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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| gRodriguez Triglot Groupie BrazilRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3816 days ago 44 posts - 56 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC2, Galician Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 9 of 119 04 December 2013 at 6:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6242 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin | Message 10 of 119 04 December 2013 at 9:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've had a similar experience on a couple of occasions... This was probably the most memorable one: When I travelled in Italy for the first time, I was just looking at some stupid souvenirs at a market stall in Pisa (which was later to be my hometown for a few years) and talking to my sister in Finnish. The saleswoman couldn't identify the language, which must've raised suspicion because she then said to her colleague: "Make sure those two don't steal anything." Too bad she didn't know I speak fluent Italian. ;) Needless to say, we didn't buy anything from her, either.
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| Chris13 Groupie FinlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3839 days ago 53 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 11 of 119 04 December 2013 at 10:24am | IP Logged | |||||
I do think that some of the time at least it is for the reason you mentioned, about curiosity at the language being spoken. My mum and dad are easily the least racist people I've ever known, my dad having suffered a lot himself when he was younger growing up in England. However, due to my parents knowing that I'm often fascinated by languages, sometimes we'd be out shopping and one of my parents would hear someone speaking a foreign language, they'd immediately ask me (sort of testing my knowledge in a game of sorts) what language it is and whether I'm good enough to understand any of what's being said. I'd point out that maybe they could wait till the people in question had gone before asking me, as I always felt very awkward stating that they probably think we're being horrible, talking about them negatively etc. However, living in the UK you do unfortunately have to put up with racism or negative attitudes towards foreign languages. I've often considered the UK to be far below Europe in regard to languages. We just don't generally grow up with languages as being important, they are just there for a small amount of time, then over with. If you think that in most European countries the average age to start a second language is, say, eight years of age? (At least here in Finland, and I'm reasonably sure it's either 8 or 10 in Croatia, Poland) by the time you're a teenage you've already learned to reasonable level a second language. You realise that learning another language can only be a good thing, in the UK we still wouldn't have even started learning our second language yet. I was, perhaps, 15 or 16 before ever having to take a language in school. Then, we had that language twice a week, for an hour a time. So in short, England at least, can be very ignorant towards foreign languages and sometimes, foreigners in general. The media does very little to help this and weirdly, I also would blame a lot of the hatred and ignorance on football. It sounds stupid, I know but when I was still a teenager I'd often hear my friends say stuff like "Portsmouth till the day I die" and other related phrases, which at first I took to me that they would always support the Portsmouth football team, fair enough, however they clarified that they meant the city too, they'd never be unfaithful to their football team by moving to another city even. So when I tried to practise my Spanish I'd often get bullied and strange looks as a lot of people thought it weird as if I was against the city. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3887 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 12 of 119 04 December 2013 at 11:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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I am privileged not to have experienced anything to the degree people are speaking about here. I've been rudely treated in Germany, in highly international settings nonetheless, because I've tried speaking English before using my 10 word German vocabulary. When I try German, they pretend not to know what simple phrases like "Ein Wasser, bitte" mean, frowning, shrugging, and shooing me away. When my husband walks up and repeats the same phrase, without trying English first, they understand perfectly. This has happened to me too many times in Germany. I doubt it's my pronunciation, because I compare with my husband and there's no huge difference there.
So now when we drive through I always get my husband, who actually studied German in secondary school, to translate a few phrases for me before I leave the car (which I then promptly forget the second I get back into the car). I haven't had a single German person not understand my German on the first try since.
