Being spoken to in your native language

[DoPo]

although I am not sure why, according to said DoPo "some (maybe most) of them are damn pricks" =) would love some clarification on that =).

Of course - I was talking about the ones who refuse/avoid to talk to their fellow countrymen (in their native language, or otherwise) while abroad. I'm not talking about holding a conversation in a language, no one around you understands, in the middle of a large group of people. I'm talking "at all". There are lots of reasons why some might do that but some just don't want to be associated with their "former" country. However, these people find it filthy and appalling when they do. At the very least, they might demand conversation to be in English (or whatever the official language is), even when you're alone, or they might refuse to even acknowledge the other person.

They go to great lengths to stay away from their compatriots and consider them below themselves. I mean those people, when I say "damn pricks".

 

[Kekkonen1]

DoPo: aah ok, I get it now. Thanks =)

 

[trollnystan]

Sure! I feel sorry for people trying to learn Swedish 'cause Swedes tend to go," English speaker, YAY! Now I can show off/practise my English!" I'd have a hard time with it though as I enjoy using English more than Swedish; it's the language I talked at home and one I'm more comfortable expressing myself with. But if someone one wants to practise Swedish on me I'll surely do my best =)

Someone shouting, "Hey Swedish Chef, Bork bork bork! I'm so fluent! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!1!one!!" can just go eff off right now though )=|

(I also think you should probably tell the person that you wish to practise the language in question, otherwise yes you might come off as a bit of a weirdo.)

 

[IamLEAM1983]

It isn't so much the attempt to speak my native language that'll offend me as how and in which context this attempt is made.

I'm from Quebec. My native language is French. We're surrounded by anglophones, however, and *most* of those I've met tended to display genuine interest for Molière's tongue. Even if they can't speak it, they're usually polite enough to land a "Bonjour" or a "Merci beaucoup" in the right places. I won't mind if they mangle or butcher it in the process - they've tried. It's the principle that matters.

Where it does bother me is when you meet up with one of them old geezers with the attitude that was common before Bill 101 passed. Up until the sixties, French Canadians were treated like an oppressed minority. This means a lot of people just didn't make an ounce of an effort. It's pretty rare nowadays, but you still occasionally meet fairly young members of the senior citizenry who speak a few bits and pieces of French but utterly refuse to use them. Not because they're uncomfortable, but because they feel they don't *have* to use them.

Then they throw a shit-fit if they're serviced by someone who isn't bilingual and who only speaks French.

The situation in Quebec goes both ways, really. There's still a lot of people who could benefit from figuring out that speaking English won't make a sellout out of you or that speaking French won't mean you're deferring to the white negroes in town.

Being bilingual pretty much is the norm, nowadays.

 

[Ieyke]

So reeeeaaaally this is like my weird tendency to start speaking in an English accent when I'm around British people, or say crikey around Aussies, etc, etc, etc... I always wonder if they'll take offense.

Being from Houston, saying "gracias" is just second nature to me. We have such a huge Hispanic population here that a lot of Spanish terms and correct Spanish pronunciations are just innate to our vocabularies. It'd never occur to me that someone might take offense.

Hell, German is technically my first language, but saying "gracias" comes a dozen times more naturally to me than saying "danke".

I only know bits and pieces of various other languages but using random terms like that just seem like...I dunno...a regular occurrence.

I'll say "thanks", "danke", "merci", "gracias", "grazie", "arigato" etc etc etc just as my instinct dictates at the moment I open my mouth (obviously, I'm just using translations of "thanks" as an example, and the same thing applies to any word/language combo in my vocabulary).

 

[chadachada123]

My professor once told me a funny story about his days working as a teacher for the US military (or something) in Korea. He's white, and had an Asian friend visiting with him (who didn't know Korean at all). Obvious hilarity insued when they went to a restaurant and the waitress kept directing questions to the obviously Asian person but having the white guy translating with the Asian guy "pretending" to not understand Korean (when he really didn't know the language at all).

Hearing him tell the story is pretty damn funny, heh.

 

[Benny Blanco]

Although I must say I do get kinda irked when I have to work with polish migrants (notracist) when they've been here for 4 years and don't speak a single word of english.

That get's under my skin. If I were to go to a country for more than a few weeks I'd take the time to be able to communicate effectively with the natives.

It's not racist, it's xenophobic at worst: they're other white Europeans. Who are often, as it happens, super racist themselves. I had to intervene several months ago when I was sat on the train between a drunken Polish guy and a poor Turkish tourist because the Pole was RUBBING MUD ON HIS FACE AND POINTING AT THE TURKISH GUY. Yeah, basically, he had his own little "blackface" routine going. Turns out he hates Bangladeshis and couldn't tell an East Mediterranean person from a Bengali.

Offended? Nooo, far from it. Apparently Dutch is a hard language to learn, and the occasional person tries to speak the few words they know of it for shits and giggles. Shits for them and giggles for me usually, their pronouncuation is mostly terribad ;D.

In any case, no, if you know some Dutch and are feeling trigger happy, I've got no problems with a little chat.

All the Dutch people I met in the Netherlands gave me this pitying look when I tried speaking Dutch and switched to English.

My efforts are based on the intent to try to be a traveler rather than a tourist, also to my first Dutch speaking experiences being in East Belgium, where fewer people speak English than in the Netherlands and they sure as shit don't want to speak French, so minimal Dutch was necessary to get by.

