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More comfortable with non-natives? | ||
Tags: Non-native Speakers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| limey75 Senior Member United Kingdom germanic.eu/ Joined 4399 days ago 119 posts - 182 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Norwegian, Old English | Message 1 of 11 12 December 2012 at 12:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Does anyone else feel this way? I'm guessing it's quite a common phenomenon.
I always felt much more confident talking German to other non-native speakers, than to Germans themselves. I could talk more fluently, for longer and generally felt much more relaxed, with the feeling that my German wasn't being judged. I remember having a long conversation entirely in German with two women from Taiwan, for whom, German was their third language. Both spoke English fluently, but as we were in the company of mainly Germans, it just seemed natural to speak the local language. I didn't feel they were judging my language proficiency and I felt completely relaxed (alcohol also helped ;) Another situation was my German language class. In my class there was a French girl, and a Belgian woman. As far as I know the Belgian woman spoke both Flemish and French. But she only spoke to the French girl in German. Both women were fluent in English, but we only spoke German together. Even outside the class. For me, it was the coolest feeling, I felt like I had really accomplished something (I'm not a great speaker of languages, not even my own), like I was suddenly party to some secret knowledge that few other people had. A silly idea, of course, but being able to get by in another language made me feel special. Again, I had no feeling that these people were judging me, unlike the feeling I had with the native German language teacher... Non-natives made me feel like I could happily make my numerous mistakes and they wouldn't hold them against me. They were having the exact same struggles with the language too. What are your experiences with interacting with non-native speakers? Do they make you feel more comfortable and expressive than talking to natives? Edited by limey75 on 12 December 2012 at 12:21am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6903 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 2 of 11 12 December 2012 at 1:40am | IP Logged | ||
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That's interesting, for me it is completely the other way around!
I feel much more comfortable speaking languages with natives than non-natives! Natives are usually pleased with the fact someone has made the effort to learn their language (even though my languages are pretty common). If they have learned a foreign language, they know what it takes. If they have failed, they think learning a foreign language is even more difficult that it actually is :). I have no feeling that they're judging me, they just want to communicate with me and it is natural and comfortable for them to speak their language, so they don't mind my mistakes etc. and generally my lacking skills, unless they're asked to repeat something after every second sentence. Plus, I can get some feedback if I ask for it (although that's sometimes difficult to get), and I get to use all fancy words I've just learned. (It is so frustrating if you learn new words and you can't use them because people simply don't understand you - at some point, my motivation to improve English went dramatically down and stayed at a low level for quite a long time for the very reason that I speak English with non-natives mostly.) Speaking to non-native speakers, on the other hand, makes me much more often uncomfortable. If I'm the one who speaks the language better, I may not always be sure that I'm understood, or sometimes I'm even sure I'm not ;) (see above). In the case of English I've spent quite a lot of time on improving my accent (and still haven't gotten where I want to be, but that's irrelevant here). If the person I'm talking to does not seem to care about how s/he sounds at all, I sometimes start to feel like I'm pretending something, putting on an accent that's not mine (this doesn't happen to me with other languages, where my accent hasn't significantly changed). When non-natives speak the language better than me, I again may not feel very comfortable. It's like some subconscious thinking "They were having the exact same struggles with the language too - they've managed to deal with that and I haven't". I realize it doesn't make sense but on the subconscious level it sometimes works like that for me. Plus, I often talk to non-natives who majored in linguistics, foreign language teaching, languages etc. at the university and are often inclined to identify language mistakes, look for the traces of a foreign accent, language interferences etc. Hence, I may feel judged and, sadly enough, I'm sometimes actually judging people I'm talking to as well (nothing mean or overcritical, just thinking e.g. why this or that kind of mistake has been made by this person - is it because of his/her native language? etc.). Obviously, this is very much a generalization because whether I feel comfortable or not depends most importantly on the individual I'm talking to and the context we're in. Even though I prefer talking to natives, I've had hundreds and hundreds of perfectly comfortable (and simply interesting) conversations with non-natives, not to mention all these situations where you just forget whether you're talking with a native or a non- native speaker, because you're just enjoying the conversation, or you're simply too much focused on the content :). And, obviously, there are also native speakers that are perfectly capable of making anyone feel uncomfortable :)
I think talking to language teachers, native or non-native, may be uncomfortable as such. Edited by Julie on 12 December 2012 at 3:35am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 3 of 11 12 December 2012 at 3:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Especially German teachers..couldn't resist.
