To speak or not to speak the local language when visiting other countries?

[ficbot]

I had a job while in university in a temporary customer service type position with the government, and we would get the occasional obviously French caller. I was technically capable of handling the call in French and would always answer them back thusly, but as soon as they heard my accent, they would switch to English My French accent has improved tremendously since, to the point that I once interviewed for a job at a French school (I am a language teacher) and they pretty much told me 'wow, your French is great for an Anglo, too bad we only hire native speakers.' I took it as a compliment and believe they intended it that way. I pick up languages easily. It's no sweat for me to learn some basic phrases if I'm going somewhere that requires it.

[Verencat]

Ficbot: you are Canadian! You got to be!
Language issues here are everywhere, and everyone has there stories!
I must say that when I call a service center and the employee speaks French with an accent, I'll always switch to English, because it makes conversation so much easier for me! I speak it fluently, with a small accent, so I really don't mind!

As for speaking the native language when you visit another country (or, for Canada, another province, or, in Montréal, the other side of town), I say yes, as much as possible! It just shows that you can make an effort to appreciate the culture, and if you get it all wrong, at least you make people smile! When a tourist tries to speak French to me, they just get the biggest of smiles, and if I know parts of their own language, I'll be happy to let them hear it!

[Stitchawl]

No matter how badly I manage to mangle a language, and I do a really good job of mangling them often, I've never had any local become upset with my mistakes. I think most find it a combination of humorous and polite. Even in France armed with only my high school French (and a bit of Quebecois,) people were more than happy to help with directions, shopping, hotels, and restaurants. Stopping and asking someone who is obviously in a hurry is not a good thing to do in this case.

When I first moved to Japan, sightseeing I'd say; "That's a beautiful toilet" instead of "That's a beautiful Shinto Entry gate." (Those big gates that look somewhat like a bird perch called a torii) Sounded almost the same to me... For almost six months not a single one of my Japanese friends corrected me. This is a VERY polite society!

As an American I always enjoyed this sad-but-true comment;
Q. What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A. Bi-lingual.
Q. What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
A. Tri-lingual.
Q. What do you call someone who speaks only one language?
A. American.

Stitchawl

[HarryT]

I think personally that it's very bad manners not to at least learn the "courtesy words" in the language of the country that one is visiting - "hello", "goodbye", "please" and "thank you".

Perhaps one could turn it round and ask what you would think of a visitor who made not the slightest effort to speak English when visiting your country.

One of the most embarrasing experiences I've ever had was when I was on a coach tour of Germany with a coach party who were mainly Americans (this is relevant to the story, as you'll see). We stopped for morning coffee in a small town, and were served by a teenage boy who spoke a little English. One of the women in the group started ordering the type of amazingly "complex" types of coffee that you can get in American coffee places, but which are a mystery to anyone else - you know, the kind of "I want half skimmed milk and half semi-skimmed milk with 37% decaffeinated coffee in a ...." etc etc. This poor kid didn't have a clue what she wanted. After a couple of minutes, she turned around and said in a very loud voice "if they want our money, they should learn to speak our language". I was so embarrassed that I wished the floor would open up and swallow me. I think that THAT really is the epitome of the "rude tourist". My philosophy, when travelling, is always to think that I am a guest in someone else's country, and that I shouldn't expect things to be the same as they are at home.

[GraceKrispy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

*SNIP*
This poor kid didn't have a clue what she wanted. After a couple of minutes, she turned around and said in a very loud voice "if they want our money, they should learn to speak our language". I was so embarrassed that I wished the floor would open up and swallow me. I think that THAT really is the epitome of the "rude tourist". My philosophy, when travelling, is always to think that I am a guest in someone else's country, and that I shouldn't expect things to be the same as they are at home.

*sigh* It's very embarassing how often these stories are all about Americans. Not surprising, you understand, just embarassing. I really don't get why some people act this way- assume the world revolves around them.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

*sigh* It's very embarassing how often these stories are all about Americans. Not surprising, you understand, just embarassing. I really don't get why some people act this way- assume the world revolves around them.

Please don't think I'm singling out Americans - I'm not. I've come across tourists of every nationality who make me want to cringe, and the British are certainly no exception. I certainly don't think that Americans are any more prone to being "bad tourists" than any other nation is.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

When I first moved to Japan, sightseeing I'd say; "That's a beautiful toilet" instead of "That's a beautiful Shinto Entry gate." (Those big gates that look somewhat like a bird perch called a torii) Sounded almost the same to me... For almost six months not a single one of my Japanese friends corrected me. This is a VERY polite society!

Apparently their innate politeness makes the Japanese more susceptible than most to Paris Syndrome.

[GraceKrispy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Please don't think I'm singling out Americans - I'm not. I've come across tourists of every nationality who make me want to cringe, and the British are certainly no exception. I certainly don't think that Americans are any more prone to being "bad tourists" than any other nation is.

No, I didn't think of it that way, but I definitely do hear this type of story applied to Americans (with good cause, I am sure) than any other nationality. I think it goes along with the joke referenced above from stitchawl- what do you call a person who speaks only one language? American. I think this lack of learning other languages and learning about other countries really does contribute to this obnoxiously prevalent ethnocentric mentality. Don't get me wrong- plenty of other countries are very ethnocentric, however, they usually have a much better understanding of those other countries/cultures they are claiming to be better than.

