| Stranica u temi: < [1 2] | Off topic: Revealing your nationality to compatriots visiting your adopted country? Postavljač teme: Mervyn Henderson (X)
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Jeffrey Henson
Francuska
Local time: 17:52
Član (2015)
francuski na engleski
Lingua 5B wrote:
Just because someone speaks the same native language as me in a foreign country, it doesn't mean we can be friends automatically?
I agree completely and find it strange that a lot of people seem to think this is enough to "bond" over.
I remember once while on holiday in Cancún, Mexico I was supposed to meet some friends at a bar near our hotel. I was the first to arrive and ordered a drink. I was happy to have the opportunity to practice my Spanish with the attractive Mexican waitress and she seemed pleasantly surprised to see a Non-latino speak her language. Knowing the reputation of American tourists in Cancún, when she asked me where I was from, I said "France".
She then proposed to take me over and seat me with some Québécois tourists that were at a nearby table. I had never seen the people before and so was surprised by her proposition. I asked why she wanted to seat me with those people to which she replied "para que tenga amigos" (so you'll have some friends)...
I guess she thought I was on my own and obviously couldn't have known that I was expecting my own friends shortly, but still...
[Edited at 2015-08-20 15:26 GMT]
[Edited at 2015-08-20 15:29 GMT]
| | | | Robert Rietvelt 
Local time: 17:52
Član (2006)
španjolski na nizozemski
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Mervyn Henderson wrote:
As far as I can see, there’ s only been one off topic contribution to the off topic so far here (apart from this off topic off topic piece), with the off topic complaint that the off topic is off topic and therefore not on topic.
Please stay on the off topic, and don’t go off the off topic. It puts people off putting on topic stuff on an off topic thread. Putting off topic stuff rather than on topic stuff on an off topic thread, by which I mean stuff that is off topic with regard to the off topic itself, which is actually the on topic in this case, is just not on – it’s rather off, in fact. I don’t want to go on and on about off topic and on topic, so can we get on?
I’m off.
(does the eyes in, doesn’t it?)
| | | | Mervyn Henderson (X)
Španjolska
Local time: 17:52
španjolski na engleski
+ ...
POKRETAČ TEME | On the buses | Aug 21, 2015 |
Many years ago I was on a bus in Oxford, and two girls in their late twenties sitting behind me were speaking Spanish, although only one of them was native. As Tom says, one does feel wonderfully safe speaking another language abroad to discuss intimate things in public, and the subject was the bedroom exploits of the new boyfriend of one of them.
Well!
She was expressing her concern about her boyfriend's insistence on, er, using the tradesmen's entrance instead of jus... See more Many years ago I was on a bus in Oxford, and two girls in their late twenties sitting behind me were speaking Spanish, although only one of them was native. As Tom says, one does feel wonderfully safe speaking another language abroad to discuss intimate things in public, and the subject was the bedroom exploits of the new boyfriend of one of them.
Well!
She was expressing her concern about her boyfriend's insistence on, er, using the tradesmen's entrance instead of just popping in the front door as a prim and polite society expects one to do. Lots of oohs and aahs (on the bus, I mean), but it got so explicit in the end I had to get off (come on, you know what I mean) a stop early.
I get the idea these discussions are much more common among women than men. I for one would never enter into this with a male counterpart (oh, don't start). ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
Ujedinjeno Kraljevstvo
Local time: 16:52
Član (2008)
talijanski na engleski
Mervyn Henderson wrote:
Many years ago I was on a bus in Oxford, and two girls in their late twenties sitting behind me were speaking Spanish, although only one of them was native. As Tom says, one does feel wonderfully safe speaking another language abroad to discuss intimate things in public, and the subject was the bedroom exploits of the new boyfriend of one of them.
Well!
She was expressing her concern about her boyfriend's insistence on, er, using the tradesmen's entrance instead of just popping in the front door as a prim and polite society expects one to do. Lots of oohs and aahs (on the bus, I mean), but it got so explicit in the end I had to get off (come on, you know what I mean) a stop early.
I get the idea these discussions are much more common among women than men. I for one would never enter into this with a male counterpart (oh, don't start).
This made me smile. It reminded me of when I used to work in Bologna. The Bolognese are happy to discuss these matters with complete openness, in public, in a language everyone around them understands. I used to marvel at the conversation of perfectly respectable women on the crowded bus going to work, conversing openly about exactly what they had done in bed the previous night....
Now - what was the topic again?
