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Assuming what language people speak | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6914 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 20 05 December 2008 at 3:11pm | IP Logged |
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What are you meant to do when you don't what language someone speaks but you'd like to address them in their own language?
I mean, guessing is always an option, but normally I turn out to guess wrongly. One example; after watching a guy for a while I became convinced he was Japanese (his features are too fine, he must be Japanese, etc etc). Of course, when I asked him directly, 'すみません。日本人ですか', I turned out to have got it wrong and he was Chinese. From conversations, I gather most people don't like it when someone makes assumptions about what language they speak. I've also spoken to Japanese people who hate it when someone greets them with a 'Ni hao', and a Cantonese speaker who gets flustered when someone greets her with a 'Konnichiwa'. I don't really believe you can tell what country someone's from by their appearance. And I don't want to insult anyone by assuming they speak X language just from what they look like. So my question is this. Say I was working at a restaurant called 'Tokyou'. It's staffed mostly by Chinese people and serves Chinese and (supposedly) Japanese food. Obviously, you will get a lot of Chinese people coming in, but also Japanese people (probably because of the name) and also other Asian people (Korean, Vietnamese, Thai etc etc). So if I wanted to greet people based on their language, how would I do it correctly? There's already a big choice of languages and there's always a chance that an Asian-looking person grew up speaking English only. So what would I do to greet people? Have a nametag saying 'I speak such & such' in different languages? Say hello in 5 different languages and wait for the person's reply? I'm curious as to what the etiquette is in these situations. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7011 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 2 of 20 05 December 2008 at 5:41pm | IP Logged |
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In Montreal, at least, service people tend to slurred together "bonjourhi", then wait for the other person to respond. With 5 different languages however, that might be a mouthful.
Montreal also has the problem that, with so many people with so many different levels of English/French, a number of places have a policy that you _must_ speak to the customer in the language the service person determines their mother language (English or French) to be. As an anglophone speaking French, I find it obnoxious to have a service person respond to me in English after I've opened the conversation in French. (Although, that hasn't happened in a while since my accent and confidence have improved.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6186 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 20 05 December 2008 at 7:21pm | IP Logged |
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At the company I worked at for two years the policy was that you must open all conversations with the customer in English. The reason being that it was fairly common for someone to speak Japanese to a Korean and the Korean is then greatly angered. After I spent time in Korea and with Japanese I managed to determine ethnicity correctly about 90% of the time (still bad) going solely on physical appearance. It's not just features to look out for; pay attention to body language and even fashion.
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| Lawrence Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6182 days ago 149 posts - 149 votes Speaks: Cantonese, English* Studies: German, French, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 4 of 20 06 December 2008 at 9:30am | IP Logged |
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I think the normal thing to do would be to speak to them in English, seeing as you live in the UK. If there is time for conversation, then it would be polite to ask whether they speak another language.
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| Aquedita Triglot Senior Member Poland myspace.com/aqueda_v Joined 6014 days ago 154 posts - 164 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 20 06 December 2008 at 10:46am | IP Logged |
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In Kyoto I met a couple on their honeymoon, they were taking photos at one of the shrines. When I approached them and congratulated them the girl said: "No no, we're Korean! We just arrived to Japan today." Hahaha! But we did talk for a bit, took a walk and took some photos. It was funny.
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| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6142 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 6 of 20 07 December 2008 at 12:38pm | IP Logged |
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Where I live in Colorado, there is a considerable Hispanic population. I always have an urge to practice my Spanish with them, but I always hesitate because they might find it offensive (thinking perhaps that I don't think they speak English) or they might not speak Spanish at all. Whenever we go into a Mexican restaurant, my mom always pressures me to order and talk to our server in Spanish and I always give her a nasty glare for the aforementioned reason.
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| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6454 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Smi, Latin | Message 7 of 20 20 December 2008 at 8:41pm | IP Logged |
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I usually try to listen to their conversations at least a little bit, if possible, before opening my mouth. Usually this happens in Pisa, where there are a LOT of tourists (for obvious reasons). I take the bus to go to work, and the bus to the leaning tower happens to stop at the same bus stop, so it's always crowded and tourists are quite lost, because everything is written in Italian only.
So if I see that someone needs help, I try to listen to him/her for a few seconds to determine whether I should start speaking Italian or some other language. :) I usually get it right, but if I'm not sure, I always offer my help in English. Italians start to speak English to me quite often, assuming that I'm British. It kind of gets on my nerves at times, because I'm very fluent in Italian, but I usually reply to them in English, unless I notice that they know little English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lindsay19 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5821 days ago 183 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC1 Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic | Message 8 of 20 20 December 2008 at 9:40pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I've never tried to guess just by looking at someone, but when I'm at a tourist attraction (where people from around the world tend to be), I'll listen to someone's accent and attempt a guess at their native lanuage.
I was in Hawaii a little bit ago, and told my mom "I bet that guy is Polish", which turned out to be true. About 10 minutes later I overheard a couple speaking in what I think was Swiss German or Plattdüütsch; I heard German words, but could hardly understand them. I wanted to go talk to them and ask, but I was too shy :P 1 person has voted this message useful |
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