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Answering back in English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| junjo Newbie United States Joined 5299 days ago 12 posts - 17 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 25 of 80 11 June 2010 at 5:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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This reminds me of when I first started taking Spanish seriously. I deal with a fair amount of hispanics in a store I work at. I remember even people with seemingly poor English that would kind of give me a strange look and quickly revert back to English if I started to talk to them in Spanish. In my mind I was saying everything perfectly and just didn't get why they always cut it short.
After this happened a few times I stopped initiating anything in Spanish and just did self-study for a while as well as some practice with a bilingual co-worker. Eventually I slowly started to test the waters again and now sometimes latinos that seem to have O.K. English will switch over to entirely Spanish. Often pushing my still limited range. I know I still have miles of room for improvement and there was still a big learning curve. Try not to take it as a negative, although thats easier said than done, but rather as motivation to improve. The response you get from native speakers is a good measuring stick for where you're at. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5353 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 26 of 80 11 June 2010 at 5:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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When I was in Germany, it seemed that if I was doing something of high importance, that I did not want to get screwed up (like trying to mail a guitar back to the USA), the people refused to speak English with me, telling me that they did not speak it. On the flipside, people would address me in English for smaller tasks, such as buying groceries or a beer, and it got annoying to me so eventually I just started telling people that I did not speak English. This lead to an interesting situation one night, when I was "caught" as telling this bogus story. I was out with a lady friend of mine from the USA and she spoke English and Spanish, whereas I spoke English and German. When I told the waitress that I did not speak English, and since my friend did not order her food in German, the waitress came back after awhile and asked what language we spoke to each other, if I did not speak English and my friend did not speak German. I confessed at that point, but I enjoyed it greatly that the waitress actually took the time to ponder the situation.
If a person is not conversational in a language, then it is quite understandable why the natives would want to speak in English. If it takes ten minutes to order lunch in French, then it is wasting everyone's time. On the other hand, if one is conversational, then just push the issue and just refuse to speak English. With everyday life, one quickly learns to re-word and express one's feelings or needs in unconventional manners, if one does not know a specific vocabulary word. But one has to prove to the native speaker that he or she can understand and hold a conversation in the foreign language. So many people go the phrasebook route, and quite frankly, if someone was parroting a phrasebook to me as well, I would switch to a different language, knowing that the person would not understand any deviations from the "canned" or "scripted" conversation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5482 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 27 of 80 11 June 2010 at 7:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have a basic rule for this. When in America, I speak English with foreigners (unless they feel more comfortable in a
foreign language), because they may be here to learn English. If I were to go to a foreign country to learn the language, I would appreciate it if they spoken in the language of their country, so I could learn. I would like to be polite to those making an effort and taking a risk by coming over to America to learn English. Of course with most German speakers I speak German, and they don't really mind. When I go to Germany this summer (and Poland later on), I plan on becoming Polish (which actually isn't a stretch since I am half Polish) in Germany, and "Russian" in Poland. My catchphrase is going to be "Was ist Englisch?" :) Edited by ruskivyetr on 11 June 2010 at 7:11am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| adrian Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5487 days ago 8 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Polish, German | Message 28 of 80 11 June 2010 at 11:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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I wasn't expecting so many replies! Many thanks to all for your responses.