I'm very tired right now, so I'm probably being more negative than I normally would be. But, I have definitely been in the company of some really arrogant Americans.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Apparently their innate politeness makes the Japanese more susceptible than most to Paris Syndrome.

I can easily understand their complete and utter breakdown, although manners are swiftly changing here. 15 years ago I used to wonder why they bothered to put horn in cars. They never used them. These days I hear at least 2-3 car horns every day! Perhaps 'Paris Syndrome' will be less of a problem in the future.

I got my 'come-uppance' a few years before I met my wife... I was walking down the street in Kyoto and saw a very nice looking Western woman standing on a corner looking lost. Without giving it a second thought, I went up to her and said " Hi Sailor, new in .... no no no... I said 'Excuse me, if you're lost, perhaps I can be of some help.' She looked at me as if I had two heads, and fired off some rapid Spanish to the effect that she spoke no English! I had made the typical American mistake of assuming that all westerners must speak English! I never imagined anything other! Talk about embarrassing moments! My Spanish was learned in the garment district of lower Manhattan as a teenager and most of the words not suitable for polite conversation. but together we were able to get her to where she needed to be, but it was still embarrassing!

Stitchawl

[ravenne]

I know some basics in French, Italian and Spanish, just enough to be able to get a hotel room, order some tee, ask where a certain street or place is and how the weather will be tomorrow. My experience is that people are far more willing to help you if you try to ask your question in their language.

We have lots of tourists in Munich in Sept/ Oct (guess why!), the city is owned by them, actually. The funny thing is that they adjust perfectly as far as the typical Oktoberfest-look is concerned. Hordes of tourists enter shopping malls and buy Dirndl (traditional Bavarian costumes) and Lederhosen (Bavarian leather trousers), they even buy hats, traditional Bavarian socks, shoes etc. When they come out of the stores, they look more Bavarian than any native! But noone cares about speaking German. So it happens quite often that a group of "Bavarians" would stop you on the street and ask in English "Hi, where's the next subway station". The Japanese seem to be an exception. Last year some Japanese people (city maps in hands, apparently lost, but certainly on their way to the Oktoberfest), asked me if I could show them in their map where they were right now. They asked "Wosamma" which is Bavarian slang for German "Wo sind wie hier" ("Where are we").....

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Please don't think I'm singling out Americans - I'm not. I've come across tourists of every nationality who make me want to cringe, and the British are certainly no exception. I certainly don't think that Americans are any more prone to being "bad tourists" than any other nation is.

There are two groups of tourists: the (often) well-to-do herds (often coach trips) and the family groups (size varying between 1 and 5 persons) The first group, I tend to ignore (usually, they only compare everything with what they have back home, and somehow, back home is always better...). The second group is great fun to be around and they are generally very interrested in the culture of the country they're visiting (I think the first group only pretends to be interrested, just so they can say at home "I've been in ....!".)

I always try to speak the language of the country I'm in (unless it's a real exotic one, like Poland, Slowakia or even worse, Hungary, couldn't even speak one word of these countries when we were there last summer. Luckily, nobody expected us to...) But the first thing I always ask, is what language they speak. My French speaking ability is less than nill, my German and English are adaquate. Generally, you can survive on a mixture of your own language, any other language you may speak and hands and feet.

(when I once ordered some traintickets in Hamburg, for the night train from Berlin to Vienna, I started in German and after two sentences the person behind the counter switched to English... Maybe the amount of English words in my German sentences gave away that my German wasn't really that good )

I never expect people to speak the language of my country, but I do expect them to at least make a semblance of trying...

Originally Posted by fromt the link posted by Sparrow

An encounter with a rude taxi driver, or a Parisian waiter who shouts at customers who cannot speak fluent French, might be laughed off by those from other Western cultures.

Personally, if something like that happened to me, I'd probably pick up my stuff and go somewhere else... And if I put that beside the study done here, about tourists from the Netherlands where the French complained about us not speaking their language fluently...

[alecE]

...and the British are certainly no exception...

Too true - I've most often "cringed" when encountering Brits abroad - seems to be a sub-type who think if you speak loudly and slowly enough, everybody will understand them. Shudder.

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

Thank you, Zee. My assumption was that people would be more offended by bad attempts to speak their language and you've already convinced me that the opposite is probably true. I will hereby change my ways. (doggie trots off to bookstore to buy phrase book for upcoming trip to Australia - I wonder how they say "May I have some more bacon, please?" down there?)

OI! Bacon!

You're welcome.

[vivaldirules]

I have loved all the countries I've visited and am most interested in getting out of the tourist areas and immersing myself in the people and their culture. I have always felt that I'm a guest in someone else's "home" and am annoyed when other visitors act like they own the place. But I really do think that if I have no chance of learning the language well, the most I could do is spew out a few mangled phrases. It seems odd to me that that would be appreciated but if that's what people prefer I'll happily change my ways and do so.

I've had rather few experiences from the other side (where a visitor to my area struggles with English and is looking for directions, etc.). But I've always been most happy to try to help as much as I could. I can certainly relate to their situation.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I've had rather few experiences from the other side (where a visitor to my area struggles with English and is looking for directions, etc.). But I've always been most happy to try to help as much as I could. I can certainly relate to their situation.

But suppose you did come across a visitor from a different country looking for help. Would such a person be better off asking in even the most "broken" of English, or in French, Japanese, or whatever their native language happens to be?