I think that's often the case as well. I have pale redhead privilege. Even in places where I stick out like a sore thumb, people are really kind to me. But, yes, people will stare. Little kids are always the worst (and the most humorous). When my husband and I go grocery shopping, we're walking along the aisles, speaking Swedish at a hushed to moderate tone, and the local kids just cannot stop staring. It probably doesn't help that the husband is a head or two taller than the average Frenchman and has long blond Legolas hair, but they only start really staring once we open our mouths. Adults are usually a little bit more sneaky about looking. My favourite is unrelated to language, though: it's when I happen to be shopping in areas back in Sweden with a very high concentration of Arab immigrants. The way those toddlers stare! :D It's the first time they see anything like me. Babies and toddlers from more integrated communities, regardless of ethnicity, usually like my hair, but their eyes don't pop out of their sockets like that. 3 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 13 of 119 04 December 2013 at 12:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I see this as two different things. One is people being surprised at hearing an unfamiliar tongue, and who stare or are curious, or even ask you about the language. I find nothing offensive about it, on the contrary I find it perfectly natural. I am curious and probably stare too much too when I hear an unfamiliar tongue, and 9 times out of 10 I will satisfy my curiosity by asking where they are from or which language they speak.
An entirely different thing, and something I find totally unacceptable is making negative comments, or being rude to someone for coming from a different culture or speaking a different language. I can find no positive angle for that. I think the only time I have been treated in a negative way, was in Spain once, when I was with some friends of some friends who were Arabic. I had lots of Arabic friends, and they were all marvellous, but this one guy decided he was going to take out all his frustration on me, and called me a bloody American because I happened to speak English with an American accent and was drinking a Coke. Obviously, only Americans drink Coca Cola... I was so surprised, because I usually got respect from my Arabic friends for being the only one who almost never drank alcohol, but stuck to Coke or juice, but this one probably had a bad day, and yelled at me and got in my face in a threatening way. The whole incident did not last more than about a minute though, before there were suddenly three guys between him and me, who were pushing ham back and away from me. And I did not need to speak Arabic to know that the earful he was getting for harassing me was one he was unlikely to forget any time soon. For a minute there I started to fear for his physical safety, more than I had feared for my own. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 04 December 2013 at 2:38pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4918 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 14 of 119 04 December 2013 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not sure where you are located, but pretty much every large US city I've lived in, anybody sitting or standing nearby would probably have put a stop to that. And if the bus driver had seen it, he would have removed the drunks from the bus. It's rare that physical contact like that would be ignored. R. == 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4146 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 15 of 119 04 December 2013 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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We also had some strange looks in Italy, as a greek group on vacation, but not like that.
One time was in the Florian cafe, late at night, freezing outside, and 15 of us were practically the only ones in the cafe, laughing our heads off. So were the waiters, looking at us. On the same trip, in a (empty) bar in Florence. We were so caught up in a political conversation, that at some point we realized the employees were looking at us a bit scared. We explained laughing we were simply talking, not getting ready for a bar fight! And the last one, again from the same trip. On the vaporetto in venice, one of the men who hadn't shaved said that he looked like osama bin laden. The people around us actually looked tense for a second, untill we all started laughing again, and they relaxed as well, laughing too. The Italians are such cool people, and we still confused them with our greek! In France the story is a bit different. Some seemed to notice as me and my husband communicated in greek (not loudly, just the two of us), and we certainly got looks, but nothing aggressive. One of the waiters at the deux maggots actually pissed me off. Me and my huband both had money on us, and it wasn't "mine" or "yours". When we paid, my husband got the check. The waiter asked with a rather rude smile (in English): you are the boss, eh? My husband said politely smiling: no, she is the boss. I mean, we couldn't find anyone to speak English to us, but that man decided to use it to comment... on what? Don't men get the bill in France? Was it that we were foreigners? Was it a cultural thing? Anyway, I am still not sure what he meant. 1 person has 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 16 of 119 04 December 2013 at 9:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
The problem was that we were sitting far from the driver and for the most part the atmosphere was tense but confined to one particular passenger still muttering and cursing about us not initially using English among ourselves. One of the other passengers was trying to calm down the unruly one and it seemed to be working (albeit barely). My friend getting smacked in the face was unexpected and it was only at that time when the driver intervened. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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