You (might) Have to Speak English

[jjb1970]

There's a lot of courtesies you can show to people without learning their language which makes a difference and is appreciated.

 

One is using the name of countries preferred by people from that country. For example, the Turkish people I deal with appreciate it when people use Turkiye, Vietnamese colleagues appreciate using Viet Nam, Laotians use of Lao (as an abbreviation for the Lao PDR) etc. Even if you can't learn the language it's possible to learn basic pleasantries. Making a bit of effort to find out about their country is always appreciated and helps thaw the ice if you can talk a little about their country. 

 

People tend to be cold on those on those who visit their country and make zero effort to find out the most basic of things about it. 

 

Of course, some people quite deliberately try and antagonise others by refusing to extend such courtesies. 

[Pacific231G]

18 hours ago, Bucoops said:

 

Sort of (ish...) like the US tried with "Freedom Fries" - soon went back to French Fries though.

Even though frites are of Belgian origin.

Never was there a country with such curtailed freedoms as the US that bangs on so much about freedom. It always reminds me how countries with Democratic in their names are usually anything but.

[Pacific231G]

On 27/05/2023 at 11:36, TheQ said:

I've two hundred Radar museum leaflets in my bag to be distributed at the Broadland MRC show in Hoveton tomorrow.

I decide to use R.A.D.A.R. rather than radar went I think it's appropriate, as for knowing about R.D.F I was a radar tech for 26 years directly and indirectly for another 14. I now volunteer in the History of Radar room and occasionally throw in R.D.F. when talking about Chain Home, Chain Home Low and Chain home Extra low.

 

Just up the road from Mundesley, Trimmingham was a Chain Home station.  Whereas Neatishead was originally a GCI station then Rotor, then Linesman, then IUKADGE.

 

Now the terminology I've just used will be a foreign language to almost everyone.

I'm curious because though radar is an acronym of Radio Detection and Ranging , the second letter is not an initial so the initials would surely be R.D.R. not R.A.D.A.R.

I was just trying to compare the etymology of Radar with Asdic only to discover that what I'd always been told  (and my OED still maintains) that it was the initials of the Allied Submarine Detection Investigation Committee, was a myth generated by the RN in 1939. There never was such a committee. The Asdic  name seems to have come in reality from adding -ic to anti submarine detection to make it into a pronouncable noun. 

17 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

There was a similar movement in pre-war Germany.  So they officially have der Fernseher rather than die Television,  As it happens my old Latin master didn't like the English word either - because it's a mongrel word -  tele is Greek and Vision is from the Latin.

 

  Mongrels are generally healthier than pure breeds and whoever coined the word in about 1900 was very well aware of combining a Greek and a Latin root. Latin masters (and English teachers overinfluenced by them)  have a lot to answer for, like trying to tell us we shouldn't use split infinitives in English because they don't exist in Latin. That does beg a rather obvious question.  He probably also thought that we should refer to football stadia rather than stadiums. 

[jjb1970]

An amusing aspect of English speakers expecting the rest of the world to speak English is that it's an attitude shared by so many non-native English speakers. I have mentioned my wife, whose native tongue is Bahasa. Asia is full of European tourists who seem to assume anyone they speak to should understand English, just as so many Asian tourists in Europe expect the same.

[Reorte]

2 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

The Germans reckon the Austrians sound like farmers. But my Austrian ex's family thought I spoke with a proper German accent (even when speaking English bizarrely).

There's a story that Arnold Schwarzenegger said he could do the German dub of the Terminator films because he spoke German, being from Austria, but was rejected, being told he sounded like a peasant.

[Wickham Green too]

.... and what on earth is wrong with sounding like a peasant ? ...... or being one for that matter ? 

[keefer]

45 minutes ago, Reorte said:

There's a story that Arnold Schwarzenegger said he could do the German dub of the Terminator films because he spoke German, being from Austria, but was rejected, being told he sounded like a peasant.

Much like why Dave Prowse played Darth Vader but he was voiced by James Earl Jones (but farmer not peasant!)

[Steamport Southport]

"Ooh Ah! I'll be back, my lover!"

 

 

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

Latin masters (and English teachers overinfluenced by them)  have a lot to answer for, like trying to tell us we shouldn't use split infinitives in English because they don't exist in Latin. That does beg a rather obvious question.  He probably also thought that we should refer to football stadia rather than stadiums. 

To be fair, mine seemed more irritated at our looking out of the window to watch the 6th form hockey players instead of concetrating on the fourth declension latin endings in his textbooks.

[Reorte]

52 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

.... and what on earth is wrong with sounding like a peasant ? ...... or being one for that matter ? 

Just repeating the story I heard! And it wouldn't really have suited the Terminator - as someone else said it would be similar to using the on-set recordings of Darth Vader (it might be unfair to say it but they do raise a smile).

