Do you feel uncomfortable with a foreign speaking your language?

[dreampeppers99]

Norway is a multi-cutural country because of how we accept all kind of people into our country so it doesn't surprise me to see any people from any kind of country speaking norwegian. That being said its more funnier to speak english to them as 99% will respond in english.

Owww a new country to visit!

 

[koimayeul]

Being more patient than not i appreciate the efforts and help in any way i can a foreign person to progress speaking / writing French.

 

[dreampeppers99]

Being more patient than not i appreciate the efforts and help in any way i can a foreign person to progress speaking / writing French.

The stories I used to hear are that French people are very very gentle/kind with anybody which tries to speak French (even the worst French ever)!
But in the other hand when somebody starts or speaks only English you don't feel so good about it.

Sure this is all stories I heard it through the grapevine!

Is it right? (relatively speaking)

 

[RodrigoDavy]

The stories I used to hear are that French people are very very gentle/kind with anybody which tries to speak French (even the worst French ever)!
But in the other hand when somebody starts or speaks only English you don't feel so good about it.

Sure this is all stories I heard it through the grapevine!

Is it right? (relatively speaking)

Heard the same thing about french people. I also heard that it's very difficult to find someone who speak English in Germany. I do feel however that it's preferable to speak in the country's language since you're visiting it (because many people don't understand English quite well)

 

[koimayeul]

Heard the same thing about french people. I also heard that it's very difficult to find someone who speak English in Germany. I do feel however that it's preferable to speak in the country's language since you're visiting it (because many people don't understand English quite well)

Hehe some stereotypes exist for a reason i guess.. Yes it is very uncommon in my part of France to come into any English speech at all, i stay in North-Eastern part close to Metz we are direct neighbor with Germany. I can only speak for myself but most people i know are welcoming and show genuine curiosity and interest with foreigners speaking our language, mostly German folks obviously in my case. For myself i feel really uneasy speaking English, i have a terrible forced accent.. As for listening spoken English i must focus very hard and miss a ton for sure, no offense but it get worst with British accent it just get my brain dizzy..

 

[FAST6191]

I try to keep a basic ask for directions/ordering food command of several languages* and can still just about watch a film/sports broadcast in French (nobody really uses Latin or I might add that to the list) and would learn more but I find learning more science, history, electronics, computing..... far more engaging and I am all about the self pleasuring. However picking apart a language (written, spoken and in general) and seeing how it works (and how it came to be as such) is something I really like doing and it is no strange sight to see me reading up on this until the early hours, that said it comes in quite handy for a lot of ROM hacking and computing stuff (various clients have dealings all over the world and if I am the one that gets to punch their website/word processor into a form that can handle it so much the better). Part of learning history also calls for reading most of the religious texts so I am told I probably should get around to learning Arabic and related languages and probably Hebrew as well as translation there is an interesting game.
As for the matter at hand with most languages worth a damn being a mish mash of several prior languages and hundreds of years of history they are all largely illogical, counter intuitive in general and counter intuitive between each other (applying grammar of one language to another fails more often than it works in my experience) messes that would not be tolerated in almost any other intellectually driven field save for when it is a law of physics being the unintuitive one. Similarly language is a skill most are encouraged to pick up early on and is fairly deeply ingrained (several have already mentioned the difficulty in listening and different sounds between languages is a fairly well considered part of the study of different languages). To that end if someone feels like overcoming the ingrained thing and doing the borderline memory test that playing in other languages entails (let alone in real time) I can see no good reason to do anything negative.

*I do not usually find this so bad to learn and deal with, trouble comes when people want to pepper directions with slang, mumbling or a nice amount of adjectives... trouble is I also find myself doing the same when asked unless I force myself not to.

Re: accent at a party- the position of token foreigner is an esteemed one at any party. Should you find yourself in a party where that is not the case my advice would be to leave as you are wasting your time there. Bonus points if you end up with the situation reversed with yourself in the middle of it one day, granted that usually falls hand in hand with your token foreigner friend seeing if anybody wants to ride shotgun in a flying visit to wherever they came from and those are equally amusing even if you do not end up at an impromptu party.

I mentioned it in the last few similar topics but I do feel the need to share my two favourite experiences here- one was walking through Liverpool in 2005 or so and a couple of ladies were speaking in Arabic before switching to pitch perfect scouse (truly pitch perfect- if I said piss take most people jump to the hamming it up style but that would not be what I meant if I said piss take here). The other was a couple of years later when I was in Amsterdam in an Irish bar- the barmaid there had apparently been there for years and developed what can only be described as a completely neutral but heavily pronounced* Irish accent.

*head into the sticks in NI or ROI and you still know you are there but only just if you expect Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Galway or Omagh to be the only accents available.

Re potatoes. If the little flag in the bottom left of your posts reads USA consider that it is as galling to walk into a supermarket when stateside and see potatoes called just that* as it would be for others to assume soda/pop/fizzy drinks/soft drinks come in just cola and lemonade forms (if you have not met that yet a warning that you will should you venture into much of Eastern Europe and especially outside the bigger cities there).
My favourites-
http://www.shrubs.co.uk/ekmps/shops/shrubscouk/images/potato-second-early-anya-2-kg-14981-p.jpg

*there is such a thing as a potato aisle in most supermarkets that aspire to be more than a corner shop.

