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Americans and Spanish

  Tags: Fluency | Speaking | Spanish
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
41 messages over 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6  Next >>
kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4648 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 41
30 March 2015 at 9:45pm | IP Logged 
I had another strange Spanish language experience this past weekend, and it got me
wondering: Is this an American thing, or do people in other countries do this also?

Here's the scene: my friend and I were at a local Mexican diner. We decide to try our
Spanish out. I order in my nice, basic, slow Spanish. All went well. My friend -
who claims to be fluent - started speaking in this hyper-fast rapid fire manner, like
Speedy Gonazales on crack. He was also loud - I think he wanted to show off for the
other patrons. No one understood him. It was a bit embarrassing. He claimed it was
because he was speaking "Puerto Rican Spanish" and the staff were speaking "Mexican
Spanish."

I've seen other Americans do this: they cover up their limited speaking skills by
trying to speak Spanish super fast. And I thought back to my Spanish teacher who
pronounced all her vowels like we do in English (I later learned that she had done her
study abroad in Cancun, which explained a lot). Or the running joke on King of the
Hill
, where Peggy Hill is a High School Spanish teacher who can't speak Spanish.

A buddy from South America says that all Americans think that they speak
Spanish, but most don't. Harsh, but maybe there's an element of truth here.

Does this happen elsewhere? Do Germans, for example (I'm just making this one up), all
think that they can speak Polish when they really can't? Or is this a uniquely
American / Spanish thing?
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chaotic_thought
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3301 days ago

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Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Dutch, French

 
 Message 2 of 41
30 March 2015 at 11:38pm | IP Logged 
Most Americans know some Spanish words and phrases, and maybe they're confused into thinking that means they speak Spanish. On the other hand, many groups due to historical contact know quite a few French words and phrases, and even incorporate these into their language, yet just because one does that doesn't mean that they can spreak or understand French.

By the way, reading the name of a dish is not enough for me to consider it "speaking". The name of the dish could have been written in Klingon. If I pronouncd the Klingon name very well to the waiter, does that mean she and I are conversing in Klingon??

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basica
Senior Member
Australia
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157 posts - 269 votes 
Studies: Serbian

 
 Message 3 of 41
31 March 2015 at 1:07am | IP Logged 
I haven't really seen this sort of thing before, but what I more commonly encounter is
people saying "oh, I understand it better than I speak it" in reference to any language.
When people try to talk to them they pretty much never understand them.
1 person has voted this message useful



iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 4 of 41
31 March 2015 at 1:26am | IP Logged 
I have Puerto Rican and Mexican friends here on-island who are also friends with each other, they don't have a problem communicating with each other.

Ha! I run into folks all the time who claim to "speak" Spanish and don't know more than a few words or phrases. I was sitting next to a couple of US tourists at a small beach bar here a few weeks ago. One girl claimed to speak Spanish after saying "Quiero una cerveza". I proceded to speak to her in Spanish and she didn't understand a word I said. I repeated myself... nothing. Finally, the Puerto Rican bartender translated my question "¿Dónde aprendiste tu español?" (Where did you learn your Spanish?) for her. She claimed it was my accent. Then the bartender and a Chilean customer started speaking with me in Spanish. The girl's friend was laughing hard and finally said to her- "BUSTED"! They paid their bill and left the bar soon after.

These days, many English-speaking Americans know a few phrases and sentences in Spanish. Just saying a few basic words and phrases, as we all know here, doesn't imply a high level of speaking ability. I live next door to Puerto Rico and travel there frequently. American tourists claiming to "speak" Spanish is one reason why I often have to prove myself in San Juan because, people are just so accustomed to US tourists trying out their few phrases of broken Spanish that they are a bit taken aback to hear an American who can actually go beyond this. Of course, once I have established my ability, the conversation continues in Spanish. Outside of San Juan, I don't run into this on the lesser touristed parts of the island.

Edited by iguanamon on 31 March 2015 at 1:29am

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Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 4768 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 5 of 41
31 March 2015 at 1:53am | IP Logged 
While this may be a widely spread trouble among the americans, it would be naive and
unfair to believe they are the only ones.

Last year on a plane to Spain, there was a Russian girl who wasted five or ten minutes
of her and steward's time shouting about how she understood Spanish great even though
she could speak it badly. She was shouting in English. It was quite annoying and I
don't know what exactly she hoped to achieve but in my head, I was shouting at her
"you and morons like you are exactly the reason why the rest of us has it so hard to
find language practice". Spanish is just a very popular language to start learning
these days yet most learners are far from getting at least to the intermediate level.

Really, I think the Spanish natives, as your experience from various LA countries
suggests, are getting the same syndrom as the French natives. Those too keep switching
to English unnecessarily and often aren't exactly nice and supportive due to having
met tons of "foreigners who can speak French" before. You need to prove yourself first
and it is often not easy. Fortunately, the Spanish natives in Spain are still awesome
and friendly, perhaps due to Spanish being less common in schools in Europe than in
the US.

I think the situation is bound to worsen as tens of millions of Americans are forced
to "learn" Spanish at school and later don't feel like admitting that they can't speak
it having spent so many years on it. It is the same thing about French learners in
Europe, I'd guess. Who is to blame? Incompetent language teaching in the educational
main stream where vast majority of learners fails.
3 persons have voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4648 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 6 of 41
31 March 2015 at 2:43am | IP Logged 
I have Puerto Rican and Mexican friends here on-island who are also friends with each
other, they don't have a problem communicating with each other.


Oh yeah, definitely. I think my buddy was just making an incredibly lame-ass excuse.
1 person has voted this message useful



1e4e6
Octoglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4049 days ago

1013 posts - 1588 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian
Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan

 
 Message 7 of 41
31 March 2015 at 2:51am | IP Logged 
I usually get an opposite: a person who claims to speak English because they do not
want an Anglophone to speak to them in their language. In this case, it makes them
look like abject idiots because they want to show off their English but it takes them
average 15 seconds to form a sentence.

With Spanish, my experience is that they are the most forgiving in terms of speaking
with them, as in they usually speak with you no matter how bad your level, accent,
pronunciation, grammar, speed, syntax, etc. is. This is in contrast to the Northern
European countries.

If they become more frustrated in certain parts where they live with native
Anglophones, like California or Florida in the USA, then perhaps they have started to
switch to English reluctantly with some because they cannot tolerate the people who
pretend to speak Spanish, but I have not witnessed this so far.

I am not sure how "speaks" is measured, but if I notice that an Anglophone (usually
American or British) "speaks" Spanish, but they keep using the indicative instead of
the subjunctive when more than obviously necessary, I am not sure if that is "busted"
or not, but I find it like someone saying that s/he knows calculus but cannot do
integration.

Edited by 1e4e6 on 31 March 2015 at 2:55am

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s_allard
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5189 days ago

2704 posts - 5425 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 8 of 41
31 March 2015 at 11:10am | IP Logged 
So, some people claim to speak Spanish, but in reality don't speak it well. What's so special about that? Don't most
self-learning courses or software promise that you will speak the language in a jiffy? The problem is that the word
"speak" is used in the most elastic of ways. Just like "fluency" that is bandied around with great ease but little
meaning. Isn't this why we have the CEFR system? Forget all this stuff of 'speaking" Spanish and use a true
proficiency scale. Only then can we have real discussions.


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