Most surprised reaction from natives? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Most surprised reaction from natives?
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IronFist
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6248 days ago
663 posts - 941 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

Message 9 of 91

16 May 2012 at 7:31pm | IP Logged

Lapislazuli wrote:

But I got the most irritated looks from Swedes sometimes, when I spoke to them in Swedish. Some of them seemed to have really wondered how weird a person must be to want to learn Swedish, when there are other more useful/popular/important languages out there one can learn. (Some also told me they can't quite unterstand that.) Not all of them, but this is kind of reaction that I especially got in Sweden.

Bummer, Sweden was always on my list of places to potentially move to.
3 persons have voted this message useful

Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6967 days ago
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20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 10 of 91

16 May 2012 at 7:53pm | IP Logged

I've got the strongest reaction from native speakers when speaking BCMS/SC, Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak. I don't remember getting as strong a reaction from native speakers when using Estonian, Finnish or Romanian let alone French or German, which seem trite in comparison.
1 person has voted this message useful

prz_
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Poland
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Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian
Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish

Message 11 of 91

16 May 2012 at 10:33pm | IP Logged

As I wrote once in this forum, Macedonians, whom I've met, were not very excited seeing someone who speaks their, let's face the truth, outlying, language.

Edited by prz_ on 16 May 2012 at 10:40pm
2 persons have voted this message useful

BaronBill
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
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335 posts - 594 votes

Speaks: English*, French, German
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian

Message 12 of 91

17 May 2012 at 12:23am | IP Logged

Here in the US (at least here in Denver), speaking any language besides English and Spanish seems to be met with absolute amazement. Its seen almost like a bar trick and occasionally I will find someone else who speaks French or German, but mostly people just flock around and ask me to say things (usually obscenities) in another language. I've actually stopped letting people know I am multilingual because it is almost more of a nuisance unless I'm using to actually speak to someone else who knows the language. I'm actually a pretty reserved person in real life so I don't care for the attention really.

Has anyone else found this to be the case?

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Sandman
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5219 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Japanese

Message 13 of 91

17 May 2012 at 8:12am | IP Logged

During my trip to Japan last Summer there were two separate occasions in which a Japanese person was so surprised in just SEEING me (apparently not a lot of gaijins in that area) they literally threw their hands up in the air in shock and jumped backwards. I'm not exaggerating at all, I've never seen anything even remotely like it in my life.

One time was in a bookstore as a girl happened to look up from a manga in her hand to see me standing next to her also perusing mangas, she jumped backwards while gasping and almost dropped her book. The second time I had wandered into a "Video" store (thinking it was actually a video store, rather than the porno video store it actually was ... I learned you have to be very careful of "video" stores in Japan) and the store clerk that was walking near me, turned to look at me and do the usual greeting, and then proceeded to jump back at least 2 feet while throwing his hands above his head.
15 persons have voted this message useful

songlines
Pro Member
Canada
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Speaks: English*
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Message 14 of 91

17 May 2012 at 9:08am | IP Logged

Sandman wrote:

During my trip to Japan last Summer there were two separate occasions in which a Japanese
person was so surprised in just SEEING me (apparently not a lot of gaijins in that area) they literally threw their
hands up in the air in shock and jumped backwards. I'm not exaggerating at all, I've never seen anything even
remotely like it in my life.

One time was in a bookstore as a girl happened to look up from a manga in her hand to see me standing next to
her also perusing mangas, she jumped backwards while gasping and almost dropped her book. The second time
I had wandered into a "Video" store (thinking it was actually a video store, rather than the porno video store it
actually was ... I learned you have to be very careful of "video" stores in Japan) and the store clerk that was
walking near me, turned to look at me and do the usual greeting, and then proceeded to jump back at least 2
feet while throwing his hands above his head.

And this was before you'd even started speaking in Japanese...? What did they do when you began to talk
(e.g. greeting the store clerk)?
3 persons have voted this message useful

eilis91
Bilingual Tetraglot
Newbie
France
Joined 4387 days ago
28 posts - 54 votes

Speaks: English*, Irish*, French, Italian
Studies: German, Yoruba

Message 15 of 91

17 May 2012 at 10:12am | IP Logged

Sandman wrote:

During my trip to Japan last Summer there were two separate occasions in which a Japanese
person was so surprised in just SEEING me (apparently not a lot of gaijins in that area) they literally threw their
hands up in the air in shock and jumped backwards. I'm not exaggerating at all, I've never seen anything even
remotely like it in my life.

One time was in a bookstore as a girl happened to look up from a manga in her hand to see me standing next to
her also perusing mangas, she jumped backwards while gasping and almost dropped her book. The second time
I had wandered into a "Video" store (thinking it was actually a video store, rather than the porno video store it
actually was ... I learned you have to be very careful of "video" stores in Japan) and the store clerk that was
walking near me, turned to look at me and do the usual greeting, and then proceeded to jump back at least 2
feet while throwing his hands above his head.

I can definitely relate to this. I went to China when I was sixteen on an orchestra tour, and our first evening in
Beijing I went over to the local supermarket on my own. It was terrifying, everyone was pointing and staring at
me! My sister was on that trip too, and she has curly red hair. Everywhere we went, locals would follow her taking
pictures of her head. One man followed her for about fifteen minutes and must have taken hundreds of photos of
her!
2 persons have voted this message useful

eilis91
Bilingual Tetraglot
Newbie
France
Joined 4387 days ago
28 posts - 54 votes

Speaks: English*, Irish*, French, Italian
Studies: German, Yoruba

Message 16 of 91

17 May 2012 at 10:14am | IP Logged

BaronBill wrote:

Here in the US (at least here in Denver), speaking any language besides English and Spanish
seems to be met with absolute amazement. Its seen almost like a bar trick and occasionally I will find someone
else
who speaks French or German, but mostly people just flock around and ask me to say things (usually obscenities)
in
another language. I've actually stopped letting people know I am multilingual because it is almost more of a
nuisance unless I'm using to actually speak to someone else who knows the language. I'm actually a pretty
reserved
person in real life so I don't care for the attention really.

Has anyone else found this to be the case?

I've found that same thing in the UK, where I lived for two and a half years. It's quite annoying!

Edited by eilis91 on 17 May 2012 at 10:15am

1 person has voted this message useful

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