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Friendliness of the natives | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| pmiller Account terminated Groupie Canada Joined 5676 days ago 99 posts - 104 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 32 21 May 2009 at 2:37am | IP Logged |
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I have to think a huge factor in successfully learning a foreign language is the ability to easily converse with many native speakers. That being said, I think the level of openness or friendliness towards foreigners varies a great deal among different cultures. I heard somewhere that the three most unfriendly places for foreigners are Paris, Moscow and Seoul (Korea). Based on personal experience in Paris and Seoul, I imagine there's a grain of truth here.
I've also heard that the French can very unforgiving of anyone who speaks their language less than perfectly. Someone on this forum said that whenever he tried to speak French in Paris, he ended up being cursed at (!), whereas when he just spoke English, everything was fine. Wow. Based on this, I would say French is much harder to learn than it has to be. Similarly, I would think it's a lot easier to learn Arabic in Lebanon, Syria or maybe Egypt (all of them poor and secular) than in someplace like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries (rich and very Islamic), some of which are famously unfriendly to foreigners and practically have a apartheid system to keep natives from interacting with foreigners. On the other hand, I've found Germans and Chinese to be pretty friendly (but not in Hong Kong or other Cantonese speaking areas, for some reason). Chinese and Southeast Asians are often very happy to hear a foreigner speaking their language, no matter how badly, and they will make an effort to communicate with you. I believe it's the same in Spanish-speaking countries. Or maybe they're just friendlier in general? I hear Persians are exceptionally friendly and talkative with foreigners. I know Indonesians are from personal experience. In Japan I learned of a weird attitude a lot of Japanese have: they more or less respect English-speaking foreigners. But if you start speaking Japanese to them, they might actually become shocked and disturbed (in a very noticeable way!). By penetrating their language, you've broken through the nice barrier they thought they enjoyed against foreigners, and at the same time lowered yourself to the bottom rung of their society - a "strange foreigner" who's "trying to be Japanese", rather than a foreigner from a respected culture who is too busy to bother learning Japanese. Or something like that. In any case, the Japanese are rather introverted and ethnocentric, and it's not at all easy to make friends with them, much less strike up casual conversations with strangers. I think this has to make Japanese much harder to learn than it would otherwise be. Learning of this attitude was very discouraging for me - Japanese is already hard enough, so I started to think "why bother?". Anyone have any thoughts along these lines? What countries/cultures is it easy to practice your target language in, and where is it more difficult? Edited by pmiller on 21 May 2009 at 2:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| maya_star17 Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5917 days ago 269 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Russian*, French, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 32 21 May 2009 at 4:09am | IP Logged |
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IMHO, you seem to have a slightly disorted of certain groups of people... but this is very subjective, so perhaps I'm the one with the distorted view =)
Parisians are not the kindest or most patient people, but they hardly represent the entirety (is that even a word?) of the Francophonie. Heck, they don't even represent France as a whole. Ditto for much of the public in Moscow. Try living in a dirty, polluted, overpriced city with ~12 million inhabitants with horrible traffic/bad drivers, and tell me how polite and friendly you're feeling. People outside of Moscow tend to be much nicer (in my experience) than those living in the city. I've admittedly met only a handful of Japanese people. One woman stands out in my memory as being the stereotypical "I can't believe this gaijin is daring to attempt to speak my language" kind of person, but the others seemed kind and patient. I'm planning on going to Japan for a year on an exchange during my 3rd year (of university), and I'm going to be trying to get anywhere that'll take me that's not Tokyo, for the same reason that I have no desire to return to Moscow. EDIT: Oh, one more thing. I've found that Spanish-speakers are (in general) unusually open/social/accepting/warm/etc. It's a bit of a stereotype, but my experience shows it to be true. Edited by maya_star17 on 21 May 2009 at 4:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ashley_Victrola Senior Member United States Joined 5708 days ago 416 posts - 429 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Romanian | Message 3 of 32 21 May 2009 at 4:32am | IP Logged |
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Yeah, saying all Parisians are rude and represnetative of all France is like saying New Yorkers (from NYC) are rude and thus so is all of New York or even all the Northeast is rude. City people tend to be busy and not very patient. Fact of life. I think going to a French island would be cool even though the accent would probably be difficult for me to understand.
