Au Revoir France, À Bientôt
One of the guys in the team here told me an old joke at lunch yesterday.
Q: What do you call a man who speaks three languages?
A: Trilingual.
Q: What do you call a man who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual.
Q: What do you call a man who speaks one language?
A: English.
I could see where it was going after the second line and managed to preempt his finalé. Although it did make me laugh. Because it's true! Equally true of other English-speaking countries though and I'm sure he changes the last line to suit.
Last night I had dinner with the same guy and we got back on the topic of langauge. I explained I am sometimes embarrassed by my own Englishness. I don't like that I can go places and rely on on the people there speaking English. I'd love to have to learn another language, but, as I said last night, I don't really need to.
In England there's a myth that Parisians will pretend they don't speak English, just to be awkward. I've not witnessed that since I've been here. Everybody I've met since I arrived has been surprisingly friendly and welcoming. My approach has been to great each person in French and attempt to ask for what I want, also in French. Most times they've seen that I'm struggling and they've switched to English. It's the fact that I am trying, I think, that helps. Assuming they speak English is probably what gets their backs up and I doubt it's only the French who dislike this.
There was a funny moment in a restaurant last Friday. We were stood at the door waiting to be shown to our table. Two French ladies squeezed between us and went straight in. Unaware of this I said aloud "Very French", referring to the restaurant and the decor. The lady at the back thought I meant them pushing in, turned to me and said (in English) "We have a table already. Sorry.". She seemed genuinely sorry that I might have seen her behaviour as "French". Not what I would have expected at all.
Looking back I wish I had spent a year or more living in Paris, instead of spending so long in London. From what I've seen I think I would have preferred Paris. For a start the Metro is amazing compared to the Tube. It would have been good to have learnt French as well. For now I will have to settle for a return trip in the near future.
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Jake,
Completely agree with your point about trying and struggling rather than not trying at all. I went to Chamonix with a group of friends - whenever in a cafe or restaurant, we would attempt to greet and order in French. The people could not have been nicer after that - almost a "thanks for giving it a go, now lets get down to business"!! (i got CSE Grade C French)
Imagine if a French person walked into a cafe in London and tried to order by shouting loudly and slowly in French!! Our reaction would be slightly different!
Mike
There's nothing better than living and working in a foreign country as it gives you a whole new perspective on your own (good or bad!).
Business wise I'm lucky that here in Norway everyone can speak English, though I try my utmost not to give them the opportunity to do so, but every so often it is very nice to be able to fall back on such a widely understood language.
Jake,
You can hardly help English has become an international standard language in an ever shrinking global world. The demands of communication on a global basis has simply highlighted the need of a common language. Today, the easiest way is English.
I'm from Sweden myself and I know a lot of English people who have moved to Sweden and learned Swedish. It is a very difficult language to learn. We do have a lot of words in common, but it is the grammar that is very difficult.
Anyway, I have notice in Sweden there is a difference in "acceptance" (do not know any better word) if an Englishman has learned Swedish than let say a person from former eastern europe or the middle-east.
My point is, if an Englishman, or American has made an effort, the Swedish people feels little more important since England and America is so dominating en everything around the world.
Best Regards
Henrik
Jake,
the last answer in this old joke here in the French part of Switzerland is "French", of course.
In Germany "American" is the default answer. :)
I noticed that you're much friendlier welcomed in any country if you try to address people in their language, even if it's only to say hello.
Sometimes I am sorry that there are not more people in my work circles who speak more languages. Lots of fellows from India, and a few Hindi phrases are all I've been able to pickup (closest thing to Indian English for adoption I guess). Living in America my chances of immersion are slim, but I am grateful to a small German speaking group that kindly tolerated my poor German for months on end over lunch at a place I used to work.
In the mean time, I've picked up German, Spanish, Chinese and Russian language immersion CD ROMs for fun. My wife isn't too keen for my two year old daughter to know ear, eye, nose, head in five languages though, so I have little chance to practice.
Learn French, Jake. Just the mental excercise will pay big dividends later in life. :-)
The french changed very much in the last decade. In former times they indeed pretended to speak only french and expected from foreigners to do this also. But in the last years they often talked in english to me although I spoke french to them. The funny thing about this is that my french is much worse than my english is and that the english speaking capabilities of most of the french persons were much worse than my bad french *lol*
I'll never forget a nice young lady from tourist information which told me: 'Therr arr oulso verri nice plages therrr'...
But at least they try to be kind these days and speak english to you without having to ask for. When I compare that with the US: The do not even know that there are other languages in the world than english.
I never used to like France and made no effort at school to learn French. In fact I got an F in GCSE french.
It's now with my love of french wine and going to the region's to taste the wine, that i have made a big effort to speak and learn a bit of french.
A couple of years back, my wife and I were travelling down to the Rhone wine region. we stopped off at Fixin, a small place for our overnight stop. The hotel had a dinning room and we thought we would have dinner there. By the time the main course was over we were full, so i got the french/english dictionary out and decided that i could look up the words i wanted to construct my sentence. I wanted to say my wife and I are full, but i must have said something different as all the nearby tables burst out laughing. Not to this day do i know what i said to the waitess in french.
