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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4253 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian | Message 1 of 51 11 June 2013 at 11:13am | IP Logged | ||
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So, I have come to Italy to improve my Italian, and because I speak English for a lot of the day (for
work), I prefer to speak Italian at all other times - or at least listen to it, I'm a little quiet in a group setting still due to issues with confidence, but I can follow groups as long as people don't go on quick rants. Anyways, I'm getting frustrated that a few people keep speaking English to me. For the most part most people speak to me in Italian (though they may try to switch when they find out I'm American until I tell them that Italian is fine), but some people after repeated reminders always keep switching back into English. This bothers me for two reasons: 1) I get that some people may want to practice English, but I don't want to be the person to hold people's hands through English (at least not without a couple of euros for tutoring). That may sound somewhat hypocritical, but I'm on their turf, and they literally speak Italian with everyone else in front of me. I'm not kidding. Last night I was in a room with all Italians and me, and one person kept speaking Italian to everyone else, and then turning to me in English. It wasn't that I didn't understand, because I did- something which everyone in the room told him (multiple times). 2) I need the Italian practice when I'm not working. I spend a lot of my day in English (or in an English/Italian hybrid), so literally every second counts with my limited time here. What do you do when people keep doing this? Do you just respond in the TL even if they speak English? Keep asking? Ignore it if it's only 1/2 people? (My concern with the last one is that it will expand to others in the room and become permanent, not to mention they don't express themselves well in English anyways). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SnowManR1 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5487 days ago 53 posts - 95 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 51 11 June 2013 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Do you just respond in the TL even if they speak English?"
Bingo! If you're like me and non confrontational just keep responding in Italian no matter what. This may irritate them, but it's no more irritating than when they do this to you. If their resolve is as strong as your own, I would discontiune the relationship and just avoid interacting with them. This has always worked for me. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4261 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 3 of 51 11 June 2013 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||
It's a hard situation. Yes, you are in Italy and it makes sense to speak Italian. But what if you meet an Italian in the US? Then are you saying that you should speak English to the Italian person in the US? How would you practice face-to-face Italian in the US? One option is by paid lessons, but that's another issue. From their viewpoint, in Italy the person may not want to give "free help" to you just as an American may not want to give "free lessons" to an Italian in the US. I think it depends on the person's proficiency. If they are a really strong Italian speaker, then the Italians may be more willing to speak Italian. But how would they get to that high level? By practicing Italian! I always got annoyed when in Spain people wanted to practice English with me and do 50/50 exchanges in both languages. I always said no, "We are in Spain, we should speak Spanish." But maybe they were very busy with their lives and wanted to practice English in the little free time that they had? We ended up not meeting up and not becoming friends. But again, by this logic I couldn't ever practice a foreign language in the US in person with a native speaker. Your friend understands very clearly that you don't want to speak much English in Italy? You've said it several times? How about, "I'm sorry...I speak English at work and I'd really like to make use of my time in Italy to practice. I may not get another chance in my life to live in Italy. Could you please speak just in Italian? Thanks." 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6084 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 4 of 51 11 June 2013 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's frustrating for English speakers but it's pretty common, in the EU at least, to resort to English when speaking with non-natives. Your colleagues speak Italian with each other and switch to Eng. whenever they're speaking to someone who's not Italian. Where I am, Germans speak German to each other and English with Italians, French, Chinese etc etc...
You said their English is not that good. Have you asked them how they got to the level they're at? Tell them you're also trying to get to a communicative level (or the next level) and you'd like some help. Maybe one of your colleagues can recommend a friend or family member that can help you practice. You could try picking up a few Italian phrases or idioms (movies with subtitles have them) and use them to get their attention. That way they see you're making an effort. They may be impressed that you picked it up and it could open up a conversation. You also might try just interjecting into conversations. It's awkward because you may not follow everything -- it might also be rude -- but depending on the circumstances and how you do it, it could be worth an effort. Edited by Sunja on 12 June 2013 at 8:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5782 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 5 of 51 12 June 2013 at 2:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Benny has some good advice about this on his fluent in 3 months site.
