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Answering back in English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5568 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 9 of 80 10 June 2010 at 4:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I can understand why the hotel clerk would want to switch to English. She probably deals with a lot of English-speaking tourists who learn a few words of Polish from a phrasebook before they take off for Poland, and very few who can actually hold a basic conversation in Polish. And she probably has decent English, so her instinct is to speak in English to all tourists with English names or English accents. She may also feel that her language is difficult and/or uninteresting; almost certainly she thinks you're only learning Polish for the purely pragmatic reason of getting by in Poland. Most people don't stop to consider that you may have an intellectual interest in their language.
A lot of it has to do with the person's perception of their own language, too. Some people have a lot of pride for their language and culture, and the more enthusiastic they are about it the more likely they are to respond positively and help you learn their language. For instance, I find most of the French Canadians I meet are very proud of their language, and they're always more than happy to help me practice my French. It probably has to do with their minority status in Canada, and the poor treatment they often get from Anglophones. Even when I go to Quebec, they'll gladly talk to me in broken French even though their English is usually better than my French. So don't get too bent out of shape when somebody responds in English; chances are they're just trying to be polite by relieving you of the burden of speaking a language you don't know too well. There just aren't too many people who are interested in languages as a hobby the way we are. If you explain to them that you find their language interesting and you enjoy learning about their language and culture, and they still respond in English, then all you can really do is find somebody else to talk to who has the time and patience to help you practice. Edited by Levi on 10 June 2010 at 4:24am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| LtM Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5861 days ago 130 posts - 223 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 10 of 80 10 June 2010 at 4:36am | IP Logged | ||
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I have had the same thing happen to me on more than one occasion. I just gently and politely continue the conversation in my target language, even if they keep responding in English. Maybe they want to practice English. Maybe they think I'd be more comfortable speaking English. Maybe they're tired of Americans using them for practice. In the larger scheme of things it isn't that important; they want to speak English and I want to speak their language, so that's how the conversation unfolds. I do feel that it's always very important to be polite and respectful, as the impression one leaves with others can have ramifications beyond that one place and time.
Although when I travel I want to get in the maximum amount of L2 practice, I also try to keep in mind others' perspective. Perhaps they've been studying English with as much or more diligence as I've been studying their language. My need to practice may be more important to -me-, but looking at the larger picture it's certainly not -more- important overall. We are all fellow students and fellow travelers in one way or another, and a little empathy, returned or not, is a good thing to keep in mind. Lastly, one's L2 conversational/vocabulary skills need to be at a solid level for conversation; most people are simply too involved in their busy lives to want to spend a lot of patience and goodwill to help a stranger practice his/her language skills. Some will, but most won't. It's a good thing to keep in mind the next time a foreigner speaks to us haltingly in our native language... 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| anamsc Triglot Senior Member Andorra Joined 6204 days ago 296 posts - 382 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Written), French | Message 11 of 80 10 June 2010 at 6:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I think the most fool-proof way of preventing this (although also the most difficult) is to simply improve in that language. When I was first living in Barcelona, I always wanted to speak Catalan to people, but they almost always answered back in Spanish or English (oddly enough, people could hear I was American when I was speaking Catalan but not when I was speaking Spanish). However, the better I got, the more people would respond to me in Catalan, partly because they probably could no longer place my accent and partly because it was no longer a struggle for them to communicate with me in Catalan.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Enki Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5834 days ago 54 posts - 133 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written), English*, French, Korean Studies: Japanese | Message 12 of 80 10 June 2010 at 6:56am | IP Logged | ||
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The language which both people speak well (relative to the other language) will always be the dominant language in conversation. People are lazy, they want the simplest path from A to B :)
8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5810 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 13 of 80 10 June 2010 at 7:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Why don’t you try to turn the situation upside down?
You just start to speak in a hardly comprehensible accent (cockney, southern american, foreign...) and then you switch to your target language when they seem not to understand. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Derian Triglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5309 days ago 227 posts - 464 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 14 of 80 10 June 2010 at 9:46am | IP Logged | ||
Oh man, that is a stupid comment for so many reasons. a) Language IS about getting from A to B in a most convenient way. That's why humans came to use language instead of gesticulation or animal screams in the first place. b) The hotel clerk is at work, he or she has to deal with the clients swiftly. S/he cannot afford to waste time while someone is stuttering for their own pleasure of using a foreign language. c) The hotel clerk has the right to be tired, and there's no reason to force him/her to bother and figure out what you're trying to say (when your command of the language is poor), when you could lead a faster and more effective conversation in your language. d) When talking to you in English, it is the hotel clerk that makes the effort of not speaking in his/her native language. And s/he may want do so (speak in a foreign language) for the very same reason you do. e) All in all, the clerk is offering you something that will be more convenient for you (which is his/her job after all). Seeing as you struggle finding words and putting sentences together, he/she wants to help you. You can't not appreciate that. Even if that's not what you wanted. Edited by Derian on 10 June 2010 at 9:51am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| apatch3 Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6186 days ago 80 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Pashto, English* Studies: Japanese, FrenchA2 | Message 15 of 80 10 June 2010 at 10:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I suspect your Polish simply wasn't good enough, (I'll cite the phrasebook example that's already been given) either that or, when you spoke to the clerk you spoke in an atrocious accent that instantly gave you away to be an English speaker. A great deal of people (myself included) feel extremely awkward when listening to nearly unintelligible accents and would like to avoid hearing them if possible and so if the person I was speaking to and I had another language in common I would switch over almost instantly. Nevertheless in both cases the fault lies not with the clerk who would have replied in Polish if you had spoken better Polish at the time, but with you for expecting people to want to talk to you in their native tongues no matter how much you butcher them. (I do apologize if I sound harsh but in the UK we're experts at butchering foreign languages). Edited by apatch3 on 10 June 2010 at 10:24am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7104 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 16 of 80 10 June 2010 at 10:18am | IP Logged | ||
Ditto. What happens is that they invariably switch to English once they hear me translating for my wife - from their perspective they're actually helping me out. My general approach nowadays is to pay no attention to this whatsover. I've had multiple "bi-lingual" coversations over the years - both parties get to practise and both go away happy. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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