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Most surprised reaction from natives? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6437 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 25 of 91 18 May 2012 at 6:37am | IP Logged | ||
My father was in the Air Force and was stationed in Germany for a while. He studied German to a pretty decent level, but he said he would try to talk to a German in German and they would just reply in English. I guess maybe they wanted to practice their English, too? Edited by IronFist on 18 May 2012 at 6:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ling Diglot Groupie Taiwan Joined 4586 days ago 61 posts - 94 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Indonesian, Thai | Message 26 of 91 18 May 2012 at 7:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Last year I said "Thank you very much" in Atayal to a sausage vendor in the town of Wulai, Taiwan. His reaction was a stunned "How the hell did you know that??"
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| wv girl Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5239 days ago 174 posts - 330 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 27 of 91 18 May 2012 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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While French speakers haven't reacted with "shock" when we conversed, several of them asked me where I learned
it, adding that Americans usually don't speak French. Some of them asked if I was Canadian! Not sure if that was a comment on my accent or just surprised that an American could hold her own in a conversation... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| COF Senior Member United States Joined 5831 days ago 262 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English* | Message 28 of 91 18 May 2012 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | ||
Would you say her suprise about your ability to read Hangul was because she thought that Hangul was so different to the Latin alphabet that she incorrectly believed it would be impossible or at least extremely difficult for a foreigner to ever learn to read it? Or would you say it was more a case she couldn't believe anyone would want to learn to speak Korean, much less read it so she was suprised you had put the effort in? Edited by COF on 18 May 2012 at 5:40pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 29 of 91 18 May 2012 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had been looking at a board with some advertisements for catamaran tours in Portugal, and after that I had spoken to the ticket seller in Portuguese. At some point he asked me how long time I had been in Portugal since I could speak Portugal so well (Warning: when you hear that you know that your Portuguese isn't perfect). I told him that I had been there for half a day, and that I had arrived at the airport the evening before. Then he looked incredulously at me and exclaimed (in Portuguese): "You have learnt to speak Portuguese in half a day???" And he got hold of several collegues and pointed at me and said "that guy has learnt to speak Portuguese in half a day!" I tried to explain that I had been studying the language for several years at home, but to no avail - he was too stupefied to listen. Edited by Iversen on 18 May 2012 at 8:55pm 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5847 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 30 of 91 18 May 2012 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was in Venlo in the Netherlands today and there was a German person who wanted to beg for money from me and I spontanously decided to chase him away by saying in Esperanto to him: "Mi ne parolas la Germanan lingvon!" (which means: "I don't speak German"). He seemed to be really shocked in hearing such an unknown language that he ran away immediately!
Fasulye 13 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5219 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 31 of 91 19 May 2012 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Vietnamese last week after three weeks of study: not only was he so surprised that he had to go and get his colleague to show him the foreigner that speaks Vietnamese butI was surprised he understood my tone attempts.
Pity I only know about 200 words and a similar number of chunks. I am tempted to carry on with it! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6437 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 32 of 91 20 May 2012 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | ||
I think it was just that white people reading Korean is outside her reality and so it didn't register at first and she was surprised. She was also really nice and encouraging, so there could've been a little of that mixed in. Kind of like the first time I saw a black person speak German. I was just like what? My brain has never seen a black person speak German before. This is crazy! And then after a few minutes I was over it. It has nothing to do with racism, it's just something you've never seen before, so you can't help but "stare." Your mind groups stuff together. Imagine if you met a white person who grew up in China and spoke English with a legitimate Chinese accent. It would catch you off guard. But a Chinese person with a Chinese accent wouldn't even phase you. She thought it was cool that I wanted to learn Korean, but I think she was just surprised to see a non-Korean who could read it because how often do you encounter that? Edited by IronFist on 20 May 2012 at 10:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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