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Getting people not to speak English | ||
Tags: Language Banditry | Convincing native speakers | Immersion | Swedish | Learning Technique/Method | Accent | English | German | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6646 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 73 of 169 10 April 2006 at 12:10pm | IP Logged | ||
I actually tried this one time in a train in Belgium, when this creepy guy was sitting next to me, trying to talk to me. I told him in Czech that I didn't speak English. This turned out to be a huge mistake, because he was Slovakian! Slightly different circumstance, I suppose, because I was trying to avoid talking to him at all. So just be careful when you say you only speak Russian, because there's always that one in a million chance that that person speaks Russian, too. You just never know. Of course, it could simply mean now more Russian practice, a win-win situation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bhashavid Hexaglot Newbie Netherlands Joined 6615 days ago 15 posts - 16 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Hindi, Sanskrit, German, Bengali, French Studies: English, Tamil | Message 74 of 169 17 April 2006 at 8:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I had the same kind of incident when I was travelling in a city bus in Delhi, the capital of India. A man came to me and asked in English "Where do you come from". I answered in Hindi (I speak fluently Hindi) that I don't understand English. He replied in English why? Than I said why you said that you don't understand Hindi? The main reason is that in India many people want to show their countrymen that they know English and are able to converse with a foreigner. He looked around him to the working people who were also in the bus and were not able to speak English.
That trick didn't work now. That man who started the conversation in English told me that he is from Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu is in the far south where most people don't understand Hindi. But fortunately I had a basic knowledge of Tamil. So I started to speak in Tamil with that guy. I saw already that he had a nothern appearance. He didn’t know Tamil at all. The working people who followed the conversation bursted out laughing. It was a ridiculous situation. That man didn't know how to leave the bus as quick as possible. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7165 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 75 of 169 26 April 2006 at 3:16am | IP Logged | ||
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I can shed a little light on the reasons of this behavior from the other end of the stick too. Sometimes people who do not speak very good French insist to speak in French in a professional setting. If my English is way better than their French it really makes the discussion quicker, more enjoyable and more precise if we speak English.
In such contextssome people insist to speak in French "Because I need to practice". Now I don't work as a French professor, so it's a bit hard for me to humor the person and see the conversation drag on and have the person miss the finer points just because he fancies a freebie French lesson. Of course my original posts shows I fully understand the other position, but at the end of the day I think that if you speak the language poorly or much worse than the local speaks your own language, if he is busy or in a hurry it's quite understandable that the person wishes to use the language best spoken by both to speed the process up. After all you cannot expect to turn any person you meet into your language teacher if they have better things to do. Of course you should try every time and most people will accept to speak their native language so that you can practice it, but if they don't want to, I now understand it's better to humor them. If you speak their language better than them yours, there is no reason not speak the local language of course. That was my bit of light from the "other end of the stick". Edited by administrator on 26 April 2006 at 3:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6557 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 76 of 169 23 May 2006 at 7:34am | IP Logged | ||
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I hope it's okay to resurrect this month-old thread. I myself, when
necessary, pretend to speak only German and Japanese — I could use French too, but I think my German accent is better (thanks to my German mother). Of course, when I tried that in Thailand, some of them knew German too. :) However, what it really comes down to, I'm convinced, is accent. If your pronunciation is natural and close to native, people assume you're fluent and don't bother trying anything else. If your accent is thick and foreign, they assume you're worse than you really are. It's never too late to improve your pronunciation! I've heard plenty of people say they had trouble getting people to speak Japanese while visiting Japan, but I've lived here 9 months and only had this occur twice. The problem I more commonly have is people assuming I'm more fluent than I am and speaking a hundred miles a minute. :) I work hard on pronunciation, and I'm sure that's why. PS: Bhashavid, great story. :) Edited by Captain Haddock on 23 May 2006 at 7:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7107 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 77 of 169 23 May 2006 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I was in Montreal, Quebec, nobody made any attempt to speak to me in English, because I believe I didn't speak in a thick, foreign accent. (Some did attempt to switch to English because of my appearance though. But most of them switched back.)
Foreign accents just give you this idea that the person is struggling and perhaps the native speaker is struggling to hear what the person is saying. It's natural to try to make the conversation easier. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6800 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 78 of 169 23 May 2006 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm currently an anglophone (learning French) living in Montreal. I've found that over the past year as my French (and confidence _speaking_ French in public :) improved, fewer and fewer retail staff have switched over to English immediately. For me, it's a nice indicator of my progress.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Martien Heptaglot Senior Member Netherlands martienvanwanrooij.n Joined 6894 days ago 134 posts - 148 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, French Studies: Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Swedish, Arabic (Written) | Message 79 of 169 29 May 2006 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6492 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 80 of 169 07 August 2006 at 5:12am | IP Logged | ||
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Mostly I would just continue speaking the local language if I am confident enough in it. If I can see that people just try to be helpful, then I may say that I find it most correct to speak the language of the country, or that it disturbs me to switch back and forth between languages. I might even switch to English just to accommodate them.
For instance I recently visited Moldova, a country that according to Lonely Planet has only 20.000 tourists per year. So I understand that waiters and receptionists and many other people go for English if they spot a Western tourist. I would do the same in their situation. In a few cases however I have had the feeling that some service person just wanted to dictate the language, because they felt superior in English and just didn't care what I thought. In that case I would never bow, - I have had fairly long bilingual discussion with such people, where they spoke English and I spoke the local language. The only thing I never would do would be to tell people that I just wanted to practice their language, - it is not their duty to teach me. Edited by Iversen on 07 August 2006 at 5:50am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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