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Is this impolite ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4169 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 1 of 24 08 January 2014 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Last year some austrian friends of my grandfather came to visit us , i was there to try and make the
communication easier ,since i am the only one my grandfather knows who speaks some German . I must admit that a year ago my German was way weaker than now , especially my passive abilities . Anyhow i managed to communicate pretty well when i was adressed to in standard German . The thing that struck me , however , was that the 3 austrians , even when we were having dinner at the same table , kept speaking to each other in their for me not understandable dialect . On the spur of the moment i dind t really pay too much attention to it , but then some months later rethinking of the situation it seemed to me a not very kind behavior . They practically cut me off their conversations and left me no chance at all of trying to.understand what they were saying . I think that they didn t not want to be rude on purpose , and i guess for them is more natural to speak their dialect than standard austrian German . Anyhow i do not think it is so polite . I am curious to hear your opinion . 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4139 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 24 08 January 2014 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd say it's rude, if they were having entire conversations. Not if they were saying "pass the salt" though. You know what I mean.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 24 08 January 2014 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would say that it depends on your alternatives: if there are lots of other people around to speak to then you don't have to bother with those who stubbornly stick to their own language or dialect. But if you have to sit and look at people speaking pure gibberish a whole evening then they haven't been very considerate.
The other side of the medal is of course that one single guest at a party shouldn't be allowed to dictate what everybody else speaks as long as there are enough conversation possibilities for everyone. The result of such a policy would be that those native speakers who are in the minority are forced to speak foreign languages or dialects almost everytime they are meeting people outside their own circles, and that would be downright discriminatory against them. That's actually how you kill dialects... Edited by Iversen on 08 January 2014 at 1:23pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6160 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 24 08 January 2014 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, it may be rude but I think in most cases people revert to what they are most comfortable with without
really thinking about. After experiencing this it seems at least once a day I quickly realized most people don't even realize they are doing it, much less doing it to be sneaky. Edited by newyorkeric on 08 January 2014 at 1:27pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4314 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 5 of 24 08 January 2014 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I suspect it wasn't conscious. When my wife was a student she worked in a call center and had to field inquiries from across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She could never understand the Swiss, she would ask them to switch to Hochdeutsch, and they would cheerfully agree, and unconsciously switch back to Swiss German after a couple of sentences. Since they were paying by the minute for call, you can only think that they were doing this not out of rudeness, but because they couldn't help themselves.
Austrian sounds fun! I was surrounded by Platt speaking relatives at Christmas! Edited by patrickwilken on 08 January 2014 at 1:33pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4169 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 6 of 24 08 January 2014 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am pretty sure that they did not want to be rude , anyway i felt a bit excluded . I personally like the
austrian accent in standard German , but i will never be able to understand a dialect . 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5547 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 24 08 January 2014 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Were they closer to your grandfather's age than yours?
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| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4169 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 8 of 24 08 January 2014 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||
there was a guy and his girlfriend both in my age the guy s father , who may be 55 . Edited by albysky on 08 January 2014 at 4:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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