blog post by Benny Edited by Random review on 12 June 2013 at 2:55am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5981 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 6 of 51 12 June 2013 at 10:10am | IP Logged | ||
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It's hard to comment without being there but my first thought was that it's kind of
understandable for someone to want to take advantage of an opportunity to practice their language with a native speaker. I would probably do the same thing here in my home country! Paid tuition can certainly be helpful, but in my experience the relationship with a tutor is pretty formal so the opportunity for casual conversation with someone, as equals, is priceless. If it's just one or two people, I wouldn't worry about it. Find more friends who can't (or don't want to) speak English instead. Given that most people in the group you described above were eager to tell this person they had confidence in your Italian, I don't think you have a problem. Do you know people at work who can't/won't speak Italian? If all this guy wants is language practice maybe you could introduce them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 7 of 51 12 June 2013 at 10:59am | IP Logged | ||
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We have discussed this before, and the phenomenon even got a name hee at HTLAL: language banditry.
I can't vouch for the Italian acquaintance (rather than 'friend') of vogue, but in my experience the people who are most likely to continue speaking in English even though you keep speaking their aren't people in the streets - once they have sensed that you are sufficiently advanced to understand them and they understand you, then they will usually switch to their own language - which after all must easier for them. People in the service sector like hotel receptionists and ticket sellers may be proud of their ability to speak in English to all foreigners, and they can be somewhat stubborn. I remember one especially obnoxious ticket seller at an aquarium in Montpellier, France who kept on speaking English to me. For once I asked why (in French of course), and he said that I had an accent. And so what? His accent in English was quite atrocious. And I don't start speaking to people before I think that I can survive a fullblown no-compromise conversation - maybe I should, but I don't. People who meet many foreigners will also have a lot of contact with foreigners who are happy just to speak English (or another major language like German or French) so there is absolutely no reason to give them free language lessons during your few and expensive holiday minutes. I do however sometimes make an exception with people who may have less regular contacts with tourists, but you have to be careful: sometimes those who "just want to speak English" ask for salary as a guide afterwards - especially if you have been walking around a town with them. And it can be difficult to spot these wily persons before you already have fallen into the trap. Edited by Iversen on 12 June 2013 at 11:16am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Itadakimasu Diglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4188 days ago 31 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 8 of 51 19 June 2013 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is a very easy problem to solve and no one has really mentioned these two things yet so let me be the first to rid this board of this problem. I have two EXTREME tips that will eliminate this problem.
1. Most people are more than willing to speak to you in the TL(Target Language), but they just want to taste and approval or speaking English to an English speaker first. So here's what I do. The conversation sounds like this.. Them: Hey can we/I speak/practice my English with you sure? You: Sure! Let's see what you've got! A this point they'll muster up every cookie cutter 10 phrases they learned throughout school and try to use them in some way to further the conversation. In abroad trips for Language scholars there is always a common language. It's usually the one spoken in the country, so in this case Italian. Your Italian is likely leagues better than his English, so whenever he says his 10 phrases "Hello my name is", "How are you", "My hobbies are __,____, and ___. The speakers will start to stall in order to think of stuff to say. I give them 10 minutes of me being an English test dummy and then at that point I cut them off in their language(Italian, Japanese w/e) and say, "Great Job! Your English is really great for an Italian speaker!"(Even if it isn't, I could care less I still say it). They are usually overjoyed and say thank you like 5 times. At this point they are satisfied with their performance and you take off speaking the common language of the country again, and they will have NO PROBLEMS. I've never failed using this method. And people are usually so overjoyed that you spoke with them, that they will EASILY give you 20-30 minutes of common language speaking back, provided you can keep up. There is no "deal" made, I simply give them their time, and then start speaking the language. This is a FAILPROOF method. 2. Just speak to older people(50+). Most older people only know like 2 phrases of English. Hello and Goodbye. I've found this to be the case in pretty much every country. It's not really that they don't KNOW the phrases, but rather they've forgotten them over time, and do not care to remember, practice, or anything like that. This people are fine with being monolingualls and LOVE speaking to foreigners who speak their language so it is a win-win. They will not try to use you for practice(at least outside of a few basic phrases) and they generally are so enthusiastic that someone would learn their language they will easily talk you up for about 25-35 minutes. This is another FAILPROOF method. 11 persons have voted this message useful |
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