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How supportive are the native speakers? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| PonyGirl Groupie United States Joined 5019 days ago 54 posts - 70 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 33 of 43 16 March 2011 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Online, German speakers have always been so helpful and supportive. Willing to just have a chat, or to correct me.
There was also an exchange student from Germany a few years ago. She stayed with a friend of mine and was extremely helpful; she tutored me once a week. I credit her with my quite decent pronunciation ;) In person... I only know one German person and she is very snobby. I can just see her mentally scoffing at talking to me auf Deutsch :P 1 person has 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 34 of 43 09 April 2011 at 4:57am | IP Logged | ||
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In this aspect there's a huge advantage of learning minority languages such as Tagalog and Hungarian, whereby I had at both great experiences with. The natives tend to always be impressed with your interest in learning it and they're always willing to help you, which makes the learning much more fun and consequently, you learn much faster.
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| scop Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 5849 days ago 70 posts - 73 votes Speaks: English*, Irish Studies: German, Ancient Greek | Message 35 of 43 12 April 2011 at 11:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find Germans are quite helpful especially since many of them will have known English speakers who simply speak English at them. I think they respect the effort and will overlook grammatical errors (frequent at the early stages of German - more so than most languages I suspect) so long as one is making sense.
It can be weird here to have people working in bars or cafes to just come over and ask about your order directly in English (assuming that you will not have enough German to do it yourself) and I am happy to be able to make life easier for them for once! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4868 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 36 of 43 02 August 2011 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
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maybe my Korean is too atrocious, but right now when I address a Korean in Korean, they answer in English. Then I answer back in Korean and they in English. It's kind of funny, but I'd really just like to practice conversation in Korean!
my Korean friends are willing to speak Korean with me, though, so that's good. I only have that problem with strangers. I need to either meet more Koreans who don't know any English or improve my Korean so much that they feel it would be easier to just speak Korean with me... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stmc2 Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6251 days ago 45 posts - 58 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German | Message 37 of 43 17 August 2011 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that it is very hard to generalise about entire countries becuase attitudes vary within countries and even within areas of cities. I never expect any thanks or applause, I just want to be able to get on with what I want to do, so my judegements are never based on any presence or lack of thanks etc.
My two experiences with speaking foreign language are in Japan and German. I only went to Berlin for a few days and found the locals to be very good at understanding my weak German. Only once did I use English and this was in a loud bar and I couldn't hear what the waitress was saying. She asked me if I can speak English and then the drinks were soon ordered. She then recommened me the 'Kunsthaus Tacheles', which turned out to be my favourite place in Berlin. Apart from that one time, my use of German went very smoothly. Japan however is a completely different kettle of fish. I lived in two places, Osaka and Kyoto. I found the locals in Osaka to be very tricky to talk with. Some people just blanked you, carried on walking by etc. The locals in Kyoto however were very different. In the last area I lived, nobody at all spoke English with me or ignored my Japanese. Kyoto is full of tourists who go straight up to Japanese people and use English, but when you use Japanese there is no sense of confusion. It could easily have something do with the fact that I lived in Osaka first when my Japanese wasn't good and then in Kyoto later on. Even with that, the locals in Osaka were a tricky lot. I was trying to build on my elementary level and continuously getting it kicked back in my face. A lot of Japanese people told me this was because Osaka has a very local mentality and is a difficult city for any outsider to lives in. Wheras Kyoto is more accepting of outsiders, even if it is on a merely polite, superficial and distancing level. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 38 of 43 17 August 2011 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | ||
I wonder if this might not have something to do with the fact that not all Japanese in Kansai feel comfortable speaking Standard Japanese. They may assume that you wouldn't understand them. In any case, I didn't feel that way in either city, and actually, 2 people came to talk to me in English out of the blue in Osaka, which didn't happen in Tokyo. And when I replied in Japanese, they were supportive. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stmc2 Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6251 days ago 45 posts - 58 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German | Message 39 of 43 19 August 2011 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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i am not sure that people in kansai would feel uncomfortable about speaking standard Japanese. My wife is from Kyoto and her and her friends have never expressed that anyone in Japan would feel that way. Also, just doing stuff in shops or asking for help isn't much different in Osaka or Tokyo at the end of the day. It's good that you didn't have such experiences in any place in Japan. Did you visit there on holiday or live there?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 40 of 43 19 August 2011 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | ||
You're probably right that the average Kansai-jin is not necessarily uncomfortable speaking Standard Japanese, but that's in part because they will rely on the listener being able to understand a certain degree of variation. They may not, however, think that a foreigner is equally flexible. I say this because a Japanese person mentioned this week that she got very stressed out in job interviews, specifically because of the expectation that she speak perfect Standard Japanese; she said she wasn't as stressed out speaking English in the same context. I went to Osaka and Kyoto twice; twice while on holiday. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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