Julie, excellent post!!! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| limey75 Senior Member United Kingdom germanic.eu/ Joined 4399 days ago 119 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Norwegian, Old English | Message 4 of 11 12 December 2012 at 3:22am | IP Logged | ||
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I also find non-natives easier to understand, despite their mistakes, perhaps because they generally speak slower, take time to try to get their sentences "hyper-correct" (even if they fail), don't use much slang, and don't speak a regional dialect...
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4369 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 5 of 11 12 December 2012 at 3:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Very timely post, because I've just come to the point where I feel fairly comfortable with native German speakers. I've come to the impression that the English accent is NOT a good thing to have when speaking German. I think I've eliminated at least the most obvious problems, but with the lack of German speakers, I really don't know how successful I've been. So I'm very conscious of my mistakes and accent among native German speakers, but not so much with non-natives. I can say just about anything I want with them!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5207 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 11 12 December 2012 at 10:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Definitely, and I've noticed that I often speak better with non-natives than with natives as a result. It's something I've already discussed in other threads, mostly in the language log forum, but I think there's a few reasons, mostly purely psychological. With a native I feel under more pressure to "keep up" with them, which I suppose makes me less comfortable, which is counter-productive as it means I think less and so make more mistakes. Also, comparing their ability to mine makes me realise how much I don't know, so I lose a bit of confidence. Whereas it seems that with other learners, especially ones who have a lower ability than mine, there's an opposite "ego boost" effect that encourages me and makes me more comfortable and so I speak better. Also, due to limited opportunities, most of my French practice is with other learners, and getting to speak to a native is a rare enough opportunity that I see it as a big deal and get a bit nervous.
Like I said I think it's mostly psychological, and a lot of it comes from an idea that they're judging you for your use of the language, which generally isn't true. I find it helpful to put myself in their position and think of all the times when I've spoken to non-native English speakers and how I've never judged them or lost patience with them for making mistakes or not having a good accent. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 11 12 December 2012 at 11:52am | IP Logged | ||
It depends on where I am, the language, and on the level of the non-natives. I've been uncomfortable speaking English to both natives and non-natives when there have been Swedes around me. I have been comfortable speaking English around French people in a youth hostel. I know I had a hard time speaking English the first time I was in Germany - their level was so low! The last day, an American woman stopped by and it was like meeting a family member. I haven't spoken my other languages "enough", but I enjoyed speaking German with an Ukrainian guy (who had obviously learned it as his second language). I didn't worry a bit about my grammar. Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 12 December 2012 at 3:42pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4639 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 8 of 11 12 December 2012 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am basically with Julie on this. Generally I feel much more comfortable speaking with natives, or if not, at least with non-natives who are really proficient. In my daily context, I speak French with my French colleagues, English with the English-speaking natives and Spanish with the Spaniards. However, I do speak English with my German colleagues, basically because their English is much better than my German, so it just makes communication easier. As for other colleagues, it's either French or English depending on which language they are most comfortable with.
When it comes to languages I do not speak so well, or languages I study, I certainly prefer to try my skills out with natives or near-natives. Firstly, if my interlocutor is also at a basic or intermediate level, I am afraid to copy any errors he or she makes, and secondly, in those cases I normally speak hoping to get some feedback on my own abilities. I would not try to communicate (yet) in Russian with another Russian learner unless that was our only common language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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