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Assuming what language people speak | ||
Tags: Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5732 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes  Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 17 of 20 24 March 2009 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here in San Francisco it's pretty multicultural, and we have a lot of tourists as well. I usually just ask "Deutsch?", and they respond yes or no without getting really offended most of the time. Even when I accidentally did it to some French-speakers!
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 18 of 20 24 March 2009 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Hah - I had an awkward moment in Japan, several years ago, when I started speaking to some Swedes in German. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ninja Bunny Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5792 days ago 42 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Dutch, Danish, Mandarin, Afrikaans, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French | Message 19 of 20 21 April 2009 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's multicultural here in the Seattle area. I'm so tempted to speak in Mandarin when I meet people because I'm eager to practice but obviously I can't right off because they may be offended, speak a different dialect or do not speak/are not Chinese at all. I speak in English until I find out for certain it's okay.
I made friends with a woman who runs a Chinese book shop (she saw me perusing the stacks and was curious about the 'white girl' who would buy her books). As it turns out she just moved here and is eager to learn English better so we traded numbers - I help her with her English and she helps me with my Mandarin. I have a language buddy! Edited by Ninja Bunny on 22 April 2009 at 8:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6125 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 20 of 20 22 April 2009 at 12:10am | IP Logged | ||
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It was weird for me being in Japan. I'm half, and I don't look Japanese at all, but I realize now there are quite a few Japanese-speaking Half-Japanese people over there, and I suspect I sometimes get taken for one of these guys. About half the time people spoke to me in Japanese, and I didn't have a clue what they're saying, and the other half they spoke English to me. A few times at restaurants with white friends I got the check.
I suspect there's a body language aspect to this. If you guys are strutting around as 'master polyglot level A1' that might kick 'em into English mode. If you look 'em in the eye and put out your hand to shake, maybe that somehow reflexively triggers their English language training. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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