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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4100 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 25 of 27 29 April 2015 at 10:05pm | IP Logged | ||
Often-ish. The only time anyone insists on speaking English to me in Brittany is when my in-laws are visiting. In other words, when I'm in a touristy area with a group where at least half of the people look out of place and confused, speak Swedish with each other, and speak Swedish with me while I'm talking to someone else and while throwing confused glances at my interlocutor. I've never gone anywhere with my in-laws without someone at least "helpfully" throwing in English words here and there, but responding entirely in English if they can. No one ever responds to us entirely in English otherwise, but about once every ten months a cashier in a touristy area will try, and fail, to quickly translate a number into English (because foreigners have trouble vigesimals). Edit: My husband, who only started learning French in earnest, with a plan, a year ago, is actually the one who get the most of these helpful numbers translations. Edited by eyðimörk on 29 April 2015 at 10:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3537 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 26 of 27 30 April 2015 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
I worked in a tourist area for quite a while and I can tell you that I am generally able to pick the general region someone is from from body language and to some extent how they dress. Depending on where you go I think your body language probably gives you away more than anything. If you don't look confident or you look unsure, if you feel more closed or open than expected, these are things that you pick up after a while and allow you to pick up if someone is a foreigner. Then of course there's the accent which we know about - even accent is a good way to pick up how well someone generally speaks the language. Like if someone can in with a french or German accent I knew that I would be in for a long conversation with much hand gesturing and repetition but if it was say a dutch accent I could relax and speak as I normally would. I imagine it's the same for people in tourist areas of their country. Body language plus accent give them a good idea of how likely it is you speak well. Your initial conversation doesn't matter too much because I've spoke with people who I initially thought they spoke well until suddenly we seemed to have exhausted their English skills and the time for hand gesturing begun. Thankfully google translate became a really useful tool in these times. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5208 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 27 of 27 30 April 2015 at 10:59am | IP Logged | ||
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When I was in France last week I was with my mum, and I lost a few potential speaking opportunities since we were of course speaking English to each other. That said, in most cases I think it was less the fact that we were speaking English and more the fact that she struggled to understand what they were saying in French, since it generally started off fine.
Yeah, accent is the first impression of someone's ability in a language, which is a bit unfortunate for people like me who are quite good at acquiring grammar and vocabulary but not so good at acquiring accents. But losing the obvious traits of an Anglophone accent goes a long way and is a realistic goal for most. These days, French and Italian people realise that I'm foreign but often aren't sure from where; they often guess Germany, a country that has a better reputation for foreign language learning than the Anglophone world does. And indeed, how confident you appear is also a major factor in my experience. I'm sure that self-improvement work on becoming less shy and more socially comfortable has helped my languages considerably by making it easier to find opportunities to practise. Appearance is one thing I have going for me. I'm half-Greek, with the dark hair and eyes and all the rest, and could pass for a native in most of southern Europe. However, accent and body language give me away quite quickly. I've also heard of people having the opposite problem: I've met a woman with pale skin and red hair who speaks Italian fluently with a near-perfect accent but said that many Italians insist on English because of her looks. Of course this is just anecdotal: I can verify that her Italian is great, but I wasn't there in those situations to see if there were other factors beyond appearance. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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