers in French, then laugh and apologize. 4. You just can't win with some people. For example, my wife and were visiting one of her relatives in Quebec, and we were at a social event. My kids were playing with a 4-year-old girl, a French speaker, and I struck up a conversation with her father. After about 15 minutes, there were four of us: my wife, my in-law, the father of the girl, and me, and all four of us were speaking French. At some point, somebody mentioned to the father that I was from the US. He immediately switched to English. His English was fine, but clearly a second language, and it was certainly no better than my French. Since I was speaking with other French speakers, I just ignored the switch and kept speaking French. And for the next 15 minutes, he was the only person in the conversation speaking English! He never spoke another word of French to me again all day. Clearly this guy was determined to speak English, either for practice or simply to be nice to the American, and I couldn't change that. Don't let this get to you. Good luck finding people to speak Spanish with! 14 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 6 of 17 30 September 2013 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | ||
This. The problem is getting there. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 7 of 17 30 September 2013 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||
|
You need to tell them or just dare to start in Spanish. It does work more often than one would guess. And if you are too shy (or too nice) about it, you will just never get the practice because people learning English are not shy/nice about it. It isn't expected of them, after all.
emk gives excellent advice. A few more points from my experience: 1.Work on the correct pronunciation right from the beginning. Just repeating after audio can get you further than some learners believe. This is not about accent, at least not primarily. Not getting basic pronunciation right, that is what drives people off from using the language with you. This is trouble for surprisingly high % of learners both self teaching and those from classes (including those taught by natives). 2.Work on your listening comprehension. While you can do pretty well with just a few thousand words, the native speakers won't limit themselves. But once they feel they need to use limited language (vocabulary-wise but not only) because you obviously have trouble understanding them, they will switch to English. 3.emk's advice about props is totally awesome. A t-shirt may not work (many people are wearing things they don't understand, including non flattering or plain rude ones, and it is well known). But a book never hurts and often helps. At least if you are like me and carry one with you nearly all the time. :-) 4.Try to act confident about it. This is quite difficult for some of us to learn. But it helps. 5.You are unlucky English is your native language and you would have hard time to fake another native language. But the rest of us can just lie "I don't speak English" in many situations. And it is not that much of a lie. I am really not willing to speak English in France, Spain, Germany and so on. Not unless a life depends on it (not necessarily mine.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 8 of 17 30 September 2013 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I like emk's idea about wearing a t-shirt with your L2 on it. That's a cool idea.
I occasionally have customers who speak English to me, but obviously speak Spanish natively. I want to practice Spanish with them, but I also want them to know I can speak Spanish (as a way of marketing my services). I simply ask them (in Spanish) "would you prefer speaking in Spanish or English?" Then I add one more appropriate sentence in Spanish. I have practiced it enough to make it sound like I speak Spanish very well. At a minimum, it surprises them and sparks up a conversation (usually in Spanish) about how/why I speak Spanish. My Spanish is good enough that most prefer to continue in Spanish. Some of them speak English very well and prefer to continue in English and that is totally fine with me. Someone somewhere on this forum recommended doing this (asking them which language they prefer) and I have found people to always be very appreciative because they think I am asking to speak Spanish for their benefit, not mine. I know my situation is a bit different than your situation because I am not the customer in my situation. When I am the customer I rarely have the nerve to ever say anything in Spanish. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
