Quote:
Originally Posted by Shanazel
I think there is a general tendency among certain native speakers of any language to not quite grasp their familiar language is foreign to other people. I laughed outloud when a French tourist at Arches National Park thought that shouting French at me would somehow improve my ability to understand it. I suppose because the woman I was with spoke French fluently the tourist assumed I also spoke French. Oui, non, and faux pas are the best I can do. I do miss the Spanish part of the forum; the Spanish speakers were very kind about letting me participate and correcting my grammar.
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Gosh I thought it was only Brits who indulged in that..shouting loudly in English would make Johnny Foreigner understand. And then you add the waving of arms and making faces and he's
bound to understand
I was in Nerja in Southern Spain where there is a large ex-pat British community and listened to an elderly British man berating a local tradesman:
" Over the years, I've had a lot to put up dealing with this kind of thing from you people" The irony obviously not lost on the Spanish shopkeeper from his facial expression was ,of course , that he was shouting in English.
Same holiday , I also had to go and ask a restauranteur (in
my halting Spanish) directions for a woman (who told me she had been living there for 2 years) and "that man doesn't speak English!"
