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Most surprised reaction from natives? | ||
Tags: Native Speakers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4765 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes  Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 57 of 91 23 May 2012 at 6:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Samoa, I was not a very good student in training. Then I went out to a village where there was little English, worked my tail off, and got better real fast.
I ran into one of my Samoan teachers a couple of years later. He started off in slow Samoan, I answered fast and colloquial. He started crying. I guess he had given up on me as hopeless. He said something like, "I never had any idea you could sound like that!" Then we went and had a few beers with me buying the first round, as is proper for the former student. He introduced me to friends as his former student... steve 15 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kenney90 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5872 days ago 24 posts - 39 votes | Message 58 of 91 29 May 2012 at 6:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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A few months ago I was sitting in a hallway on campus when an Arab foreign exchange student who just came to the US for the first time a few days ago asked me where an office was. I gave him directions however I could tell that he didn't understand me too well. So I asked him where he was from (Kuwait) and then I gave him directions to the office in Arabic. He was visibly surprised and would not stop complimenting me. In fact, he whipped his cellphone out and told me that if I have any questions about Arabic, I should call him regardless of the hour. I would have to say almost all of my exchanges with Arabs in Arabic have been like this.
My friend encountered a somewhat different reaction when he was in Hungary. Whenever he tried to speak to people in Hungarian, they thought he was retarded because they've never heard a foreigner trying to speak Hungarian before. Apparently it was so common that he eventually gave up the language altogether. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| COF Senior Member United States Joined 5831 days ago 262 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English* | Message 59 of 91 29 May 2012 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
Retarded in the sense his Hungarian sounded bad to a native, or retarded in the sense they couldn't understand why someone would want to study a small language like Hungarian? 1 person has 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 60 of 91 29 May 2012 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You're just hoping it's the former, aren't you?
4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4665 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 61 of 91 29 May 2012 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Heh, it does seem like COF spends a good bit of time coming up with reasons not to learn languages. "Unfriendly" and "unhelpful" natives, natives who supposedly don't care about their language, natives who supposedly look down on Western learners or think them hopeless, etc. etc. Edited by tastyonions on 29 May 2012 at 7:33pm 10 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 62 of 91 29 May 2012 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think the most surprised is when your grasp of their language is better than their grasp of yours......
Even though English is taught almost everywhere it is obvious that not everyone picks it up from their lessons. I've posted examples in Vietnam (and I know next to nothing) and Spain (where I know next to nothing on the other side) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kenney90 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5872 days ago 24 posts - 39 votes | Message 63 of 91 30 May 2012 at 2:49am | IP Logged | |||||
They thought he was a mentally retarded Hungarian. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dinguino Nonaglot Groupie GermanyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4754 days ago 55 posts - 96 votes Speaks: English, German*, FrenchC1, Catalan, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Turkish, Russian, Irish | Message 64 of 91 30 May 2012 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I am working in an organisation for homeless people in France and I encounter many foreigners.
Last week I got to know a Nigerian who just came to France a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, there was nobody who speaks English at all, so he was quite happy when I started my shift and there was somebody he could talk to. He asked me to help him with a computer problem because he couldn't connect to the public Internet hotspot (which normally is for free). When we were sitting down, he told me that I might have some understanding problems because his computer was in Italian (since he has been living in Italia for 15 years). I answered him in Italian that there is no problem, I'd be able to understand. After solving the problem I made a phone call and finally got him a bed for the weekend. He was completely speechless and almost began to cry saying to me "God bless you, God bless you!". He told me that he was so happy he found someone who was able to speak with him and could translate for him! (I have to say that - at least in the north of France where I am - there is almost nobody who speaks English...I couldn't believe it!) This was such an encouraging experience and I felt so happy I could help someone just by the fact of speaking another language :) 10 persons have voted this message useful |
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