As an English person who gets by in at least 3 other languages (French, Italian and Spanish) I'm apparently a rarity: often people refuse to believe I'm English. The worst time was with this Italian guy I met in Valencia.

"So you speak French, Spanish and Italian as well as English? WOW!"
"Well, yes, but you speak the exact same languages."
"Yes, but you're English!"

The absolute worst is my GF and her mother speaking Farsi. At the dinner table. When it's just the 3 of us there. That is just rude in my opinion. They even talk to her dad in Farsi and he's Pakistani so I see that this is not something they're going to be flexible with and I'll have to learn it, along with the wacky alphabet.

 

[SilverHammerMan]

I'm an English speaking Canadian, and I've dealt with this a few times. I learned French in school and I think I'm pretty decent at it, I can speak it well enough and understand people so long as they speak clearly, but I never use it. I appreciate that other people are willing to accomodate me, but sometimes people come off as condescending, as though to say:

No, no, don't mangle my language you stupid little anglophone, allow me to speak in your woefully inelegant language.

Of course not everyone is like that, but every once in a while it happens, you go out of your way to try to speak their language, trying to be courteous to them and then they cut you off. That's annoying, very, very annoying. By this point I don't even bother trying, I just speak in English because I know that's how the conversation would proceed anyway. But I have always kind of fantasized about coming back at them when they start to speak English by just refusing to which over from French again. I think that could be a pretty funny situation, two people, locked in a battle of wills, stubbornly refusing to speak their own native language out of an insane determination to prove their superiority and worldliness to the other.

 

[mrdude2010]

If you're in their country, they appreciate the attempt to communicated with them in their language. I always hear that French people are rude, but whenever I tried to speak my pathetically bad French, I got sincere attempts at help.

If you just think someone might know the language, it's usually a good idea to at least ask before you start spouting shit in what you think might be their native language. It's pretty embarrassing to speak russian to a guy with a pea coat and a fur cap only to have them lop your head off because they're actually a Cossack.

 

[mrdude2010]

. I think that could be a pretty funny situation, two people, locked in a battle of wills, stubbornly refusing to speak their own native language out of an insane determination to prove their superiority and worldliness to the other.

You now have a good summary of early Anglo-Native American relations.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

The absolute worst is my GF and her mother speaking Farsi. At the dinner table. When it's just the 3 of us there. That is just rude in my opinion. They even talk to her dad in Farsi and he's Pakistani so I see that this is not something they're going to be flexible with and I'll have to learn it, along with the wacky alphabet.

Bah, don't give in like that, learn Xhosa instead.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

say crikey around Aussies

Just a heads up - most Aussies translate 'crikey' as 'please punch me in the face'.

 

[Scorekeeper]

Lotta Swedes in this thread.

I took four years of German in high school. I live in the Pacific Northwest, where few Germans reside. On the rare occasion I happen to hear a conversation in German, I add something from my less-than-impressive vocabulary. I once delighted two customers (I'm a college student working at a grocery store) by speaking to them without using canned phrases. I embarrassingly told them (in German) that I'd forgotten much but was enthusiastically told that I spoke well. Turns out that hearing your own language in a place you wouldn't ever expect to hear it puts you in such a good mood that you can excuse a rough, if sincere, abuse of your native tongue.

 

[Lost In The Void]

Anglo-Canadian, so generally people do speak my language. However I do know bits and pieces of French and Spanish so I can get along if necessary if I'm in a Spanish or French speaking country. At least enough to request them to speak in English if possible to accommodate my poor dumb ass. I feel if you are in a foreign nation, make the effort to learn "Please speak in English if possible, my "X Language" isn't so good." Just to make some sort of distinction that you do realize you're in their house now.

 

[DJ_DEnM]

Yes, very much. Whenever my friends do that they always stare at me for a while awkwardly >_>

 

[The White Hunter]

Although I must say I do get kinda irked when I have to work with polish migrants (notracist) when they've been here for 4 years and don't speak a single word of english.

That get's under my skin. If I were to go to a country for more than a few weeks I'd take the time to be able to communicate effectively with the natives.

It's not racist, it's xenophobic at worst: they're other white Europeans. Who are often, as it happens, super racist themselves. I had to intervene several months ago when I was sat on the train between a drunken Polish guy and a poor Turkish tourist because the Pole was RUBBING MUD ON HIS FACE AND POINTING AT THE TURKISH GUY. Yeah, basically, he had his own little "blackface" routine going. Turns out he hates Bangladeshis and couldn't tell an East Mediterranean person from a Bengali.

I'd barely call it xenophobic even, I don't care that they aren't from here, more that they'd be here that long and just not bother to learn the language.
Then again in the north of britain I'd have to say there are alot of people who just hat everybody not from here :\

Also, they're a slightly different kind of white european if you wanna get into fine details, but lets not.

 

[Benny Blanco]

The absolute worst is my GF and her mother speaking Farsi. At the dinner table. When it's just the 3 of us there. That is just rude in my opinion. They even talk to her dad in Farsi and he's Pakistani so I see that this is not something they're going to be flexible with and I'll have to learn it, along with the wacky alphabet.

Bah, don't give in like that, learn Xhosa instead.

A friend of hers who she went to uni with was visiting and he suggested we speak Hebrew (he's Israeli, but lives in Montreal) but that's only a little better for me.

Hebrew is on my list, but far down, after Arabic but before Russian...

 

[HenrySugar]

English is my primary. However, some of my family is Italian so I also learned and know that.