Stu : literally "full" is "plein" in french, which is a common (and pretty oldish) word to say "drunk". So i guess you said in french your wife and you were drunk :)
From the previous responses, it seems Holland is an exception to the rule. Our country mostly depends on trade with other countries, that's why everybody has to learn at least some english, german, and french from elementary school to high school. Furthermore, we do not synchronize english and american tv shows and movies, yet sub title it, which makes us learn english unconsciously. Add all this together and the average knowledge of the english language is relatively high here.
My situation is even more extreme. If I would add up all the weekly hours I spent reading, writing, listening and talking in english, it would far exceed that of my mother tongue, dutch.
So how is Holland an exception? If as a foreigner you approach a native dutch person in english, he/she will not see it as a frustration that you didn't try dutch. It's the opposite, because it is a perfect opportunity to show off our english, even when it's not that good at all. This is quite convenient for english-speaking foreigners. Still, even when a foreigner would learn dutch, its hard to practice it since everybody will be happy to speak english to you.
Being an american, and knowing only one language does .. yeah, it bites. I wish I did know more and I'm starting to learn a new language. Latin. Ha!
That being said, I often wonder if its because we try so hard to forget. This country is founded on immigrants. A lot of people came here to start a new and *forget* the past, if you will. It's dispappointing. The drive for materiality doesn't help.
talking about other languages , have you tried to speak english in argentina just for fun ?
Jake, I had a 3-month assignment in Paris and learned enough French to get along (now largely rusty). It really expanded my horizons as far as language goes and built upon my school Spanish. My recent trip to Italy was a lot more enjoyable thanks to my previous exposures to other languages.
As for the stereotype that Americans are language-ignorant, there is some regrettable truth to it. Things are improving, however, out of necessity. Spanish is spoken by a significant minority in every state, for example, and everyone I work with knows at least a few words of it. The Asian languages are also popular on the west coast.
I think it's a shame that our schools don't all require a language for graduation. We plan to start our 3-year-old daughter on Spanish lessons some time in the next year, and probably Italian or French after that.
Learning another language is always a nice way to break the ice when working with someone who speaks another language. I've used it on a number of occasions and you get the opposite reaction of speaking English first.
I am fluent in both Portuguese and English, but in high school I decided to take French over Spanish, since I thought it would be more beneficial.
Unfortunately, I remember about 5% of what I learned :o(
My second language is Domino. But very few speak that.
So I suppose I have to fall back to Japanese. As with any culture, any attempt to speak their own language gives you acceptance in their eyes. Like Stu, I totally failed my French at school (Got a U at 'O' level), because at the time I had absolutely no interest in it.
But this is the key point: Interest. I still have absolutely no interest in France. So I'm not even going to bother brushing up on my French - even though I've been on holiday there. I learned a little German when I did the Romantic Road, and that also came in handy when I was in Switzerland and Austria.
And I've never been to the States on holiday - no interest. Yet I go to Japan every year.
But it's like Domino. A lot of companies give it the brush off, because there is no interest there. So how do you raise the interest? Got me. If I knew that one, I'd be rolling in it.
Language Test
Hur många är det som förstår denna mening?
I try and speak the language when I can, they do seem to appreciate it. However, last time I was skiing in France I stopped at a cafe with my missus. I did my best to place our order in French, but when I'd finished speaking the waiter said "Do you want chips or potatoes with that?"... he was English too. :¬)
All those years of Latin in high school. What a waste. I live and work in Florida, but fortunately I haven't had any issues with knowing virtually no Spanish, even though at this point in my life I know more spoken Korean than Spanish.
On another note, I just wanted to pass along something I noticed in the e-mailed tips from SearchDomino:
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I have two dropdowns on a form. When I select a value in the first dropdown, the second dropdown should automatically get filled, based on the value of first dropdown. What is the best way to achieve this kind of functionality in JavaScript? I am current using the JS @dblookup function, but this solution is quite inefficient when the number of return values is large. Is there any way to get the data thru XML?
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The response was a comment along the lines of AJAX being the modern way of doing this, and then followed by a link to Jake's keyword refresh example. For the sake of civility, and the fact that I have once or twice found an insightful tip on that site, I think, I will cease my commentary at this point and simply give kudos to Jake both for his much appreciated efforts and for providing me with a reason to use the word "kudos".
@henrik-
Jag forstår vad du menar -
but then I have a swedish girlfriend! :-)
I agree that swedish is tough to learn, I think that my (very) basic German helps a bit. The problem in learning the language in another country is that people are so eager to help you out when you are obviously struggling by talking in English themselves. Not their fault of course.
I will probably live in Sverige sometime in the future but I know it will be difficult to learn the language when so many swedish people are fluent in English!
Hälsningar,
Andy
Coming into this late, but I fully expected "American" to be the punchline. I consider myself to speak only one language even though I tell folks that "I speak enough French to get into trouble, but not enough to get out." That's from one semester of night classes during my first year of professional employment -- in the international products group at a large minicomputer company, where everyone else spoke many languages. I had taken three years of Latin in high school rather than a modern language -- a mistake I regret to this day -- and there really wasn't much call for Latin translation of computer software.
Anyhow, my experiences in Paris, 20 years ago, and 11 years ago, were both very much like yours. There was only one place where I felt that my not understanding French was being held against me, and that was in the ticket line at the train station -- and with the length of the line that was building up behind me while I struggled to communicate my destination and understand the fare, I can really hardly blame them. Everywhere else we went in the city, our attempts to communicate were clearly appreciated, and the Parisians always switched to English when they knew that their own English was better than our French, and that was true in almost all the places we went.