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Getting people not to speak English | ||
Tags: Language Banditry | Convincing native speakers | Immersion | Swedish | Learning Technique/Method | Accent | English | German | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Martien Heptaglot Senior Member Netherlands martienvanwanrooij.n Joined 7105 days ago 134 posts - 148 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, French Studies: Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Swedish, Arabic (Written) | Message 121 of 169 12 October 2009 at 8:50pm | IP Logged | ||
Okay but the opposite thing also occurs very often. My native language is Dutch, I learned both English and French at school and it just depends on the language skills of the person to whom I am speaking.. I remember how I was working on a call center, a French customer insisted in speaking English to me...from his mouth "fifty", "fifteen", "sixty" and "sixteen" sounded almost the same way (sees-tee and feef-tee) eventually I couldn't stand it anymore and I said "monsieur, je ne dis pas que mon francais soit parfait mais c'est meilleur que votre anglais, donc en francais on se comprend mieux"... finally he apologised and we continued the conversation in french. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7165 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 122 of 169 03 December 2009 at 12:50am | IP Logged | ||
I mean, honestly, the nerve of those native English speakers who have the audacity to try to break out of their monolingual language bubble and learn about other cultures! The next thing you know, they'll be trying to learn a Western European language when it's clear that WE'VE been learning English since we were ten. Really, the fact that they would try to speak French to a French person (with a smile, no less! Not the shame that they should properly feel for not immediately speaking a foreign language perfectly!) is the height of rude! The only thing that would make me more upset is if they just assumed they could address me in English from the get-go. So you see, it's a lose-lose situation. Silly native English speakers. 13 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 124 of 169 08 January 2010 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was recently in Spain and people were very accommodating and patient with any mistakes or Italian that slipped into my Spanish. However, on the last day I was speaking in Spanish to two people hotel staff in Madrid, and one of them wanted to imply that perhaps I was not understanding how things were, so she switched to English in an effort to impress this on me. No luck, I turned to her colleague and asked him in Spanish "What is your colleague saying?". He laughed, translated her English back into Spanish and we moved on.
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| Martien Heptaglot Senior Member Netherlands martienvanwanrooij.n Joined 7105 days ago 134 posts - 148 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, French Studies: Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Swedish, Arabic (Written) | Message 125 of 169 18 January 2010 at 1:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Administrator,
As commented before, pretending not to speak English is always a great trick. As an afterthought I can imagine that people are more likely to answer in English when you use phrases that sound as if they were taken directly from an Italian / Spanish phrasebook. When I used to visited Spain I often got answers in (bad) English when I was asking standard questions like "how much does this cost" but when I visited a pharmacy and asked questions about some diseases they already noticed that my Spanish was good enough anyway. You started the topic with the example of buying ham, when I would have asked the same question in Spanish maybe I would have said something like: "May I ask a question? I see several kinds of ham in your store but I wonder if there is something typical from this region, the thing is that some friends of mine who are also on holiday in Italy will come over for lunch tomorrow..etc ect"..Especially when the shop is not too busy this could help, even in languages I am new at, I try to learn some expressions like "I wonder if..." "by the way"..."I am a little bit puzzled about..." etc. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Noguarantee777 Newbie United States Joined 5422 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 126 of 169 21 January 2010 at 10:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, reading some of these posts I get the feeling that a lot depends on where you are, and from my experience I've had many chances to practice Japanese. Even though the Japanese typically learn English for a number of years in school they tend to have rather poor speaking skills. Even though they are exposed to it somewhat frequently where I live (I live near an American military base) many shopkeepers, waitresses, etc seem very relieved when I address them in their native tongue. They only issue with this is that I myself am a terrible speaker so I understand almost none of their long and fast-paced replies haha.
On a different note I lived in Italy as a child and my family (native English) would occasionally run into this kind of issue. On the whole though people were very nice and most everyone tried to encourage the use of their language. I would say in general people appreciate you trying to speak their language, and I've never had a problem with people being overtly rude. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 127 of 169 12 February 2010 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||
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I think the heart of the problem is not so much that people want to practice their English but more simply that
when people hear their language mangled, it's simple courtesy to use what is perceived to be an easier common language. Now I acknowledge that there can be ethnic stereotypes, but I think it's really about facilitating communication. I say this because nearly everybody is more comfortable in their own language and prefer to use it. So the challenge is to convince the person that you are reasonably proficient in their language. Now that is a tall order because quite often our language skills are not that adequate and the interaction is akward, so the solution is to revert to English. My approach is to really master some basic items (greetings, chitchat, whatever vocabulary I need) and then take the lead in the conversation. I find that if my introduction is really convincing right from the beginning, the other person will naturally continue in their language. You don't have to sound like a native, but you have to be fluent enough so that the other person feels no need to make an effort to try a language that is foreign to them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jaguar8311 Groupie Canada Joined 6656 days ago 84 posts - 96 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 128 of 169 15 February 2010 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wonder what it would be like for me in France being Canadian. I have a very scottish name(Allan) but if I introduce myself as Canadian, would they expect that I know French? Thus, they would reply in French and not English. Or is it just an accent thing?
Interesting Discussion though 1 person has voted this message useful |
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