[Nick C]

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

There's a lot of courtesies you can show to people without learning their language which makes a difference and is appreciated.

 

One is using the name of countries preferred by people from that country. For example, the Turkish people I deal with appreciate it when people use Turkiye, Vietnamese colleagues appreciate using Viet Nam, Laotians use of Lao (as an abbreviation for the Lao PDR) etc. Even if you can't learn the language it's possible to learn basic pleasantries. Making a bit of effort to find out about their country is always appreciated and helps thaw the ice if you can talk a little about their country. 

 

People tend to be cold on those on those who visit their country and make zero effort to find out the most basic of things about it. 

 

Of course, some people quite deliberately try and antagonise others by refusing to extend such courtesies. 

Even just learning an appropriate greeting and how to say please and thankyou makes a huge difference - and doesn't take a lot of effort on the tourist's part... mind you, I expect a lot of the people who don't bother with such basic pleasantries are the same ones who don't when they're in their own country either...

[Michael Hodgson]

11 minutes ago, Nick C said:

Even just learning an appropriate greeting and how to say please and thankyou makes a huge difference - and doesn't take a lot of effort on the tourist's part... mind you, I expect a lot of the people who don't bother with such basic pleasantries are the same ones who don't when they're in their own country either...

Manors makers man ... except in Geordieland where they maketh a station or on the GWR where they maketh steam engines.

[Morello Cherry]

Having lived Vienna as my first German speaking city my spoken German is full of Viennese/Austrian German inflections. The upshot is that when I moved to Bavaria, greeting people with/going to shops etc and saying Grüß Gott got me some very strange looks. 

 

That said, we had Austrian regional TV on our TV which I watched to improve my German but frankly some of the regional accents were completely unintelligible.

 

But it can also work the other way, at a pub I used to drink at there were two barmaids, one Slovak and one Polish, the Slovak would speak in Slovak and the Pole in Polish to one another and they understood each other fine.

 

So it is possible for two people to speak two different languages and to be mutually intelligible and it is also possible for two people to speak the same language and for them to not be able to understand one another.

 

This video always makes me laugh. There was actually a court case in Vienna a couple of years back. A guy had been stopped by the police and the policeman arrested him for saying 'Oida' and he got fined for insulting a policeman, the court case hinged on what was meant by the 'Oida'.

 

 

(Her video on Austrian slang is also good. gemma geht scho machma)

Edited May 31, 2023 by Morello Cherry

[Bucoops]

50 minutes ago, Morello Cherry said:

Having lived Vienna as my first German speaking city my spoken German is full of Viennese/Austrian German inflictions. The upshot is that when I moved to Bavaria, greeting people with/going to shops etc and saying Grüß Gott got me some very strange looks. 

 

 

When we went to Prague we went by coach - 16 hours each way. The following yeargroup flew for the same price. I'm not bitter, honest. Anyway.

 

We stopped for a rest somewhere North of the Black Forest at a motorway services. In we piled, this was the first time I had been to Germany so I was keen to use my GCSE language skills.

 

"Grüß Gott" I was welcomed with at the checkout. Well that was me stumped before I'd even said a word. 5 years being taught German and they didn't think to mention that some people use this greeting?!

[jjb1970]

I guess it begs the question of at what point does a dialect become a language in its own right. English has evolved around the world to a point where it can be almost unintelligible for British people. English is the language of administration of Singapore (the national language is Malay, and the most common official language Mandarin) but the 'Singlish' spoken by many Singaporeans can be very difficult to understand for visitors, as with the English spoken in Britain it borrows words from other languages (though they are from Asian languages) and all sorts of local idioms, for locals it is English but for a British person it can sound like a foreign language. It's also easy to misinterpret some other versions of a language as rude or pompous because of local norms. Singaporean English doesn't like using sentences where a single word will suffice, so words like 'can' and 'correct' are used where we might use a whole sentence. Other English speakers often find the people rude when they visit, but if you adjust to the way English is used here you realise they're just down to earth and to the point and using the language as it has evolved here.

[KingEdwardII]

14 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

saying Grüß Gott got me some very strange looks

That's odd for Bavaria - my experience over the years is that "Gruss Gott" is the more likely greeting in that part of Germany. 

 

Along with the lederhosen. At least during the Oktoberfest...

 

Yours, Mike.

[Morello Cherry]

Maybe it is an urban thing? or generational as well - most people I was dealing with were under 50. Living in a city it wasn't used, especially not in the way in which it was used everywhere in Vienna. For example in Vienna, go into your local Spar, you greet people with Grüß Gott, go to work you greet people with Grüß Gott. In Bavaria I'd use (Guten) Morgen. Maybe if I were out in the sticks I might have come across it more.

