Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - When is it appropriate to speak another language?

toxic515 · 05-14-2003, 02:50 PM

My wife speaks 6 languages (Is carribean spanish) and I speak 4. None of them include any asian languages, but as of late I've been learning some Thai from a friend of mine from there. I've learned this much... If they are speaking the language and you can speak it, it's cool. If not, it certainly isn't safe to assume that they speak a certain language. We went to a Thai restaraunt locally, my friend and I and greeted them soundly and properly in Thai. They looked at me as if I were on drugs... come to find out, they're not Thai at all.. (DOH) by the same token, around my wife's family, I am free to speak Spanish, spanglish, and even German with her father, who speaks all of the above. The German is only understood by the 2 of us in the room, so it's kind of a fun special thing to tease the others. My poor Thai friend gets very confused at times because my wife and I, and the kids as well, have a tendancy to switch languages midstream, as much for practice and effect as anything else. Her English is decent for a conversation, but our slang, changing between French, English, Spanish, and Russian (mostly the wife and kids) throws her badly because she's not always aware when we change, or what we've changed to... We have made an effort not to do that around her, as it's impolite.. IN a lot of ways worse than whispering, since it implies that we are intentionally excluding someone from the conversation. Just be careful not to assume based on appearances. Here in TX there are a lot of hispanics that do not speak a word of spanish, and I'd wager well that that applies to most races across the nation!

05-14-2003, 02:50 PM	#5 (permalink)
toxic515 Addict Location: Texas	My wife speaks 6 languages (Is carribean spanish) and I speak 4. None of them include any asian languages, but as of late I've been learning some Thai from a friend of mine from there. I've learned this much... If they are speaking the language and you can speak it, it's cool. If not, it certainly isn't safe to assume that they speak a certain language. We went to a Thai restaraunt locally, my friend and I and greeted them soundly and properly in Thai. They looked at me as if I were on drugs... come to find out, they're not Thai at all.. (DOH) by the same token, around my wife's family, I am free to speak Spanish, spanglish, and even German with her father, who speaks all of the above. The German is only understood by the 2 of us in the room, so it's kind of a fun special thing to tease the others. My poor Thai friend gets very confused at times because my wife and I, and the kids as well, have a tendancy to switch languages midstream, as much for practice and effect as anything else. Her English is decent for a conversation, but our slang, changing between French, English, Spanish, and Russian (mostly the wife and kids) throws her badly because she's not always aware when we change, or what we've changed to... We have made an effort not to do that around her, as it's impolite.. IN a lot of ways worse than whispering, since it implies that we are intentionally excluding someone from the conversation. Just be careful not to assume based on appearances. Here in TX there are a lot of hispanics that do not speak a word of spanish, and I'd wager well that that applies to most races across the nation! __________________ Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.