Being spoken to in your native language

[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.

 

[Optiluiz]

Not really, no. Though I do get annoyed when they think Brazilians speak Spanish. It's not their native language, so I don't mind if they pronounce things wrong.

 

[Fredvdp]

I did a couple of Italian cruises in the past where the crew is supposed to speak up to five languages (Italian, English, Spanish, German, French). They can never place our native language (a Flemish dialect of Dutch) so they always just start speaking German to us because it kinda sounds similar.

 

[Guffe]

If someone who doesn't know my language and tries to speak it I PUNCH THEIR FACE IN!!!

No but I don't mind, I mean often you still understand what he/she's trying to say.
And to answer question number 2, nope, never been spoken to in a language I don't know by mistake.

 

[Vkmies]

I find it humorous. Since nobody knows finnish, aside from swedes that can swear a bit. So that's fun.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Does anyone here, whose primary language isn't English, ever feel offended, or annoyed, when an English speaking person attempts to speak to you using your native language?

Never really happened before. Who would want to learn Dutch? Well, except my brother in law (a kiwi). But I can take it from him, because he's awesome.

on another note, has someone ever spoken to you in a language that you didn't fully know, thinking that you were of a race or ethnicity that would know it? If so, did this ever offend or annoy you?

No, I think it's funny. When I was in Rome with school, the natives for some reason always seemed to address me. Same thing happened in Prague. I can understand Italian a bit, but I couldn't speak a word of Czech if my life depended on it.

Oh wait, pivo is beer right? Okay, so one word.

 

[Geno DCLXVI]

That actually happens quite often down here in the sunny Philippines, where daily living requires a working knowledge of at least two out of about a dozen major languages (not simply dialects, mind you) and the average person is usually familiar with around four or five of them. When foreigners roll around, all they're usually familiar with is Filipino, which has a varied degree of use depending on which one of the seven thousand Philippine islands you're currently in.

That said, I'd only like to hear a foreigner speaking in one of the vernacular languages if they're familiar with the syntax and sentence formation of said language. Accent isn't as important, but would still be a plus.

However, the above only applies to regular conversation. If all they're planning on saying is a one-liner like "thank you" or whatnot, I'd much rather prefer it to be said properly accented.