[Edited at 2015-08-21 11:56 GMT]
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| Thanks, Blakey | Aug 21, 2015 |
ProZ would be a much more interesting place with more stories like that!
| | | | Lincoln Hui
Hong Kong
Local time: 00:52
Član
kineski na engleski
+ ...
At school Chinese students come to me all the time. It's not a matter of whether I choose to reveal my nationality, since
1. It's pretty obvious
2. You always introduce where you come from at the beginning of a class.
Of course they insist on speaking in their own tongue (and to be fair, many of them are probably not prepared to carry a conversation in English), which is kind of a problem because they are assuming that I am fluent in Mandarin, and I...really...don't...sp... See more At school Chinese students come to me all the time. It's not a matter of whether I choose to reveal my nationality, since
1. It's pretty obvious
2. You always introduce where you come from at the beginning of a class.
Of course they insist on speaking in their own tongue (and to be fair, many of them are probably not prepared to carry a conversation in English), which is kind of a problem because they are assuming that I am fluent in Mandarin, and I...really...don't...speak...Mandarin...very...well...
So it transpires that the first thing I do in most cases is insist that they speak slowwwwly, because I can't understand a word of what they are saying when they speak at the speed that they are accustomed to. And I often have to do this several times in what would otherwise be a very brief conversation.
Not that I am all that interested in speaking to other Cantonese speakers when I am abroad either, but it is always a most stressful experience to engage in conversation with those who hail from the mainland. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dan Lucas
Ujedinjeno Kraljevstvo
Local time: 16:52
Član (2014)
japanski na engleski
Mervyn Henderson wrote:
but it got so explicit in the end I had to get off (come on, you know what I mean) a stop early.
I nearly spat / choked on my coffee over this post.
This is why we need a like feature!
Dan
[Edited at 2015-08-25 07:31 GMT]
| | | | Christina B.
Švedska
Local time: 17:52
francuski na njemački
+ ...
In my younger days I was working at a manor house in northern France. The place was quite distinguished, at the reception the guests sat down on antique chairs.
The old frenchman who owned the manor house was very proud of his mother tongue and always complaining about the fact that he was forced to speak English with the "uncultured" tourists (mostly from Germany and England).
One day, I welcomed an English couple. The lady was really big and as she sat down, I could ... See more In my younger days I was working at a manor house in northern France. The place was quite distinguished, at the reception the guests sat down on antique chairs.
The old frenchman who owned the manor house was very proud of his mother tongue and always complaining about the fact that he was forced to speak English with the "uncultured" tourists (mostly from Germany and England).
One day, I welcomed an English couple. The lady was really big and as she sat down, I could hear the owner mutter loudly in French: "Look at this women, what a big a...! Oh my God, she is going to break my chair!"
The lady turned out to be a teacher - teaching French! ▲ Collapse
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| We do need a like button! | Aug 27, 2015 |
Some on-topic stories of my own:
I always try to help foreign people in my home country.
Whenever I hear Spanish people having trouble to find their way or discussing their itinerary in Belgium, I will try to help them (same goes for Frenchspeaking and Englishspeaking people).
A couple of weeks ago I met a Spanish couple at the railway station, and the woman was saying "Noooo, estamos mal, esto no es la estacion de trenes, es el tram" and I just replied that in fact t... See more Some on-topic stories of my own:
I always try to help foreign people in my home country.
Whenever I hear Spanish people having trouble to find their way or discussing their itinerary in Belgium, I will try to help them (same goes for Frenchspeaking and Englishspeaking people).
A couple of weeks ago I met a Spanish couple at the railway station, and the woman was saying "Noooo, estamos mal, esto no es la estacion de trenes, es el tram" and I just replied that in fact they were where they should be, and that the next train (not tram) to Antwerp would be coming a couple of minutes later.
Another nice story: I was in a souvenirshop in my home city, where Dutch is the official language, and there were two elderly Spanish ladies over there. Suddenly I heard one of them saying to the other one (in Spanish of course) that it was such a shame, a real disgrace, that not every Belgian was able to speak Spanish, "because Belgium once was a Spanish colony, of course".
(Belgium wasn't a "colony", yes we were ruled by Spain between 1556 and 1715, but I would not call that "a colony, and even if you would call it a colony: 300 years ago?)
Another very funny story:
I was travelling by train from school, right behind me 6 of the 8 seats were occupied by Spanish girls (I do seem to have a lot of stories about "Spanish" people).
