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Language intimacy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6659 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 9 of 37 05 May 2011 at 4:25pm | IP Logged |
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It seems like the smaller the number of people who speak the language, the more likely the native speakers are to be friendly and accommodating. If you don't look like you would be apt to speak that language, the response becomes even more gratifying.
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| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5464 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 10 of 37 05 May 2011 at 11:53pm | IP Logged |
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In my experience, Russian people rarely get excited over a foreigner speaking their
language. Perhaps it is something to do with the sheer size of the country, the large population, and the famed rudeness that Russians tend to show (by British standards, at least) in public. I remember when I went to Moscow a couple of years ago and asked at the airport train station if I could buy tickets for the metro there. It was a simple enough sentence and I'm pretty sure I said it correctly, but the face of the woman at the desk dropped a mile as soon as I started speaking, as if I had completely ruined her day simply by being a foreigner speaking her language whom she would now have to deal with. In Japan, as has been well-documented, people will praise any foreigner who manages to produce a single "konnichi wa" or "arigato". It is often said that when you learn to speak Japanese more fluently, Japanese people become suspicious and uncomfortable, but I have never found that to be the case. On the contrary, the praise just keeps on coming as the level of fluency rises. However, foreigners should realize that the Japanese like nothing more than to give empty compliments, and it is considered very rude to accept these compliments with an "Oh thank you!" No matter how fluent your Japanese is, you should always say something along the lines of "No, my Japanese is still very poor." EDIT: I'm off to Georgia in just under a week, and I've heard that Georgian people love it when a foreigner speaks their language, so if this thread is still active then I'll report back later. Edited by TixhiiDon on 06 May 2011 at 1:18am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5081 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 11 of 37 23 May 2011 at 10:58pm | IP Logged |
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In my experience, people will not find you cool when you speak English because English native speakers are used to people from all over the world speaking their language.
Brazilians (for example) are not used to foreigners speaking their language, so they like it and tend to help anyone who is learning Portuguese. I can only remember one English speaker who helped me, whereas I do see many Brazilians helping Americans to speak Portuguese. One year ago (not exactly one year), I was working at a store and I saw an Asian women. I thought she was Brazilian, because many of us have different heritages and I don't live in a touristic area. My English has always been very rusty because I'm not keen at languages. I remember that she came to me and said something in English, than I replied her and we talked for more or less thirty minutes. She was very happy because I was one of the two people who could handle an English conversation in the area. I worked in a place like a "Shopping Mall" with more than 40 stores. She told me that I was one of the two people who could talk to her. She was Vietnamese and was living in California. I'd like to know what she was doing here in my city, but maybe I was very shy to ask or I didn't think about that. I think the conversation was "warm" because English was not our native languages. SamD "It seems like the smaller the number of people who speak the language, the more likely the native speakers are to be friendly and accommodating." It's not always true. I have a friend who was born speaking Portuguese and German (German from his father's family). He learnt Dutch to a conversational level and went to visit Germany and The Netherlands. He told me that nobody spoke to him in Dutch, they always replied in English. The funny thing is that my friend's English was worse than his Dutch. If you try to speak Portuguese you will realise that it's much more different, and we have more than 150 million speakers. Edited by Matheus on 24 May 2011 at 9:03pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5464 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 12 of 37 24 May 2011 at 9:14am | IP Logged |
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So as an update, I went to Georgia and spoke lots of Georgian with lots of Georgian people and with varying degrees of complexity and success, and I can report that there wasn't really one single response that I received most often. Some people were pleased, others surprised, as in "Why on earth are you studying Georgian??", and others completely indifferent. Most people were kind enough to slow down their speech to help me understand, although for some reason in the three bookstores I visited I received good old Soviet-style service, full of contempt for the customer.
An interesting phenomenon was that whenever I showed the slightest sign of incomprehension, almost everyone immediately switched to Russian. I don't know whether this is because they simply didn't know any English, or because for Georgians "Foreign Language = Russian", or because they figure that anyone visiting Georgia must have at least some connection with Russia or the old USSR. Anyway, in general more welcoming than Russia and more sincere than Japan. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5868 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 13 of 37 26 May 2011 at 10:43pm | IP Logged |
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TixhiiDon, thanks for the update. I was reading about Georgian the other day and it interested me a lot, although at the moment there's no way for me to start a new language. I appreciate such insights and it makes me feel even more convinced that sometimes smaller languages are worth it just for the praise and the help you get for learning it.
I myself can comment on this subject as I also have been studying a small language, Hungarian. Well, the natives are usually very welcoming and they get very impressed when they see that you have interest in their language. Any attempt to speak in Hungarian will get you their respects and they will be in most cases very willing to help you if you have any difficulties. I think this makes a huge difference when you're learning a new language. With the last two languages I studied (English and German), I didn't have as much help as I'm having with Hungarian now and with those two I'd have to struggle with books and guides on my own, and this all makes your progress very limited, as you don't really practice them. I also intend to learn other small languages in the future such as Welsh, Icelandic, Polish and perhaps even Georgian if I get my head around it, who knows. By the way, as Matheus said, Brazilian Portuguese is an exception of a not so small language, but which the natives are very helpful. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kyssäkaali Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5553 days ago 203 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish | Message 14 of 37 26 May 2011 at 11:50pm | IP Logged |
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When I speak Finnish to Finns, they talk to me like they would talk to anybody. No amazement or bewilderment or fascination or face lighting up with joy, barely any reaction at all. When they find out what country I'm from, then they do sometimes get curious and ask a question or two (and this is why I VERY rarely bring it up in conversation). But the special treatment ends there.
I may be the odd one out here, but I actually like it this way. I want to fit in, not be an anomaly... have a normal conversation like I would with friends. It's nice to hear the occasional compliment or have the occasional curious schoolgirl come asking questions, but I'm very thankful for the relaxed and almost non-existent response I get from these people. I guess it depends on what you want out of language study. My ultimate goal is to fit in 100% and be indistinguishable from a native born speaker. With a language like Cantonese, you can't do that unless you yourself look like a Cantonese person, so you have to aim for some other goal. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Guests Guest Group Joined 7376 days ago 0 - 22 votes Logged on | Message 15 of 37 31 May 2011 at 7:45am | IP Logged |
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That is ture, the language intimacy is common in many places.If one go to a new place and he or she can speak the local lauguage very well he or she will be welcome and others would like to chat with her or him. On the contrary if he or she can not speak the local langauage he or she will be treated not so well, they can even face the discrimination. But in my opnion this phenominon will not be too obvious in the future as the urbanization and globalizaion people from all over the world have been flooding into the same places. SO a universal lauguage will form natually such as Chinese Manderin and English, so we do not have to learn the local accent contiously what we need to do is to have good command of the universal lauguage!
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| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 7132 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 16 of 37 31 May 2011 at 8:37am | IP Logged |
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I can't say I always have a warm reaction--I've never had a cold reaction--when I speak
French in Paris but I've often found myself in conversations of up to thirty minutes just chatting about everything under the sun. This is not uncommon despite the fact that my spoken French really is not that good (I read at pretty high level but speak at at A2+/B1 level--the only practice I get is when I can take a one week vacation to France). I once went to a tea house and chatted with the French owner for at least 20 minutes. When it came time to pay the bill for the food and pots of tea I'd had, he told me it was on the house. Edited by seldnar on 31 May 2011 at 8:40am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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