 

[PolloDiablo]

The stories I used to hear are that French people are very very gentle/kind with anybody which tries to speak French (even the worst French ever)!
But in the other hand when somebody starts or speaks only English you don't feel so good about it.

Sure this is all stories I heard it through the grapevine!

Is it right? (relatively speaking)

I've been in Paris like 10 years ago, and yes.... if you talk in other language (I tried with english, italian and spanish) most people go , but not everyone.

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

Makes me feel uncomfortable in some situations and I don't mind in others it depends on the situation I find

 

[Issac]

By the way, when I visited a German friend in Cologne we spoke in English all the time, since my German is horrible (and his Swedish non-existent). Two younger girls waited for a bus when we walked past them, they heard us talking in English and one said to the other quite loud in German "Hey, look at those cute Englishmen!".. They didn't think we'd know German Well, I didn't, but my friend obviously did.

... he turned around, and smiled at them

 

[dreampeppers99]

I try to keep a basic ask for directions/ordering food command of several languages

Cool tip, I rely on google translator but sometimes the 3G/Edge is not available.

Re: accent at a party- the position of token foreigner is an esteemed one at any party.

LOL

 

[nando]

i have patience and appreciate foreigners trying to speak the language. some accents do sound totally funny tho and some are completely adorable and i have giggled, but not making fun of the person.

spanish has so many regional accents and slang, many sound funny to me. it is what it is. but i wouldn't make fun of you for trying.
also spanish has a lot of homophones which makes the slightest mistakes very funny, so that might have something to do with it.

edit: quick story. in Bart(train) there were a couple of drunk french guys and they were ranting out all kinds of crazy stuff in french. one of them was saying, "no one here can understand what we are saying, it doesn't matter." i don't speak french but i can understand a great deal of it, i can watch french movies without subtitles. so i just gave them my patented stink eye and the guy was like "vous compris?" and i was like "oui" and he was all embarrassed and apologized.

also this one woman in france hit me in the head after giving me directions and i came back to her still lost.

 

[RPG Hacker]

Do you feel uncomfortable (or think it is fun) with a foreign speaking your language?

It actually depends on the language and the person speaking it. Some mistakes are pretty funny, indeed, or certain accents in general. But the better a person gets at language, the less funny it usually gets.

However. I never really feel uncomfortable with foreigen people speaking my language. Usually I enjoy it a lot.

 

[bowser]

Not to be racist or offensive, but I do feel quite surprised and a bit uncomfortable when a black or indian speaks Chinese.
Unless they have Chinese parents or relatives that is.

Ni hao, Chris!

But seriously....I thought there's no such thing as a language called 'Chinese', there are two languages spoken in China called 'Cantonese' and 'Mandarin'. Right?

 

[Minox]

But seriously....I thought there's no such thing as a language called 'Chinese', there are two languages spoken in China called 'Cantonese' and 'Mandarin'. Right?

From what I gather there's a fair share of different dialects, but they all share a common writing system.

 

[Hop2089]

If they speak English at least halfway decently as in I can understand what they are saying, then no, I'm not expecting advanced or native level fluency, but intermediate fluency gets the job done in the average situation. Any lower and I start getting concerned they will get jipped/scammed/exploited.

 

[chris888222]

Ni hao, Chris!

But seriously....I thought there's no such thing as a language called 'Chinese', there are two languages spoken in China called 'Cantonese' and 'Mandarin'. Right?

There's actually so much more besides Cantonese and Mandarin. There's Minnan (Hokkien), Teochew, Hainan, Foochow, Taishan (quite close to Cantonese), Hakka etc.

For me, I'm a native Hakka. Some of my uncles are Cantonese so I picked that up as well. Our government also forced Mandarin into our studies. These are all part of this vague term known as "Chinese". Some countries call it languages of Chinese, while others call them dialects.

 

[SilverArcher]

There's actually so much more besides Cantonese and Mandarin. There's Minnan (Hokkien), Teochew, Hainan, Foochow, Taishan (quite close to Cantonese), Hakka etc.

For me, I'm a native Hakka. Some of my uncles are Cantonese so I picked that up as well. Our government also forced Mandarin into our studies. These are all part of this vague term known as "Chinese". Some countries call it languages of Chinese, while others call them dialects.

The official language of China is Mandarin(putonghua). I think Chinese people have no difficulty to live in Singapore. : P

 

[Chary]

I find myself feeling appreciative towards anyone who tries to learn English, and speak it. It's difficult to find anyone at all speaking English in Texas anymore...

 

[PolloDiablo]

By the way, when I visited a German friend in Cologne we spoke in English all the time, since my German is horrible (and his Swedish non-existent). Two younger girls waited for a bus when we walked past them, they heard us talking in English and one said to the other quite loud in German "Hey, look at those cute Englishmen!".. They didn't think we'd know German Well, I didn't, but my friend obviously did.

... he turned around, and smiled at them

and then?

 

[triassic911]

Nope, it's cool. I like helping those my age who have trouble speaking either English or Spanish.