They were talking out loud, with that "We speak Spanish in Belgium, nobody understands us"-impression, going on an on Belgian people. I even heard them say (in Spanish): "No wonder that Belgian people are that stupid and don't know how to speak Spanish, they are all blonde. At that time I was still blonde as well, but I did manage to understand them, something they didn't expect.
A couple of minutes later (when the subject was "boys", yes very similar to the topics mentioned above), the ticket collector passed and apparently there was a problem with their ticket. The ticket collector didn't speak Spanish, the Spanish girls only spoke Spanish. I just offered the ticket collector to help him, because I knew I could be a non-official interpreter in this situation and I just wanted to see their face as well. They did seem a bit surprised at first, and even shocked when they suddenly realized I probably overheard them from the beginning...
Then a personal situation where I was abroad, and found a "bond" with people speaking my own native language.
Last year I was living in Spain for 2 months. I never left home for longer than 4 weeks before and was there without any of my friends or family from back home. The sad thing was that the first 6 weeks of my 8,5 weeks there, I was suffering from the flu (such a pity). After 5 weeks, without having heard any Dutch since I left Belgium 5 weeks before, or without any of my friends or family close to me, I was walking through the city when suddenly I heard a nice Dutch (not a Belgian, but Dutch) couple speaking Dutch and I was so happy to hear my native language again.
We started talking but we went our own way afterwards.
During that same period in Spain, I also met 2 British girls (16 and 17 years old) who were staying at the same residency I was. I was feeling very "motherly" and trying to help them not getting lost, or getting into trouble, as they didn't speak Spanish at all.
One morning (I already had heard a lot of noise at night), one of these two girls came into my room, asking me if I could help them. They had had a heavy party the night before, got very drunk and the other girl had been throwing up all night and... wet her bed.
They wanted me to explain what had happened to the staff, and ask for clean bed linen. I didn't want to be associated with this kind of heavy partying and alcohol abuse (I was studying there, and would stay there for 4 more weeks), so I told them what they should write on a piece of paper, and that they should give it to the staff themselves.
They received what they wanted, and even more, because the next day that same girl had slept on fluid-resistant bed linen. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kay Denney
Francuska
Local time: 17:52
francuski na engleski
I too have been introduced to all sorts of people at parties simply because they are the same nationality as me. I mostly say "I'm sorry but I came to France to learn and speak French, so I guess I'll go back to the French guy I was speaking to before our hostess dragged me away if you don't mind".
There was one Afrikaaner girl who latched on to me and wanted to be best friends with me because she thought English people were vastly superior to Afrikaaners. I didn't hang around long ... See more I too have been introduced to all sorts of people at parties simply because they are the same nationality as me. I mostly say "I'm sorry but I came to France to learn and speak French, so I guess I'll go back to the French guy I was speaking to before our hostess dragged me away if you don't mind".
There was one Afrikaaner girl who latched on to me and wanted to be best friends with me because she thought English people were vastly superior to Afrikaaners. I didn't hang around long enough to find out what she thought of black South Africans (this was during the apartheid era and I was down at the SA embassy most Saturdays on peaceful demos).
Just this summer we were visiting my SO's native country in the Middle East. As we were sitting in a garden one day, a crowd of girls came and stood staring at us. They said hello then proceeded to babble in their native language. Since I and my children are pretty white, they assumed we wouldn't understand. Then my SO, who they didn't appear to have noticed, just chimed in on their conversation and they were truly startled. They had basically been drooling about how gorgeous our son is, pretty innocent stuff (and of course totally true!), but they were plenty embarrassed when they realised that we had understood.
People mostly assumed that my SO was in fact our tour guide and as a result we got some fascinating insights into what locals thought of westerners. One of our biggest crimes according to one taxi driver is slamming the car door when we got out. We then got quite paranoid about shutting the car door without slamming it too hard!
Given how multi-culti my family is and the fact that when we're all together we usually speak in French, I rarely reveal that I'm English. Especially on a trip to Egypt at the time of the invasion of Iraq.
At home in Paris I do let lost tourists know that I'm a native speaker because it usually reassures them.
Was that all on-topic enough? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Mervyn Henderson (X)
Španjolska
Local time: 17:52
španjolski na engleski
+ ...
POKRETAČ TEME | Yes, all on-topic ... | Sep 4, 2015 |
... but is "SO" Significant Other? I'd never heard it before, but found it on Google - do please pardon my ignorance if that's the case.
Mervyn
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