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Americans and Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 1 of 41 30 March 2015 at 9:45pm | IP Logged |
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I had another strange Spanish language experience this past weekend, and it got me
wondering: Is this an American thing, or do people in other countries do this also? Here's the scene: my friend and I were at a local Mexican diner. We decide to try our Spanish out. I order in my nice, basic, slow Spanish. All went well. My friend - who claims to be fluent - started speaking in this hyper-fast rapid fire manner, like Speedy Gonazales on crack. He was also loud - I think he wanted to show off for the other patrons. No one understood him. It was a bit embarrassing. He claimed it was because he was speaking "Puerto Rican Spanish" and the staff were speaking "Mexican Spanish." I've seen other Americans do this: they cover up their limited speaking skills by trying to speak Spanish super fast. And I thought back to my Spanish teacher who pronounced all her vowels like we do in English (I later learned that she had done her study abroad in Cancun, which explained a lot). Or the running joke on King of the Hill, where Peggy Hill is a High School Spanish teacher who can't speak Spanish. A buddy from South America says that all Americans think that they speak Spanish, but most don't. Harsh, but maybe there's an element of truth here. Does this happen elsewhere? Do Germans, for example (I'm just making this one up), all think that they can speak Polish when they really can't? Or is this a uniquely American / Spanish thing? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3540 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French | Message 2 of 41 30 March 2015 at 11:38pm | IP Logged |
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Most Americans know some Spanish words and phrases, and maybe they're confused into thinking that means they speak Spanish. On the other hand, many groups due to historical contact know quite a few French words and phrases, and even incorporate these into their language, yet just because one does that doesn't mean that they can spreak or understand French.
By the way, reading the name of a dish is not enough for me to consider it "speaking". The name of the dish could have been written in Klingon. If I pronouncd the Klingon name very well to the waiter, does that mean she and I are conversing in Klingon?? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3534 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 3 of 41 31 March 2015 at 1:07am | IP Logged |
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I haven't really seen this sort of thing before, but what I more commonly encounter is
people saying "oh, I understand it better than I speak it" in reference to any language. When people try to talk to them they pretty much never understand them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5260 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 41 31 March 2015 at 1:26am | IP Logged |
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I have Puerto Rican and Mexican friends here on-island who are also friends with each other, they don't have a problem communicating with each other.
Ha! I run into folks all the time who claim to "speak" Spanish and don't know more than a few words or phrases. I was sitting next to a couple of US tourists at a small beach bar here a few weeks ago. One girl claimed to speak Spanish after saying "Quiero una cerveza". I proceded to speak to her in Spanish and she didn't understand a word I said. I repeated myself... nothing. Finally, the Puerto Rican bartender translated my question "¿Dónde aprendiste tu español?" (Where did you learn your Spanish?) for her. She claimed it was my accent. Then the bartender and a Chilean customer started speaking with me in Spanish. The girl's friend was laughing hard and finally said to her- "BUSTED"! They paid their bill and left the bar soon after. These days, many English-speaking Americans know a few phrases and sentences in Spanish. Just saying a few basic words and phrases, as we all know here, doesn't imply a high level of speaking ability. I live next door to Puerto Rico and travel there frequently. American tourists claiming to "speak" Spanish is one reason why I often have to prove myself in San Juan because, people are just so accustomed to US tourists trying out their few phrases of broken Spanish that they are a bit taken aback to hear an American who can actually go beyond this. Of course, once I have established my ability, the conversation continues in Spanish. Outside of San Juan, I don't run into this on the lesser touristed parts of the island. Edited by iguanamon on 31 March 2015 at 1:29am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 41 31 March 2015 at 1:53am | IP Logged |
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While this may be a widely spread trouble among the americans, it would be naive and
unfair to believe they are the only ones. Last year on a plane to Spain, there was a Russian girl who wasted five or ten minutes of her and steward's time shouting about how she understood Spanish great even though she could speak it badly. She was shouting in English. It was quite annoying and I don't know what exactly she hoped to achieve but in my head, I was shouting at her "you and morons like you are exactly the reason why the rest of us has it so hard to find language practice". Spanish is just a very popular language to start learning these days yet most learners are far from getting at least to the intermediate level. Really, I think the Spanish natives, as your experience from various LA countries suggests, are getting the same syndrom as the French natives. Those too keep switching to English unnecessarily and often aren't exactly nice and supportive due to having met tons of "foreigners who can speak French" before. You need to prove yourself first and it is often not easy. Fortunately, the Spanish natives in Spain are still awesome and friendly, perhaps due to Spanish being less common in schools in Europe than in the US. I think the situation is bound to worsen as tens of millions of Americans are forced to "learn" Spanish at school and later don't feel like admitting that they can't speak it having spent so many years on it. It is the same thing about French learners in Europe, I'd guess. Who is to blame? Incompetent language teaching in the educational main stream where vast majority of learners fails. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 6 of 41 31 March 2015 at 2:43am | IP Logged |
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I have Puerto Rican and Mexican friends here on-island who are also friends with each
other, they don't have a problem communicating with each other. Oh yeah, definitely. I think my buddy was just making an incredibly lame-ass excuse. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4288 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 7 of 41 31 March 2015 at 2:51am | IP Logged |
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I usually get an opposite: a person who claims to speak English because they do not
want an Anglophone to speak to them in their language. In this case, it makes them look like abject idiots because they want to show off their English but it takes them average 15 seconds to form a sentence. With Spanish, my experience is that they are the most forgiving in terms of speaking with them, as in they usually speak with you no matter how bad your level, accent, pronunciation, grammar, speed, syntax, etc. is. This is in contrast to the Northern European countries. If they become more frustrated in certain parts where they live with native Anglophones, like California or Florida in the USA, then perhaps they have started to switch to English reluctantly with some because they cannot tolerate the people who pretend to speak Spanish, but I have not witnessed this so far. I am not sure how "speaks" is measured, but if I notice that an Anglophone (usually American or British) "speaks" Spanish, but they keep using the indicative instead of the subjunctive when more than obviously necessary, I am not sure if that is "busted" or not, but I find it like someone saying that s/he knows calculus but cannot do integration. Edited by 1e4e6 on 31 March 2015 at 2:55am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 8 of 41 31 March 2015 at 11:10am | IP Logged |
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So, some people claim to speak Spanish, but in reality don't speak it well. What's so special about that? Don't most
self-learning courses or software promise that you will speak the language in a jiffy? The problem is that the word "speak" is used in the most elastic of ways. Just like "fluency" that is bandied around with great ease but little meaning. Isn't this why we have the CEFR system? Forget all this stuff of 'speaking" Spanish and use a true proficiency scale. Only then can we have real discussions. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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