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Answering back in English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Sheepy Newbie Australia Joined 5244 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 73 of 80 18 July 2010 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I havent had many encounters to be honest, but the ones I have had have been good.
I started talking to a waitress at a japanese restaurant, and told her I was learning Japanese. I managed to get a little Japanese out but its clear that I was a beginner. However purposely asked me questions in Japanese like "what would you like to drink?". It is not an understatement to say that I was incredibly pleased. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 74 of 80 18 July 2010 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm curious to know what exactly you mean by this and if you have met many of these people. I've heard of the French being arrogant about their language and sceptical of foreigners speaking it but I've never heard anything like that about the Dutch or the Germans. As for the French, I have spent a couple of weeks in different parts of France nearly every summer of my life and I have never had an unpleasant experience with the French, not even as a child/teenager ordering bread or ice cream in broken French and with a probably horrible accent. My mother speaks French, nowhere near flawless but enough to be able to not have to resort to English to get her point across, and she would arrange these holidays and she told me that she had never been frowned upon or replied to in English, not even in Paris. In a couple of days I will be going to Orléans for a couple of days and I look forward to unleashing my horrid French on people and seeing what happens. If they reply in English, I'll say "Het spijt me zeer, maar ik spreek helaas geen Engels, alleen maar Nederlands en een beetje Frans." Hopefully, that will do the trick. ;-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| freakyqi Newbie United States Joined 6131 days ago 32 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 75 of 80 18 July 2010 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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A few reasons they may switch to English:
-- When I was in China, I saw that happen to a friend or two, and it turns out it was clearly because the friend had a bad accent and the Chinese person was having trouble understanding them, so they tried to politely switch to English. -- The native person wants to practice their English. -- They are genuinely trying to be nice (too nice!). -- If you're in a tourist area and the person is used to using English, it might be difficult for them to switch back & forth with different people, or their boss might be around, expecting them to use their English skills! (yes, seriously! they may have been hired for this purpose, getting paid more because they're bilingual, and expected to 'cater to you' and use it!) -- They have no patience to hear your beginner/intermediate level and think their English is better than your ____ so they think they should use the better of the two. I'd say don't get stuck talking about which language to speak and just keep speaking the target language. Ignore that they spoke English and just keep going as if they spoke the target language, and maybe eventually they'll switch back, or if not, at least the speaking half of the conversation was a good practice if not the listening part. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Adamdm Groupie Australia Joined 5438 days ago 62 posts - 89 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Dari, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 76 of 80 19 July 2010 at 8:45am | IP Logged | ||
Not quite to topic, but related: On television here in Australia, I have sometimes seen instances when an Aboriginal person,from a remote Aboriginal community, is talking to an interviewer (in English), that what they are saying is subtitled [in English] - even though what they are saying is (to me at least) perfectly understandable. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Martien Heptaglot Senior Member Netherlands martienvanwanrooij.n Joined 7106 days ago 134 posts - 148 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, French Studies: Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Swedish, Arabic (Written) | Message 77 of 80 05 September 2010 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | ||
Or ask him "Prego? Che vuol'dire 'duiuvante debille' ?" :) (I beg you pardon? What does 'doo you wante de beel' mean?) I think you can feel free to ask the local to speak to you in his own language, especially if you are good enough at it. After all you are the customer, and he hasn't hired you to give him English lessons. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Martien Heptaglot Senior Member Netherlands martienvanwanrooij.n Joined 7106 days ago 134 posts - 148 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, French Studies: Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Swedish, Arabic (Written) | Message 78 of 80 05 September 2010 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | ||
If English actually is easier because her English is better than your Polish, then there is not too much you can do about it. If the opposite thing is true, than such a reaction seems rather arrogant and I think you can feel free to say (in Polish) "sorry I appreciate your efforts to practice English but you should have to admit that in Polish we will understand eachother better. By the way, do you know for instance how you say 'admit' in English?". I don't know if in Mauritius English is spoken very well but I had some experiences with this you-might-not-understand-nonsense here in Holland, I have been working as a social worker for Turkish immigrants for many years and I have a good working knowledge of Turkish, it is even a little bit better than my English. However a small minority of elderly immigrants needed some persuasion to speak Turkish to me. I refer to people who just utter a row of Dutch words without using any verb forms , sentences like "me telephone lawyer" and if they asked them to repeat it in Turkish, sometimes I got an answer like "if I speak Turkish to you maybe you won't understand me". Sometimes I replied: okay in Turkish maybe I wont understand you but in Dutch I certainly don't understand you. Edited by Martien on 05 September 2010 at 3:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AppleLanguages Newbie United Kingdom applelanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5109 days ago 4 posts - 3 votes | Message 79 of 80 30 November 2010 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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This happens simply because, while native English speakers want to learn every other language, native speakers of every other language want to learn English :)
In less simple terms, it may be a question of you being a foreigner from a "more important" country. If you go to Portugal and begin speaking bad or imperfect Portuguese, people will immediately switch to (bad or imperfect) English because they do not want to be considered "simple". As someone said many pages ago, it is a question of "hey, we can speak your language too!" as much as it is a question of "hey, we can't understand you very well so let's make this easier for both of us". Bottom line is, people are NOT trying to offend or shame you. They are being helpful and trying to make the exchange easier for both of you. I have had this same experience with e-mails I write in French or Spanish. Usually the recipients reply in (usually broken) English rather than in their native language, even though I clearly speak it. Curiously enough, in Amsterdam people were glad to speak English with me, and they all did so almost flawlessly and with a variety of accents, from pure American to "European" to nearly Scottish! In Milan, on the other hand, I nearly went crazy because NOBODY spoke decent English (not even at the airports!), and I don't speak Italian at all. So this may be an exception to the norm. However, as someone also said, I find addressing people in their native language, however imperfectly or hesitantly, endears you to them. This is particularly true with stewardesses, as somebody also noted above. Pedro Apple Languages Portuguese Translator Edited by AppleLanguages on 30 November 2010 at 5:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 80 of 80 02 December 2010 at 1:41am | IP Logged | ||
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I just came back from France 30 minutes ago (1 cm snow on the ground - chaos at Charles de Gaulle - urgh) and wonder whether people are more likely to speak English to you in the tourist season. This time everyone spoke French to me, whereas this summer I had a couple of cases of people speaking English. Does anyone else have any similar experiences of different behaviour according to the season?
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