 

[Nick C]

6 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I guess it begs the question of at what point does a dialect become a language in its own right. English has evolved around the world to a point where it can be almost unintelligible for British people. English is the language of administration of Singapore (the national language is Malay, and the most common official language Mandarin) but the 'Singlish' spoken by many Singaporeans can be very difficult to understand for visitors, as with the English spoken in Britain it borrows words from other languages (though they are from Asian languages) and all sorts of local idioms, for locals it is English but for a British person it can sound like a foreign language. It's also easy to misinterpret some other versions of a language as rude or pompous because of local norms. Singaporean English doesn't like using sentences where a single word will suffice, so words like 'can' and 'correct' are used where we might use a whole sentence. Other English speakers often find the people rude when they visit, but if you adjust to the way English is used here you realise they're just down to earth and to the point and using the language as it has evolved here.

There are dialects within the UK that are almost unintelligable to other parts of the country...

[Michael Hodgson]

3 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

That's odd for Bavaria - my experience over the years is that "Gruss Gott" is the more likely greeting in that part of Germany. 

 

Along with the lederhosen. At least during the Oktoberfest...

 

Yours, Mike.

I think it may be partly because of religious differences.  A literal translation is greet God and can therefore prompt the retort wenn ich Ihn sehe (if I see Him), although the meaning is roughly equivalent to God bless you.  The Swiss tend to leave the Almighty out of it and use Grüß dich, or bless you.

 

Southern Germany is mostly Catholic while the the north tend to be more Protestant, and it's the the RCs who are more inclined to use it. 

I quite liked my audit trips to Frankfurt because we always got more time off than we had planned for as they took both sets of saint's days as bank holidays! 

 

As a foreigner of perhaps the wrong denomination, you might do better to stick to Mein Gott! 

Or as Dave Allen used to say at the end of his shows  - May your God go with you.  😇

[Wickham Green too]

59 minutes ago, Nick C said:

There are dialects within the UK that are almost unintelligible to other parts of the country...

Pardon ? 🙃

[DaveF]

3 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I think it may be partly because of religious differences.  A literal translation is greet God and can therefore prompt the retort wenn ich Ihn sehe (if I see Him), although the meaning is roughly equivalent to God bless you.  The Swiss tend to leave the Almighty out of it and use Grüß dich, or bless you.

 

Southern Germany is mostly Catholic while the the north tend to be more Protestant, and it's the the RCs who are more inclined to use it. 

I quite liked my audit trips to Frankfurt because we always got more time off than we had planned for as they took both sets of saint's days as bank holidays! 

 

As a foreigner of perhaps the wrong denomination, you might do better to stick to Mein Gott! 

Or as Dave Allen used to say at the end of his shows  - May your God go with you.  😇

 

 

The Swiss also quite often just say Grüezi.  It is often used in formal situations but I have found it to be the usual form of greeting whnen I've been there.  As long as you don't use it in French speaking parts of the country.

 

David

[Vecchio]

On 30/05/2023 at 13:31, Reorte said:

There's a story that Arnold Schwarzenegger said he could do the German dub of the Terminator films

 

Well - I am not sure if Arnold ever learned to speak proper German. Also: He is one of a kind as he speaks now bad Styrian dialect with an American accent. Probably not enough capacity to hold 2 languages... 

22 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

'Oida'

 

Actually not so much in use.  Of course there is a Viennese dialect, so for instance with my colleagues in the office it was always dialect, but if you are on the phone you speak German. Especially if you are on the phone with a German - they may otherwise have understanding problems.

 

Grüß Gott is used by everyone, especially in the eastern part of the country. What is worse is the standard greeting formula in the afternoon - Mahlzeit - which is used also when you start eating your lunch instead of bon appetite. Mahlzeit translates as mealtime, but is frequently used as a greeting expression in the afternoon. 

 

Greetings from the Austrian with the Italian nickname...

 

received_199690271149499 

[swampy]

21 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

Having lived Vienna as my first German speaking city my spoken German is full of Viennese/Austrian German inflections. The upshot is that when I moved to Bavaria, greeting people with/going to shops etc and saying Grüß Gott got me some very strange looks. 

 

That said, we had Austrian regional TV on our TV which I watched to improve my German but frankly some of the regional accents were completely unintelligible

Having lived in Klagenfurt in Carinthia/Kärnten for a year in early 70s as part of a German degree, I can sympathise with German speakers trying to understand Austrian or Swiss dialects. I lodged with a family who originally came from a remote valley near the Slovenian border, and it took me a couple of weeks to get the hang of "Karntnerisch", which apparently Germans found hard to understand. Some of the the southern Austrians I meet on holiday are surprised to find an Englishman recognising their accent, and asking if they live near Klagenfurt.