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| heartnsoul Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5723 days ago 45 posts - 47 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, Spanish Studies: Italian, German, Greek | Message 4 of 32 21 May 2009 at 4:47am | IP Logged |
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Yes, generally I have found native Spanish speakers quite receptive when it comes to foreigners - more so than Italians, in my experience. I also think its the culture.
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| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7079 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 6 of 32 21 May 2009 at 7:40am | IP Logged |
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Korea is a difficult place to break in to. Not for speaking Korean to people, but for having meaningful conversations.
The biggest barrier is cultural, not linguistic. This is in the sense that unless you can forge a relationship with someone, then they may not even give you the time of day. Not always a meaningful relationship, but just the relationship of knowing a few details about someone changes the whole attitude and stance of someone. Some of these people for me have been as diverse as street vendors I've visted a few times through to guys in the gym. Get past that initial hurdle and their are very hospitable and caring people. Linguistically, Koreans tend to be friendly to foreigners trying to speak Korean, but at the same time, there is a dance of discovering who's language skill is greater (if the speaker is learning English). Koreans will try to swtich to English to practice their language, but if you are better or equal to them with your Korean skill, the conversation will often slide to Korean. And as a matter of course, I would say with the exception of one or two people, my closest and most genuine friends are on the whole Koreans I hve met in Korea; many with no English ability. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 7 of 32 21 May 2009 at 12:24pm | IP Logged |
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Most people in world cities like Paris, Moscow, Hong Kong, Tokyo are BUSY and STRESSED (just like they are in New York, London etc). The average person doesn't have time for tourists or language learners -- they hardly have time for themselves and their own family and friends!
When travelling in such cities it is the traveller's responsibility to familiarise himself with the local situation enough that they are not a complete nuisance to locals! Here in London it's not unusual for tourists to hold up an entire escalator because they can't work out which direction to take at the bottom.. Often they have not understood how the fare system works before they got on a bus etc. Elsewhere in Europe I have noticed that it is very common that tourists expect waiters to be able to recite in English the exact ingredients of any dish at a regular resturant..! A large modern city is primarily a city of the locals, not a museum or themepark for tourists! Neither is it a free-for-all language learning facility, and local people are not language instructors with indefinite patience! Wherever I may be, I usually try to help anybody who can communicate in a language that I can understand too. If I happen to be walking the same direction I'll take them to where they want to go.. But I will not hang around while they look up "left", "right" and "straight ahead" in their phrase book! And with London communications being what they are, I will not miss my train for it. If I am in an unfamiliar city I try to be as prepared as I can, observe the locals or if I am too busy or can't be bothered then I rely on taxis. People should also remember that they represent their nationality when they are abroad. Looks or speech make them stand out and people might think "Typical ___________! What a pain!" With the smallest infringement like being a nuisance in the metro they can give their country a bad name. On the other hand, if they give up their seat or help someone with their luggage, this stands out too and is good PR for their nationality. If foreigners want to communicate with locals, they simply have to be good enough in the local language (or some other commonly spoken language) that they can get the message across in an understandable way AND understand the answer, and say "thanks". (Ten sentences from "Berlitz" are practically useless since these will be the exact same phrases that locals in the service industry know in English... Plus the Berlitz learner won't be able to understand the response he gets to his question in most cases.) It is rude to EXPECT locals to speak in any language other than their own, including English. Even if they do, they might find it awkward to be put on the spot! So if I have to approach someone in English I am polite and apologetic about it. For the best part, what foreigners percieve as rude is just a different culture and (frequently) a different view on service in shops and restaurants.In most cases a local would be treated in the same way, but think nothing of it. However the tourist may be used to waiters who work for tips.. This encourages a rather artificial friendliness which service staff that don't rely on tips (e.g most of Europe) lack. The countryside of any country is a much better place for interacting with locals. People there might have more time and patience and the tourist might be an interesting novelty instead of the irritating person who takes 10 minutes to order a simple train ticket ahead of you at the ticket office queue. Things get turned on their head a bit if you travel to a city where you are by default a lot "richer" than locals. However that's not really the case in any of the cities that were mentioned in the first post. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Zanna Triglot Newbie Poland Joined 5706 days ago 21 posts - 21 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Spanish Studies: Catalan, French | Message 8 of 32 21 May 2009 at 12:34pm | IP Logged |
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I wouldn't recommend to study Polish in the countryside. City people will have a good laugh afterwards :)
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