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How to make conversations happen | ||
Tags: Conversation | Travel | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4985 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 9 of 26 25 October 2010 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I know the feeling. Despite being very confident in English, I find it very difficult to speak in the languages I know fairly well. I suppose one of the most important ways to help start a conversation is an open question: "Excuse me, what do you think are the most interesting things to see round here?" You might get ignored or rebuffed by some, but many will be helpful. The death knell for a decent conversation is a closed question such as "How many miles is it to Berlin?" It closes a conversation very quickly.
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| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5043 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 10 of 26 26 October 2010 at 6:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks everyone for the helpful tips. Keep them coming!
A second layer to my frustration has been my "white face" as Ari pointed out. More often than not, the folks who want to talk to me intend to practice their English. Putting the "language battle" issue aside for a moment, suffice it to say I tend to avoid these situations like the plague (or SARS in my case). My other big option is to speak to the locals (hainanese). Again, suffice it to say, not an ideal situation. Honestly, I struggle to understand the most basic sentences from a hainanese speaker. However, about 2 to 3 times a weeks I have the best conversations with people who speak Mandarin quite well, while having no knowledge of English. I always go home with a big smile on my face :-) I'm sharing this second layer simply to share. The question remains the same. The responses have all been great. I'd love to hear any more that you may have. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 6944 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 11 of 26 26 October 2010 at 6:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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In China, there is always the problem of locals wanting to practice their English with
you and some (many?) won't take no for an answer. There's an interesting article about these struggles">language power struggles here. The trick is to find a place where the people have no interest in speaking English. Unfortunately, this rules out most places where students gather. In Dalian, where I am right now, I've found that the public bathhouse is great. NOBODY there speaks English or even tries to. But they are always very curious about the waiguoren 外国人. In most cases, I'm the only (obvious) foreigner who has ever ventured into the bathhouse. They always have lots of questions about where I'm from, what I do, what I think about China, etc. I'm sure there are other places where foreigners don't generally go but that could be interesting and provide lots of conversation practice. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4985 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 13 of 26 26 October 2010 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
LOL I have been tempted to lie and pretend not to be BE, but it seems to be obvious to most foreigners. Oddly English people say I look slightly foreign, maybe Italian, although I don't know of any Italian ancestors. Probably because I tan darkly. The idea of looking for places and people who have no interest in speaking English sounds a good one. Another possibility is to say you will speak X to them and they can speak English to you and that you can help one another with any errors. Many Germans I have encountered will instantly switch to English if they realize I am not German. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5798 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 14 of 26 26 October 2010 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Playing Weiqi (aka Go) in china might be a bit difficult unless you already play. If you go to a club, expect everyone to be ranked 5k and up, with lots of dan-level players. For a total beginner, it could take quite some time before you get up to this level.
On the other hand, it can be really fun to be skilled in conversation *about* certain specialist topics, such as Weiqi. Here in Germany, I've gone to one of the Go clubs at a university, and I talk with German-speaking players online on KGS. It's actually quite fun to try and comment on a game in German, and can become pretty easy once you've learned the specialist vocabulary. After studying an extra 20 words that are well-suited to the topic, the rest of it is just basic language skills to string it all together. This also prevents boredom, because you have a prefabricated topic to talk about. In china, looking different or quirky didn't help me. Tons of people stared at my red hair and brightly-coloured tattoos, but not many people had the courage to talk to me about them...probably because they assumed that I wouldn't speak any Mandarin. I had a number of people come up and say "HELLO!" really loudly, and then run away, and several kids said "hey mom, look at the American!" (to which I would respond, in Mandarin, "Actually no, I'm a Canadian") Something that's simple might help in china. Go find a basketball court...I saw lots of people on the university campuses playing basketball, and a decent percentage of them seemed to be just average players, so it would probably be reasonably easy to join them in a game even if you're not a basketball star. This differs from the Weiqi situation where everyone at the club might mop the floor with you. (I actually lost several games to some 6-year-olds that I played against at a Weiqi school). Find some places where people have similar interests. Again, my experience was with the university environment, so I immediately think about clubs. Find some topic (science, comic books, whatever) and see if there's a club at the university about it. If you can't find it online, just show up on campus and start asking people about how to find clubs. At least that'll get you talking :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6084 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 15 of 26 27 October 2010 at 11:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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Some years back, I was studying Polish, which is kind of a heritage language for me. Workers in coffee shops etc. were often from Poland, so I would attempt to chat in that language, for practice.
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| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4985 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 16 of 26 01 November 2010 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
That sounds an excellent suggestion to overcome anxiety about speaking to native speakers. I'd imagine most of you are like me and started out mildly sociophobic even in your own language and with age and experience your confidence grew. I have even spoken rarely to moderately large groups, but I still don't like this, but my point is we all started out speaking to one or two people in a "controlled" environment and in this way our confidence grew. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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