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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 |  | |
| Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5430 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes  Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French | Message 129 of 169 15 February 2010 at 10:58pm | IP Logged |
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I think it's all about confidence (and of course a certain measure of competancy). Anxiety about speaking gets to me a lot and I find that if I approach someone timidly with the vague idea of speaking Dutch with them two things happen. One, I'll forget my vocabulary and two, they sense my uncertainty and presume I'm a tourist. Sometimes I commit myself to speaking Dutch no matter what and then I always get a positive response from the other person.
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| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5258 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 130 of 169 16 February 2010 at 12:05am | IP Logged |
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I think it's important to get a good grasp of the small filler words present in every language. If you can master these, even if your level is not that high, you can probably convince people otherwise.
Words such as: "well..." "actually..." "You see..." "like..." "Ah, I see." "Nice!/Great!/etc." "thingy" Then you can just throw in a "well... actually... you see... I was like..." while you are thinking without making it sound unnatural :D Also have a quick think about what you want to say and what you might have to say before you go somewhere, and look possible vocabularily you might need if you have the chance. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Aish Bilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5138 days ago 1 posts - 2 votes Speaks: Hindi, Tamil*, English* Studies: German | Message 131 of 169 10 April 2010 at 9:29am | IP Logged |
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Surprisingly, this never happens to me. However, it's helpful that I can do a number of
English accents and that I look Indian; if this were ever to happen to me, I would simply say I spoke only the target language and Tamil. That would do it. :) I have to say though, it's possible that this happens because a lot of the time the accent of the foreigner is very difficult to understand. In that case, it's really annoying to hear your language get slaughtered. If you're in a foreign country practicing the language, please make a conscious effort to get the pronunciation right! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| michi Nonaglot Newbie Austria Joined 5090 days ago 33 posts - 57 votes Speaks: Dutch*, German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese Studies: Turkish, Arabic (Written), Serbo-Croatian, Indonesian, Japanese | Message 132 of 169 21 May 2010 at 11:01am | IP Logged |
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Maybe I am not the right person to talk about this subject, because my mother tongue, isn't English and when I speak a foreign language my accent won't be English - American, Australian etc. However I remember that in the 80s I was attending a language school in Siena, Italy, a fellow student from Britain complained that all other students spoke only English with him. Of course that was not correct and I spoke with him in Italian only. In general I do think it is unpolite to answer in English when the person seems to be willing to speak your language, but I could imagine it often depends on the level of fluency. Does the foreigner just have an accent or does he make a helpless impression.
However I can't say I have made the experience that people answered me in English when I tried to speak their language. Even in Sweden, where a good command of English is wide-spread everybody answered me in Swedish when I addressed in that language. I made the same experience in countries like Italy and Indonesia. When we were travelling through in Japan a couple of times Japanese people came to us and asked in English if we needed help. However the "danger" of being answered in English when you talk Japanese in Japan is very small, because the number of Japanese who are really able to speak English is very low. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| camus Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 10 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Mandarin* Studies: English, German | Message 133 of 169 27 July 2010 at 11:11pm | IP Logged |
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You can tell them you want to practice and keep talking in Italian/Spanish Edited by camus on 28 July 2010 at 2:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LandTortoise Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5010 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Welsh | Message 134 of 169 10 August 2010 at 12:10pm | IP Logged |
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To me it's quite simple. When I'm in France I'll only speak French, when in Spain only Spanish! I'm fluent in these languages and never have a problem. But, I've learnt from bitter experience not to use French in Flemish parts of Belgium!
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| AeOeUe Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 5007 days ago 16 posts - 31 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Dutch Studies: Russian | Message 135 of 169 15 August 2010 at 6:12pm | IP Logged |
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I understand that it can be unnerving if people constantly talk back in English, but please remember that they're simply trying to be hospitable!
I really don't think your accent or level of English matters that much. Even I, as a German, have been talked to in English in a German bar since I was speaking English with my friends. Keep in mind that it doesn't happen too often that foreigners have a good command of German (or any other language except English for that matter) - so people will simply assume it's easier for you to speak English. And it's certainly not only native speakers of English who encounter this phenomenon - Germans like to do this with all sorts of foreigners, including those who actually don't speak English! I think the best thing to do is to state clearly that you want to speak German because you're studying it - it's a short sentence and should be understandable to everyone. Also, I wouldn't recommend hiding your knowledge of English - it can be quite obvious where you come from, accent or not, plus most people will be deeply impressed to see someone from an English-speaking country learning their language, and it may change their attitudes towards your country for the better :) 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 136 of 169 15 August 2010 at 7:30pm | IP Logged |
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Don't forget that even if your mother tongue is not English, in some parts people will answer back in English as soon as they have identified you as a tourist. I've had that recently in Spain and Italy a couple times.
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