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If I hear "Spanish is easy" ONE more time | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Tsopivo Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4470 days ago 258 posts - 411 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: Esperanto | Message 105 of 137 03 September 2012 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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@catullus_roar : I am really sorry that French speaker switching to English made you feel that way. However, I think in a lot of cases, it is an issue of misunderstanding rather than an issue of snubbing people with a low-level in French. In France, it is considered friendly thing to do to switch to English if you have a good command of English and your interlocutor is visibly struggling to produce hard-to-understand sentences. In fact, it is not switching or offering to switch which would be considered rude or would require explanation. When you say that people switched without any explanation because they had decided that you were not worth their time, that is your interpretation of their thoughts. Believe me, especially in Paris, if people consider you are not worth their time, they will do anything but switch to a language in which you are comfortable enough to keep talking :D.
Of course, I am not denying that people can also switch to English just because they are impatient and consider that they do not have the time to "put up with imperfect French", especially in a busy shop or restaurant or if you stop someone in the street to ask for an information. My point is not to say that you are wrong or anything. I just find it sad that so many French learners feel unwelcome in France but I think that part of it is the result of a cultural misunderstanding and I hope this explanation could help. Edited by Tsopivo on 03 September 2012 at 2:50pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4664 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 106 of 137 03 September 2012 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my experience also, Spanish speakers are very patient with less than perfect (even far less than perfect) Spanish. I can't say anything about how Francophones are, since I've never even met one yet.
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| Jappy58 Bilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 4637 days ago 200 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Guarani*, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Maghribi), Arabic (Written), French, English, Persian, Quechua, Portuguese Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 107 of 137 03 September 2012 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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From persional experience, I've found that most native French speakers were reasonably friendly at my attmepts to learning their language. During my visit to France (Paris, Normandy, and also several villages in between), they did not exactly "snub" me out. Sometimes they would switch to English but it would usually be to accomodate to me, not necessarily because they were shocked by my work-in-progress French. Other French speakers tried to be very helpful. Some were relatively indifferent, but not necessarily rude.
I don't doubt that there are some native French speakers who can be rude, but I think that the stereotype does not dominate most of the French population. This is just my experience, however. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5782 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 108 of 137 03 September 2012 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | ||
That was my experience with Latin Americans, but the Spaniards I met in Spain were not like that at all. I tended to take my time to try and get my sentences right and they had very little patience. They didn't switch to English, though, they tended just to end the conversation if I didn't hurry up. I found that with Spaniards it was best just to say what you wanted to say and not worry about accuracy until afterwards. The Columbians I met were much, much more patient and helpful. Having said that all the Spaniards I have talked to online were very helpful, though. I wonder if that's because they were all learning English and so understood how hard learning a language can be. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 109 of 137 03 September 2012 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think this language-switching thing boils down to the perception of least effort. We can take as a given that most people prefer to speak their native language because that is what they are most comfortable in. So, if they think you can speak the language reasonably well, they will certainly prefer to speak their language.
Since in today's world so many people speak passable to good English, conversation will often tend towards English because it is the better choice than some mangled language that is painful to listen to. In my opinion, and I don't want to restart a whole other debate, the trick to getting over this "let's switch to English" syndrome is to get really good at a)the pronunciation b) the basics and c) a core vocabulary that you can master well. In other words, the trick is to sound better than you really are. This B.S. can only carry you so far of course before you fall down, linguistically speaking, but at least people don't switch immediately to English the minute you open your mouth. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5903 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 110 of 137 04 September 2012 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Okay this thread is just killing any desire I have to learn Spanish :p
though seriously (and lazily admitting that I didn't have time to search the complete fora cause somehow that doesn't work properly for me) between Spanish and Portuguese, what would be easier? (just point me in the direction of some previous thread I didn't find due to lack of effort) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 111 of 137 04 September 2012 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've heard people say that Spanish and English are the easiest languages to learn. Is it just coincidence that they also happen to be the most widely-distributed languages in the Western world? I think the fact they are commonly studied and people have an actual desire to learn them contributes a lot towards this idea of them being "easy"
I suppose English is actually quite a straightforward language in the early stages of learning: there are no genders to contend with, there is just one word for "you", plurals are easy to form, present-tense conjugation is simple and prepositions don't put surrounding words into different cases. But many English verbs are irregular in the past tense and we have more than one past tense. In fact, English seems to have more tenses overall than some other languages. I also hear people say that English phrasal verbs are tough to master. As a native speaker, I have no idea what these are, but if people say they are difficult I have no reason to disagree. So perhaps English is a good starter language but one that gets significantly harder as you dig deeper, whereas other languages have a steeper learning curve at the outset but are less scary once you have cracked the nut. Edited by beano on 04 September 2012 at 4:09pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4664 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 112 of 137 04 September 2012 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | ||
Think about these word combinations: put out put in put up put up with put down put off put [noun] through These all mean different, though occasionally related things (and in fact "put out" and "put down" each have two or more completely unrelated meanings). There are lots of similar constructions with other verbs, too. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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