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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| mrmap167 Tetraglot Newbie United States Joined 4478 days ago 21 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Italian, German | Message 1 of 14 27 October 2012 at 6:31am | IP Logged | ||
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Has this happened to anyone of you fellow multi lingual people? If so, can you explain
the circumstances? 1. Encountered someone talking badly about you in a language you understand and confronted them? OR 2. Surprised the individual/gave them shock that you actually speak X language. (Ex: most Spanish natives get shocked that I speak fluent Spanish, since I don't look like a quote on quote 'native'"). Just curious and this crossed my mind earlier....and what better place to ask this? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5176 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 14 27 October 2012 at 7:33am | IP Logged | ||
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2. This summer, I went to NY. I was standing next to a store and a girl walked by with
her dog and she stopped to let him sniff something. She just looked so Japanese, I had to say something. I said "your dog looks hot" in Japanese - she looked up and had a really surprised look on her face. I was relieved I'd gotten the language right! Also went to Book-Off (a Japanese bookstore). An employee was putting books on a shelf and I came behind and asked if she could help me find a book, in Japanese. She started answering, putting away the last book, then turned around and stopped for a second, in surprise (that I wasn't Japanese, presumably), then continued. It's always fun. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| aspiringplyglot Triglot Groupie United Kingdom aspiringpolyglot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4372 days ago 40 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB2, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Esperanto, Polish, Scottish Gaelic, French | Message 3 of 14 27 October 2012 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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It happened to me when I was in Germany. My cousins (who are German) were speaking in English to me at one
point as we were sitting in a small little cafe. The waiter came over and heard us speaking English and presumably heard my Scottish accent. He asked one of my cousins what I was having and got a nice little surprise when I butted in at that moment and told him I'd like a coffee and a croissant. That was actually a really good day because the waiter came over and started chatting about some films because I had mentioned that I study film at university.... Knowing another language is great! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6377 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 4 of 14 27 October 2012 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I go out to a Chinese restaurant with a couple of Chinese coworkers (I've been on a quest with one of them to try all of the Chinese restaurants in the city). We're speaking in Mandarin and since the wife of one of my coworkers doesn't speak much English and no Swedish, she tries to order in Mandarin. The waitress manages to respond, but her Mandarin is clearly not that great, even though she manages to take the order. Later she comes with the food and we chat a bit, with her saying (in accented but excellent Swedish) she's impressed with my Mandarin. I ask her where she's from and she says "Hong Kong", which of course makes me launch a happy monologue in Cantonese about how great it is to find some Cantonese speakers in the city, to which she replies with an open jaw.
Whilst living in China, of course, people were flabbergasted every time I opened my mouth, which got pretty old after a while. Of course, I've had one or two experiences in China and Hong Kong where people talked about me in Mandarin or Cantonese, but I've never confronted anyone about it. It's never been any malicious stuff anyway, just stuff like a woman telling her kid not to stare at the foreigner. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| FELlX Diglot Groupie France Joined 4565 days ago 94 posts - 149 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 5 of 14 27 October 2012 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | ||
This should answer your question: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=7329&PN=1 Edited by FELlX on 27 October 2012 at 11:02pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4395 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 14 28 October 2012 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Yesterday I went to a cutlet restaurant in sendai, and in japanese the waitress asked me if chopsticks were ok, and
when I answered back, she had the most priceless face and from there we struck up a pretty good conversation. so far, Im glad to say that all the japanese people Ive met are nothing less than polite and hospitable :D and as such, I havent caught anyone talking bad about me 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4461 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 7 of 14 29 October 2012 at 6:30am | IP Logged | ||
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My experience is similar to Ari’s; if people do talk about you, it’s usually pretty innocuous. There’s also a psychological factor – I think we may naturally feel suspicious and think the worst if we overhear a conversation in a language we don’t understand well. I remember when I first lived in Taiwan and was just starting out with Chinese. Every time I walked into a 7-11, the staff would say something that sounded like “waiguoren laile” or “a foreigner just came in, better keep an eye on him”. Only later did I realize that they were actually saying “huanying guanglin”, a stock phrase meaning “welcome to our shop”. The clerks had to say this to everyone who entered the door as part of their job, which accounts for the unenthusiastic or furtive tone that I picked up on.
In my perception, all of those sonorants somehow morphed into something malicious. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6249 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Smi, Latin | Message 8 of 14 01 November 2012 at 12:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Years ago I was travelling with my family from Siberia to Mongolia and on the train there was a group of Swedish girls. They stayed in the sleeping compartment next to ours and the wall was so thin we could hear everything they said, and trust me, we weren't there to eavesdrop on their conversation on purpose! They had recognised the language we had spoken just minutes before and started making fun of us in Swedish. Too bad they didn't know that all Finns have studied Swedish at school and thus we understood every single word... So just before we got off the train in Ulaan Baatar I saw them standing in the corridor and told one of them: "Vi pratar svenska också, bara så ni vet." (We speak Swedish, too, you know.) I hope they learned a lesson.
3 persons have voted this message useful |
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