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Openess to language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Fredwc1 Newbie United States Joined 3543 days ago 12 posts - 13 votes Studies: French, German, Spanish | Message 9 of 27 20 April 2015 at 5:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you all for your replies.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tyrion101 Senior Member United States Joined 3702 days ago 153 posts - 174 votes  Speaks: French | Message 10 of 27 22 April 2015 at 1:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Anyone have any experience with Italy?
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| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4496 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 11 of 27 22 April 2015 at 1:25am | IP Logged | ||
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In tourist centres they may know more English, but the last time I was in Italy at age 15
we walked into a fast food chain, I ordered in Italian by pointing and pronouncing à la Italiano, and got a reply in Italian. No problem. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4996 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 27 27 April 2015 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | ||
Rome was the only place I visited where I consistently had people insisting on English, especially after finding out my nationality, and even if their English was considerably worse than my Italian. In Tuscany and the North (Milan, Turin, Bologna, Venice), most people happily spoke Italian with me. I've never been to the South so I can't speak for there. Edited by garyb on 27 April 2015 at 5:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6386 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 13 of 27 27 April 2015 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Malta I had some difficulties avoiding English (I wanted to practise Italian). In this unique multilingual community, having an s_allard-style 500-word kernel would've been useful.
On the flip side, I also got to practise my Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4079 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 14 of 27 27 April 2015 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that there is a difference here as underlined above, that nationality plays a
role in whether the native speakers switch to English or not. Someone with a Spanish, Argentinian, Chilean, German, Hungarian, PRC, Angolan, Cuban, Algerian, Russian, Uzbekistani, or Cambodian passport has significantly less chance to be switched to English than someone with a USA, UK, Australian, NZ, or Canadian passport. From experience, being a citizen of two countries that are monolingual Anglophone countries and people finding out about this usually causes some sort of catalyst alarm ring in the heads of the native speakers like an R2D2-like "Anglophone alert! Anglophone alert! Switch to English, interlocutor unable to speak anytihng but English!" and this is when the English insistence usually shows its presence. I would advise to stay even more insistent, or better yet, what I do now, is to never show my passports unless necessary. The only other thing is credit card or debit card, but these are usually given at the end of meals in restaurants, or at the end of shopping when you purchase something, so this should be no problem because you get your opporunitiy to speak before showing these things. If you have multiple citizenship, and one of the passports is non-Anglophone this might help. But those with non-Anglophone passports, in case native speakers find out, usually have less problems with English switching than an American or Briton monocitizen. Edited by 1e4e6 on 27 April 2015 at 8:54pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4233 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 15 of 27 28 April 2015 at 1:20am | IP Logged | ||
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When it comes to speaking a native carrying on a conversation with you in their language depends on several
things: 1. Whether they are fluent in a foreign language like English or not. 2. Your skin colour and assumed nationality. A Chinese expat once travelled to China for an acupuncture study program. The whole course was conducted in Beijing in English with every Chinese medical term translated. His Chinese is limited to only a few words & phrases but is unable to carry on a conversation. When someone like him walks into a store, the sales staff would speak to him in Chinese first and assume that he is fluent in the language by default because of his facial features. Someone who is Caucasian from the US may be fluent in Chinese but the same sales staff would speak to him in English first by assuming he probably doesn't know the language. Edited by shk00design on 28 April 2015 at 1:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4919 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 16 of 27 28 April 2015 at 4:41am | IP Logged | ||
While that may be the case in China (and I have my doubts that that's always the case), it's certainly not been the case with my white-as-a-flourescent-light-bulb-ass living and travelling in countries where I'm definitely the minority. It has always depended on my own abilities with the local language, whether people think I'm American or not (and most times people don't think I'm American - I usually get asked if I'm Dutch or Scandinavian.) If I'm able to hold a conversation in the language, we continue speaking in the local language. I suppose part of it is also due to the fact that I stay away from tourist areas for the most part. But then, I've never travelled anywhere "blind", so to speak. I've always learned at least a bit of the language before I arrive. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful |
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