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Overhearing things about yourself | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6682 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 49 of 57 08 June 2009 at 7:41pm | IP Logged |
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I've been called a "salope" (bitch, slut) by a Northern African (or other Arabic native speaking fluent French ;) French speaking man in a food store in Oslo where I used to work because I didn't hear him ask me for a plastic bag (that which you should pick up yourself). I didn't say anything back, and he (and his Norwegian wife) came back a second time, and then he was also rude and asking what the f**k I was talking about when I informed his wife about the prize of one item she was asking about.
When I told the French-Cambodian woman I was living in collectivity with about this, she said she often got nasty comments from Northern Africans in French. They all suppose some Norwegian man bought her from Thailand or whatever, and consequently call her a whore. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 50 of 57 29 July 2009 at 6:58am | IP Logged |
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When I first started learning Mandarin Chinese, I was in an elevator with a Chinese
couple who started snarking about how nasty kids are (meaning me), how annoying and loud they are, and on and on. When the elevator got to my floor, I tried to say, "You're loud too!" Unfortunately, this was in the early days, so I'm not sure if their silence was from shock or incomprehension! Another relevant anecdote from my early days with Chinese, although this time from the other end of the situation: I was very fond of practicing what little Mandarin I knew with one of my best friends. One day we were standing in line at a cheap restaurant when I pointed to a hot guy and said to my friend, "Ta1 hao3 shuai4 o!" (he's handsome). He turned around and said, "I'm not free tonight," in Chinese. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 6124 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 51 of 57 29 July 2009 at 9:06pm | IP Logged |
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This happens all the time to me, but its usually compliments.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6083 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 52 of 57 29 July 2009 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
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Hopefully I'll be able to surprise some Japanese people with this later on, but so far I have no fun stories about me to share. I did hear one from my co-worker though:
She had been on holidays with a group of her friends, and since Norwegian is a quite small language they were fairly confident nobody understood what they said about others if they spoke Norwegian. They would try to guess what kind of people others were, "she's married, three kids, lives in a cottage in the woods" and so on. Not necessarily offensive. Their "plan" worked well until one day, the woman they were discussing quickly turned around and dismissed their theories. They had travelled back to Norway, but forgot to leave their discussion habit behind. ;p 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Rina Newbie United States Joined 5548 days ago 35 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Korean | Message 53 of 57 15 October 2009 at 3:15am | IP Logged |
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My old soccer coach spoke German, and whenever he would get angry he would say things in German...that he didn't know I could understand. I was waiting for a good chance to speak to him in German, but it never came up. He was kind of an intimidating man, you see.
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| Amoore Senior Member Denmark Joined 5774 days ago 177 posts - 218 votes Speaks: Danish* | Message 54 of 57 21 October 2009 at 6:29pm | IP Logged |
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Never experienced anything crazy but...
Some Romanians visited some friends of mine and had to eat dinner at their place. For a while they sat in the livingroom and talked. Then one of the romanian guys started to tell the others guys how the food smelled bad and that he didnt "want to eat that", etc., - in Romanian of course. I got a little displeased on behalf of my friends (and because of his bad manners) so I asked him: "Why, whats wrong with the food"? where to he replied: "oooooooooooooh, you understand... ... ..." He did eat it and it tasted very well by the way. Edited by Amoore on 21 October 2009 at 6:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| janababe Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5518 days ago 102 posts - 115 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German | Message 55 of 57 21 October 2009 at 7:13pm | IP Logged |
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Ur never safe because even if someone doesn't look like they come from ur country, they might speak the language or have immigrant parents.
Some people can understand what ur saying without speaking the language. No Sh!t My boyfriend and I were on the Eurostar (the train from Paris to London) and the people at our table (4 people sit at those tables) were English. We got a shock when the woman replied in English to what we'd discussed in Swedish...For a while I tried to remember everything we'd said to check we hadn't slagged them off ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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