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Most surprised reaction from natives? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| choca Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 4387 days ago 9 posts - 21 votes Speaks: German*, Spanish, Indonesian, English Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 65 of 91 30 May 2012 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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The funniest reaction I've ever got was in a plane from Indoesia to Jordan. I was sitting beside a girl from some remote village who went (together with some friends) to the UAE for work. When still in the airport I asked her in fluent Indoesian to change the seats in Indonesian, so she can sit beside her friend (I was sitting in the middle of them and the true reason was I just wanted to stretch my legs ;)). She was very thankful(!) and we changed seats. And then the big surprise! Indonesians tend to be very chatty (does this word exist?) people and they talk nonstop. But the whole flight from JKT to Amman she didn't say one single word to me!
Just when we arrived she eventually turned to me and asked: "you are not Indoesian, right?" And I said, no, I am European (she wouldn't know Germany). Suddenly she screamed: See, see, I knew!!!! adressing her friend.And the she said, they were afraid of me because I spoke like and Indonesian but I didn't look like one, so they didn't dare speak to me!! They though I was kind of a ghost she said! :D Whenever I speak Indonesian to an Indonesian here in Germany, I get absolutely NO reaction, they answer in Indoesian as if that was the most normal thing(?). But it just proves to me that my Indonesian is good ;) 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| choca Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 4387 days ago 9 posts - 21 votes Speaks: German*, Spanish, Indonesian, English Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 66 of 91 30 May 2012 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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n, n, n, n, t -> some missing letters, please add them to the post above ;)
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| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4576 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes  Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 67 of 91 30 May 2012 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Very cool, choca!
The one time I ever spoke Indonesian, we had a new 13 year old girl who was assigned to the class I was teaching. She had been in the US for about 4 days, spoke no English, and apparently panicked the first day, started crying and had to be sent home. She was starting classes the next day with my class, and I was told to please make her feel at home. I thought, "great, I speak Taglog, it's a related language, and I'll look up a couple of words and greet her in Indonesian." I thought I had it right, and the next morning as she fearfully entered the room, I greeted her with something like, "good night, sleep well!" (or something, malam and pagi mixed up) She about died laughing, and never missed a beat again on adjusting to life in the US. She became an absolutely outstanding student, and I hope I helped her in some small way. steve 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tiyafeh Pentaglot Newbie Israel Joined 4589 days ago 12 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English, Modern Hebrew*, Portuguese, Spanish, Latin Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Arabic (Written), German, Greek, Aramaic, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 68 of 91 31 May 2012 at 1:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Interestingly enough, I've had a few surprised reactions from English-speaking Americans.
Most memorably, a few years ago, I spent a few months living in the US. On my first day of school there, the school counselor, having been told that a new Israeli student was joining the school, took me to her office to take some tests and explain to me about the school. Now, this woman was Jewish, so presumably she had some idea of what an Israeli accent sounds like, and she was amazed to hear me speak flawless British English, and I later overheard her saying something like 'I've never met a foreigner who spoke such good English'. Apparently Americans can be impressed by a person from a non-Anglophone country who speaks as well as a native speaker (though in my case the reason is that I spent a while in England as a child, which I suppose is cheating). Edited by tiyafeh on 31 May 2012 at 1:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4820 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 69 of 91 31 May 2012 at 11:43am | IP Logged | ||
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I just get the classic surprised reactions. Tourists in Prague are usually relieved when
I speak French or my bad Spanish to them (a great hint is glancing at the guide in their hands). In France, I either get the surprised reaction and compliments (in tourist areas) or no compliments and surprise at all, which I value higher. But I remember! I got quite a lot of surprised reactions from English natives on the text-based online pc game where I had learnt most of my English. First months had been hard, I had been really slow, looking up things etc but after some time, people were really surprised when I apologized for a small mistake or misunderstanding and explained because they had no idea from my writing. I wanted to play with Americans so I had to remove the obstacle and I fully succeeded (and got C2 grade of writing part of the CAE thanks to this game :-) ) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4433 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 70 of 91 02 June 2012 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Even though I can only communicate on a very basic level in Hungarian, I find that many Hungarians are delighted to hear me say a few words in their language and the reaction is overwhelmingly positive. Indeed, I've had a few compliments from the ladies as a result of my attempts. Makes me wonder if I should have gotten into this language-learning game when I was a young single guy.
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| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4639 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 71 of 91 02 June 2012 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | ||
Well, if the other person senses that you aren't 100% confident in his language, that would be one reason. This quite often happened to me in large hotels, where the staff almost always spoke perfect English, and it was far easier for them to do that, than have me struggle on in my less than perfect German. After a while though, I began to have the confidence to explain that I was learning and wanted to speak German at every opportunity, and they always respected my wishes. Of course, when you are "the customer", it's a bit different from speaking with random strangers. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lancemfoster Newbie United States about.me/lancemfosteRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4351 days ago 7 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin, Yoruba, Hawaiian, Irish, Malay, Ojibwe, Old English | Message 72 of 91 24 June 2012 at 5:10am | IP Logged | ||
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When I was in Nigeria in 1996, I was studying Yoruba. I would walk around on the campus, about the only white guy there on the U of Ibadan, and people would stare. Once in a while, a Yoruba would point and shout at me in amazement, "Oyibo! Oyibo!" which means "White guy! White guy!" And I would point and shout back, with proper intonation (Yoruba is tonal, like Chinese), "Yoruba! Yoruba!" And they would laugh and the crowd would laugh. They got a real kick out of it.
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