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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 |  | |
| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7191 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 33 of 169 20 June 2005 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Magnum,
I don't think Americans are anymore shallow and inward looking than anyone else. You are comparing the educated Europeans that you meet online with the most ignorant elements of American society. Hardly fair. Canada is not a clone. Have you been to Montreal? Victoria? Toronto? Do you ever watch CBC television? Do you have any Canadian friends? Would they consider themselves American clones? And Mexico is a dump? Or at least, you say that Americans think so. You might talk to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who live in Baja California or San Miguel de Allende and see if they agree with your assessment. I went to D.F. and Guanajuato in April with my wife and two friends whose Spanish is limited to "una cerveza por favor." But when we were discussing where to go and I suggested Mexico, nobody said, "Ew! Mexico. What a dump!" Edited by KingM on 20 June 2005 at 9:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Magnum Bilingual Triglot Retired Moderator Pro Member United States Joined 7117 days ago 359 posts - 353 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian*, French Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 169 21 June 2005 at 2:22am | IP Logged | ||
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I have decided to edit this post, it might be more appropriate elsewhere.
Edited by Magnum on 21 June 2005 at 3:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Nephilim Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 7145 days ago 363 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English*, Polish | Message 35 of 169 21 June 2005 at 2:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Magnum,
All this makes for facinating reading but does such a heavy post really belong in a language learning forum? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Magnum Bilingual Triglot Retired Moderator Pro Member United States Joined 7117 days ago 359 posts - 353 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian*, French Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 36 of 169 21 June 2005 at 2:56am | IP Logged | ||
Nephilim, you are right. I was responding to a question about the attitude Americans have of Mexicans, and in a broader sense, to the world. This is probably not the best place for it. When I think of a language, to me it is not just a set of words, with letters from one language replacing another. Language is tied with the culture of the area it comes from, and the history. French for me is not really French without the peculiarities of their culture. Likewise, the attitudes people and cultures have is fascinating to me. Edited by Magnum on 21 June 2005 at 2:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Nephilim Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 7145 days ago 363 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English*, Polish | Message 37 of 169 21 June 2005 at 4:43am | IP Logged | ||
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I totally agree that language is not just verbs and nouns but goes hand in hand with the culture and history. I did think your post was very interesting though. Perhaps the administrator could set up a form to discuss culture - this is not language learning as such but it gives the non-natives a place to practice their written English and express their opinions. Non-natives can also practiced reading responses by natives and learn new lexical phrases and expressions.
What do you think administrator? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 38 of 169 21 July 2005 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry for reacting to an older topic but I remembered how, in the early seventies, I started to learn Turkish and Spanish. When people answered me in Dutch, sometimes I asked them explicitely why they didn't talk to me in their own language. According to their reaction I often could give them a reply to persuade them to speak Spanish/Turkish with me: common answers were
"I am afraid you won't understand me" Reply: "Don't worry, I actually do understand most of what you say, otherwise I will tell you" "I want to learn Dutch just as you want to learn my language" Reply: "Okay but please speak your own language with me in the presence of your landsmen, in the presence of other Dutchmen we will speak Dutch" (However some others who wanted to learn Dutch still helped me by speaking there own language, one of them said "After all there are 15 millions of Dutchmen and you are one of the few of them who wants to learn my language, so why shouldn't I help you":) ) "You are perfectly right, I just didn't realise that I can speak to you in my own language" This statement may sound a little bit weird but I noticed this very often, especially with Turkish immigrants who are not used to meet Turkish speaking foreigners "Well we are in the Netherlands and you are Dutch so the language to speak is Dutch". Only a very small minority gave such statement. Strange enough I met one of them in Spain and he started again to speak to me in (bad) Dutch. When I said, just as a joke "well we are in Spain now, so let us speak Spanish" he was really offended!When I started to work as a social worker for immigrants I got much more opportunities to speak to people in their own languages, particularly when their Dutch was weaker then my knowledge of their language. Edited by Martien on 21 July 2005 at 1:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raistlin Majere Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Spain uciprotour-cycling.c Joined 7152 days ago 455 posts - 424 votes 7 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan*, FrenchA1, Italian, German Studies: Swedish | Message 39 of 169 25 July 2005 at 4:19am | IP Logged | ||
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Yesterday I was in Paris to see the last stage of the Tour de France. Even though I addressed everybody in French, when they saw I was not French, they all replied to me in English, perhaps in an attempt to show off.
Of all the people, only a policeman and a shopkeeper replied to me in French. It was really very annoying; they could see I could speak and understand French well (because I kept speaking to them in French even if they talked in English, and they understood clearly everything I said) and nevertheless they kept speaking in English. Criminal. 2 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 40 of 169 25 July 2005 at 4:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Raistlin, did you try to pretend you did not speak any English ?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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