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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Lorenzo Guapo Newbie United States Joined 6758 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 1 of 25 01 July 2006 at 11:57am | IP Logged |
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I was in Montreal last week and went to the information desk to exchange somethings, I spoke English with the recepcionist and next to me two mexican girls came up to ask for information.The girl closest to me was speaking Spanish and I decided to speak Spanish with her. The other girl was speaking French to the recepcionist. Its funny to me that I was speaking Spanish with the two girls and the recepcionist was speaking English to me and French to the other girl. Has anything similar happend with you?
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| el topo Diglot Groupie Belgium Joined 6760 days ago 66 posts - 71 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Dutch | Message 2 of 25 05 July 2006 at 8:53am | IP Logged |
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This happens in Brussels all the time. :)
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| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 3 of 25 05 July 2006 at 8:59am | IP Logged |
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I once had a trilingual lunch conversation in English, Japanese, and Mandarin
(there was no one language all three of us were totally confident in). When I visited a sapphire jewellery outlet in Thailand a few years ago, it was a truly multilingual environment. They'd instantly assign to each visitor (mostly Westerners) a staff member who spoke that person's language. A nearby couple was from Spain, and others spoke French or German. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Alfonso Octoglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6861 days ago 511 posts - 536 votes Speaks: Biblical Hebrew, Spanish*, French, English, Tzotzil, Italian, Portuguese, Ancient Greek Studies: Nahuatl, Tzeltal, German | Message 4 of 25 13 July 2006 at 5:31pm | IP Logged |
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Sometimes people from the U.S. come to visit us here in Chiapas. I sometimes go with them to visit Mayan communities in the field. I usually speak with my U.S. visitors in English, they speak with modern Mayas in Spanish and I speak with my Mayan friends in Tsotsil. That's similar to your experience in Montreal, I think.
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| leesean Pentaglot Newbie United States lshuang.wordpress.co Joined 6738 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, Spanish, Japanese, French | Message 5 of 25 17 July 2006 at 8:35pm | IP Logged |
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I come from a Taiwanese-Chinese-American family. Trilingual
conversations were quite common growing up. Trilingual sentences actually. It is not uncommon in my family to start a sentence in Mandarin and end in English with a Taiwanese term thrown in along the way. It gets even more complicated when we visit our extended family in Japan. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| wetnose Groupie United States Joined 6978 days ago 90 posts - 98 votes Studies: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 6 of 25 17 July 2006 at 9:48pm | IP Logged |
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I've got the same deal going on. Except, no Japanese extended family :p
Somehow it feels like we tend to use Taiwanese in instances where it would be a 'shortcut'. I don't know how to explain it. For instance, if a Taiwanese phrase would be shorter (in word length) than the Mandarin equivalent, we opt for that. Maybe it's actually that we tend towards the most concise phrase of all three languages, unless we're thinking/stalling while talking. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6684 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 7 of 25 17 September 2006 at 11:04am | IP Logged |
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It's not quite the same, but it reminds me of when you call someone on Skype, and you both speak to each other in the language you're learning (me in Spanish, the other person in English, and so on).
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 25 17 September 2006 at 1:36pm | IP Logged |
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I once travelled through Georgia (the one near the Kaukasus mountains, not the US one). My chauffeur/guide spoke German and Kartuli, there was a trainee who spoke English and Kartuli, and then I was there speaking English and German, but no Kartuli. So we had no common language.
Another time I had taken a halfday morning tour on Penang. Our guide was one of the few remaining Portuguese speakers from Malacca, and the other two turists were Venezuelan ladies living in the Netherlands. The tour was supposed to be conducted in English, but our guide spoke Portuguese and the rest of us Spanish. The same afternoon we continued on another tour with the same guide, but here we had also the company of a Chinese man on the tour, so we had to switch to English - at least for the explanations. In practice we spoke Portuguese, English and Spanish depending on whom we were speaking to. And then of course I have several times been in the company of Swedes and Norwegians, where everyone spoke his/her own language, - but that's another situation. Like the one where I am speaking the local language and some local person is speaking English to me (we have had a thread about that situation). Those chaotic situations are quite fun, - it's a pity that there are so few of them. Edited by Iversen on 02 November 2006 at 10:00am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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