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Beware of "secret" languages ;-)

  Tags: Turkish | Polish | Japanese
 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages Post Reply
173 messages over 22 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 7 ... 21 22 Next >>
Jenne
Newbie
United States
Joined 6465 days ago

10 posts - 10 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Latin, French

 
 Message 49 of 173
25 November 2008 at 11:30pm | IP Logged 
I'm a military brat and so are most of my childhood friends. We speak a masala of languages with each other. It's not so much a "secret language" as it is how we think.
1 person has voted this message useful



yar
Diglot
Newbie
United States
bytetrash.blogspot.c
Joined 5346 days ago

23 posts - 24 votes
Speaks: English*, Portuguese
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 50 of 173
29 August 2009 at 5:02pm | IP Logged 
Living and going to school in Brazil, I had a Polish classmate. If we didn't want anyone to know what we were saying, we'd speak in English.

When I was flying back from Brazil, I ran into another American and we were rushing to get our flight. Speaking in a mixture of Portuguese and English, I was flustered bya bunch of people blocking our way and said exasperatedly "Look at all these people "atrapalhando-nos (getting in our way.) Even though the "bad" part was in Portuguese, as we made our way past the people this one woman shouted (in English) "Excuse me?!?"
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Lizzern
Diglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5668 days ago

791 posts - 1053 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 51 of 173
29 August 2009 at 6:21pm | IP Logged 
My aunt who's Russian (and looks like it too) was in France once and got into an elevator at her hotel, there were already a few people in there but it wasn't particularly crowded. As they were on their way up, two guys in the elevator starting talking amongst themselves about how the elevator was full, could this rude woman not see that the elevator was full? Just before getting out, she turned to them and said, in Russian, it doesn't look full to me.

Another member of my family once found himself in the rather unpleasant situation of being taped up in the trunk of a car while his Arabic-speaking captors discussed how to kill him. He understood every word...

Someone else in my family said that a friend of his had spent some time in a rural area in Asia, and had used Norwegian as his secret language. Even there, he ran into another Norwegian who could of course understand him fine. No matter where we are in the world we can never be sure, and I don't know about other people but Norwegians tend to keep quiet about it and just mock whoever they overheard later...

Edited by Lizzern on 29 August 2009 at 6:26pm

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densou
Senior Member
Italy
foto.webalice.it/denRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5891 days ago

120 posts - 121 votes 
Speaks: Italian*

 
 Message 52 of 173
16 September 2009 at 5:43pm | IP Logged 
Lizzern wrote:
My aunt who's Russian (and looks like it too)


Finally, I realized why you aren't fond of Russian language .... lol














*just kiiiidding, missy* :p


Edited by densou on 16 September 2009 at 5:43pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Lizzern
Diglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5668 days ago

791 posts - 1053 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 53 of 173
16 September 2009 at 6:36pm | IP Logged 
Hmm. I don't see what my degree of interest in Russian has to do with the story. My aunt's lovely though, and it's fascinating to hear her speak it.

Quite frankly those guys should have at least suspected she may have been Russian and acted accordingly!

Moving on...
1 person has voted this message useful



patuco
Diglot
Moderator
Gibraltar
Joined 6774 days ago

3795 posts - 4268 votes 
Speaks: Spanish, English*
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 54 of 173
18 September 2009 at 4:33pm | IP Logged 
Lizzern wrote:
Another member of my family once found himself in the rather unpleasant situation of being taped up in the trunk of a car while his Arabic-speaking captors discussed how to kill him. He understood every word...

What happened to him, if you don't mind me asking?
1 person has voted this message useful



Lizzern
Diglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5668 days ago

791 posts - 1053 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 55 of 173
18 September 2009 at 4:56pm | IP Logged 
I'll have to ask him about the details sometime (we rarely see each other so I found out about this through my mother) but he somehow got himself out of it unharmed. (Possible epic language skills win?) He works as a Middle East specialist in an oil company now, I think he was stationed there for work when this happened. I'm told he's one of those people that crazy stuff keeps happening to, and that this is just one of the bizarre experiences he's had while travelling...
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Choscura
Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 5307 days ago

61 posts - 82 votes 
Speaks: English*, Thai

 
 Message 56 of 173
18 September 2009 at 8:28pm | IP Logged 
William Camden wrote:

It's fiction, but in the David Lodge novel Nice Work one of the main characters, an English businessman, goes to Frankfurt for the trade fair and negotiates with Germans who are prone to talk to each other in German from time to time. The Englishman has brought a woman academic with him, posing as his personal assistant and the Germans probably assume she is his mistress. She attends the meeting and although she tries to give the impression of being ignorant, she can understand their German and reports to the businessman what the Germans have been saying to each other. As a result the English businessman is able to outmanoeuvre them in the negotiations.     


There is a grain of truth to this. One of my father's university students spoke fluent German, and went on a business trip there, I think something to do with high-end window tinting, like they do on skyscrapers. Anyway, after a few days of listening to the Deutsch-bags there insulting everybody from his side of the business deal and talking about what numbers they should use and what the real numbers were, they closed the deal and then- and only then- did he start speaking to everybody in German. Apparently the looks on peoples faces was something to behold.

Here, my girlfriend and I both speak fluent Thai and English (although my grammar in Thai leaves a lot to be desired), and so we can switch between one, the other, or both very easily. Failing that, we've got our own personal insults ("beepy", "gary", "something korean", etc) which make no sense to people who don't know us or the stories behind these, and if even that doesn't work, she speaks passable Dutch, which I can understand, abe ik kanne sprekt en bejta.


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