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Rude or polite in foreign languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4495 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 9 of 28 01 November 2013 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Israelis are known for being straightforward, but I like that. They do have a conditional
sort of thing in the language but I'm not sure if they use it for requests. Anyway, that is what bevakashah is for. I love Hebrew. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5122 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 10 of 28 01 November 2013 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
That makes two of us :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5554 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 11 of 28 01 November 2013 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think of such phrases as a way of establishing a rapport. "This is the situation we are in, we have well-defined roles as a service worker and a customer, I acknowledge this and expect you to acknowledge it as well, and I am paying full attention to you."
It doesn't have to be verbal, depending on the other person and the environment you could establish such an understanding simply with eye contact, gestures and posture. Personally, I don't mind direct language at all, nor do I mind formalized, polite language, though I might counteract one with the other if I feel it's too one-sided. Also, I am very willing to wait until somebody has finished their current task. What I find impolite is when people glance at me, notice I probably won't demand that they pay attention to me immediately, and shift their attention back to a private conversation or something like filing their nails. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6944 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 12 of 28 01 November 2013 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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See the following for some insight.
excessive politeness? Past tense indicates polite forms Politeness and in-directness across cultures: A comparison of English, German, Polish and Russian Requests The Different Levels of Politeness in Different Cultures and Languages Politeness as a feature: so important and so rare (technical but interesting analysis of examples) Relationships in Slavic vs. Anglo-Saxon Culture Why a Pole's politeness can be lost in translation The last link reminds me of my experience (i.e. not backed by anything rigorous) that Polish and Slovak have a higher tendency to use indicative or imperative (couched sometimes with the equivalents of "thank you" and "please") than conditional when making requests compared to what I use in English in the same situation. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4157 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 13 of 28 01 November 2013 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
I was going to write something like this, but hesitated because I thought it was possible that I was the only one with that experience. I don't think someone speaking that way in Polish sounds as off-putting as it does in English. Actually, it's not even so much the wording, but the expectation that you drop everything you're doing and comply with the request immediately that I think comes off as being impolite (though now I wonder how many times I've come off as being rude or unfriendly because I don't react in the expected way!) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Einarr Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom einarrslanguagelog.w Joined 4401 days ago 118 posts - 269 votes Speaks: English, Bulgarian*, French, Russian Studies: Swedish | Message 14 of 28 01 November 2013 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
That makes three of us. :) Hebrew is lovely. Now to the point. I don't think they were necessarily rude to your colleague. Rather, he should have been prepared to meet more different of an attitude in the service sector in Eastern Europe. For instance, you mentioned that he went on a bike, which makes me think he didn't use fancy hotels/restaurants and so on. I'm saying that, because there is a stark difference between the service one gets in a Western chain of hotels/restaurants etc. and the local ones. As a person who has worked for an international chain, we were enforced to greet customers with "Hello, how are you, how can I help you?" and finishing the conversation with "Is there anything else I can help you with?" together with "Goodbye, have a nice day, we're looking forward to having you here again". After the 78-th time for the day it does get beyond your nerve, but you still do it anyway. Needless to say, saying that in front of fellow Bulgarians, most of the time was met with "Ohhh, come on, like you mean it". On the other hand all the westerners were delighted and indeed made them more chatty. In the same time Bulgarians would turn chatty and genuinely happy with the service when you just say "Hi,what would you like?" That is because, when one goes to the, say,market in Bulgaria, they're most likely to say: "Give me a kilo of tomatoes", and it's not rare to omit the Hi altogether. Reversely, when I'm shopping for groceries here, the till lady is always overly happy and smiley (I mean been there done that, they're faking it) asking: "How are you, how are you feeling today?". That happened to me the other day and, therefore, I said "Fine, thanks, what about you", to which she didn't even bother to respond. Btw, as I was reading Solfrid's post I instantly recalled of this part of the movie "Everything is illuminated": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um2p4GlEbKg It all takes place in Ukraine, and basically the entire movie would be a very funny and insightful representative of the genuine "hospitality" industry in Eastern Europe. Of course, being a movie, everything is tad exaggerated, meaning that one should not expect that per se, but in order not be left surprised of insulted should have it in mind. :) P.S: Most people here would really react like that to vegetarians, especially in rural areas. Edited by Einarr on 01 November 2013 at 11:20pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5520 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 15 of 28 01 November 2013 at 11:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Both Cantonese and Cherokee are probably at the far extreme. In Cantonese, when asking what
someone wants to eat, you literally ask "Eat what?", and the person responds "Eat rice (or whatever)." This is perfectly polite. In Cherokee, you outright use the imperative to ask for something - "Give me", "Pass the turkey." The politeness is taken for granted, unless otherwise indicated by tone of voice, body language, etc. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4041 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 16 of 28 01 November 2013 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you for the offer/asking/etc. That's how I perceive it, at least (I said "ei kiitos" a few times today :S) 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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