Some thoughts 1) In the vast majority of situations where I speak Polish and French I *don't* have such problems. My question was about the small percentage of situations where such problems occur. Should I try to “prove myself” by continuing in the foreign language or should I just “go with the flow”? 2) The Polish check-in situation was fairly recently and not after some calamitous language breakdown. As far as I could see everything was going fine po polsku, until... 3) The French examples were in social situations. I felt annoyed at the “I won’t speak to you as you won’t understand me” comment as the previous evening I’d spoken entirely in French! 4) I remember when I first lived in Poland (6 months in 2005), and I told a colleague I was learning Polish, she said "don't even bother trying to talk Polish to people. You will speak it so badly they will just laugh at you." But in fact, I found that I was able, from a very early stage, to get by when shopping, buying train tickets etc. with my “butchering” of Polish. It may well have been “painful” for some people, but I didn’t have much choice as it was in an area where few people spoke English. 5) “So, to practice Polish you need either a willing friend, or a paid tutor, until you reach a level where it isn't painful for native Polish speakers to converse with you.” When I think back to my initial attempts at speaking Polish, yes they were bad, but I made a lot of progress from the fact that I *was* speaking daily and little by little, from every “painful” interaction, making progress and increasing in confidence. Most people did not in fact laugh at me as my colleague had predicted, just carried on with the transaction... In fact I have had some very positive reactions to my attempts at Polish throughout my learning journey. 6) “an atrocious accent that instantly gave you away to be an English speaker.” Surely most people’s accents give them away as a non-native speakers when speaking a foreign language, no matter how well or badly? I’m certainly not, in any interaction, trying to pretent to be a native speaker. Should I be? 7) "your command of the language is poor”, “someone is stuttering for their own pleasure”, “you struggle finding words and putting sentences together”, “an atrocious accent”... err, thanks for the encouraging analysis of my abilities... Again, thanks for all the interesting and thought-provoking responses to my post. Adrian. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 29 of 80 11 June 2010 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
Why not? You're making Polish your language. Be as Polish as you can be. :) One day, you'll have people asking you what part of Poland you grew up in.
Most people seem to ignore this advice, but I think a paid tutor is one of the greatest investments you can make in your language study. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| NativeLanguage Octoglot Groupie United States nativlang.com Joined 5339 days ago 52 posts - 110 votes Speaks: French, Spanish, English*, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek, Portuguese, Catalan Studies: Japanese, Mayan languages, Irish | Message 30 of 80 12 June 2010 at 12:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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""3) The French examples were in social situations. I felt annoyed at the “I won’t speak to you as you won’t understand me” comment as the previous evening I’d spoken entirely in French! ""
This is actually an interesting cultural issue. Certain cultures (I'm thinking specifically of the Japanese but I'm sure it applies to others) take great pride in their language. It is one of the things that is essential to being a part of that culture. It separates the insiders from the outsiders and it is often seen as something that an outsider cannot master. I read a memoir of a black guy from America that lived in Japan for about 5 years during and after grad school (he was studying Japanese linguistics). He spoke Japanese with a native level of fluency and with a native accent. When he would talk to people over the phone he would have extensive conversations with them in Japanese on very technical topics. When he would have conversations with people face-to-face, they were unable to understand him and would keep trying to switch to English. They weren't purposely being rude, but, they had mental blocks up that made it impossible for them to understand him. This has been observed in other areas of the world as well. There is a case where two regions were at war with each other. Each group spoke a language that was basically a dialect of the same language (closer together than UK English and U.S. English) but the people could not understand each other (even in situations where it would have been useful for them to be able to understand what was being said). It's definitely something to keep in mind as you travel and try to speak with native speakers. Certainly don't give yourself a free pass (MY language skills are great. It must be their listening skills!), but don't be to hard on yourself. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 31 of 80 12 June 2010 at 3:40am | IP Logged | |||||
This sort of story is common, but it's really more of an urban myth than reality. There are many language forums, including this one, with members who have learned Japanese to a high degree. They generally agree with my own assessment, which is that people who report such stories actually have much worse Japanese and worse pronunciation than they realize. I live in Japan and speak Japanese every day. I have never experienced this legendary "mental block" that forces Japanese people to use English with foreigners. On the contrary, most people — even strangers — open conversations with me under the assumption that I'll know some Japanese. Those who don't quickly switch to Japanese in relief once they realize I can speak it. Japanese people love speaking Japanese with foreigners and teaching Japanese to foreigners. Bookstores have an entire section with books and magazines on how to teach Japanese. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| str0be Senior Member Korea, South Joined 5605 days ago 103 posts - 148 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, Korean | Message 32 of 80 12 June 2010 at 4:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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Depending on where I am in Korea, some Koreans can't seem to stop practicing their (often terrible, broken) English with me, even when I make it clear that I'm uncomfortable with that.
Furthermore, they barrage me with questions about English grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. They are unable to understand my answers to such questions without long explanations, because they lack the English ability to understand me. Often they wait until I'm in a position from which I can't escape to let the barrage begin. (e.g. in the barber's chair) They know they are being rude, and they don't care. In Korea, the success of oneself, one's family and one's country takes precedence over being polite to others, especially if the 'other' is a foreigner. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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