Ceci n'est pas une endive - communication(s) - Comments

Of intended puns and other language barriers - Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 22:21:04 +0100

Yes - I have experienced this. At home with my wife (german) and me (English) and kids (bilingual Americans) we speak Denglisch so we all get each other's jokes. Out of the house though with german friends I will get that stare (z.B. "wir sagen nicht 'lass uns die Straße schlagen' wenn wir losgehen wollen"). Actually that's a slightly different type of wortspiel - one where you have to speak both languages to get it. Those are more fun too.
Gotta make myself on the socks now. Bye.

Empathy, Culture and the Words You Use - Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 22:14:53 +0100

Wow, really excellent point. I'd never thought of it that way. Love your blog, btw.

Of intended puns and other language barriers - Nemo

Nemo — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:11:34 +0200

I just made this mistake myself with a non-native English speaker like me: I was in proofreading mindset and I didn't get the pun in an ungrammatical sentence. I felt stupid because I should know the author well enough to get it.

Why the French Don't Speak Any Other Language - notafish

notafish — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:55:07 +0200

@Just me You have a point. My take on this though, is that French people are afraid they won't understand "bad French". This said, there are rude people everywhere...

Why the French Don't Speak Any Other Language - Just me

Just me — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:24:28 +0100

I have had the opposite experience. When you address a French native speaker in French, they just don't like it. They pretend they can't understand what you are saying and when they speak they seem to do a real effort to speak fast and badly so you won't understand them.

Empathy, Culture and the Words You Use - notafish

notafish — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:15:01 +0100

No, I haven't, but looking it up really quick, this seems interessant, I'll look into it. Thanks :)

Why the French Don't Speak Any Other Language - flex

flex — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 06:11:08 +0100

Maybe the issue is not that much about whether they are rude or not.
But just imagine a frenchman walking around in the US being talking around to any person in sight in French and expecting people to understand what he is saying.
How would you feel about that? Rude isn't it?

Plus France is far from being a north american colony,so colonialist attitude would be far from being accepted in an independant country (as well as in a non-free country but it's harder to resiste).

North american people(British people are usually more aware of the world they live in) tend to believe that their language is the only international in the world,but technically Spanish,Russian,Arabic,French,and Portugese also have that status and so speakers of these languages can confortably live an international life without having to care too much about other languages (as sad as it is for other minor or "only" national languages in the world).

Eventually don't be a twat and try to get to know where you are going before expecting your language is spoken by the indigenous people and if not,be respectfull and learn enough of the national language just not to put shame on your country and maybe smoothen relations beteen the nations of the world.

Empathy, Culture and the Words You Use - Mark

Mark — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:47:49 +0100

Yes. Very good points. Have you seen Simon Baron Cohen's research?

Mark

Pourquoi les français ne parlent pas de langues étrangères - notafish

notafish — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:10:37 +0200

Bonjour Louis,

En ce qui concerne l'apprentissage des langues étrangères à l'école, il est moins mauvais qu'ailleurs (les Etats-Unis, par exemple, sont une catastrophe), mais c'est crai q'uil y manque beaucoup de vie. En gros, les français apprennent les langues étrangères comme ils apprennent le français, à grands coups de grammaire, de verbes irréguliers et d'exception à la règle, mais n'apprennent que rarement le vrai dialogue, la langue "parlée". C'est un peu dommage, mais c'est mieux que rien.

Par ailleurs, j'ai été étonnée (d'une manière générale), par le fait que les italiens et les espagnols sont moins coincés à parler l'anglais que les français. Je dois avouer que j'avais tendance à les mettre dans le même sac. Je trouve du coup qu'ils le parlent mieux, car ils semblent avoir moins de réticences à faire des fautes...

Pourquoi les français ne parlent pas de langues étrangères - Louis

Louis — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:12:29 +0200

Merci beaucoup pour cette réflexion auquel je n'avais pour ma part jamais pensé. Je la trouve tout à fait pertinente. Il est certain que la société française les marqueurs linguistiques sont très importants.
Cependant, même si ce complexe de mal parler existe et contribue sans doute à notre mauvaise réputation dans ce domaine, je crois également qu'il y a un très sérieux problème d'enseignement des langues étrangères en France. Tant la durée hebdomadaire des cours que les méthodes employées sont à mon avis à revoir. Mais je n'ai pas l'impression que ce débat puisse naître facilement dans notre pays. Et il se heurte souvent à des arguments - foireux à mon avis - de défense de l'identité linguistique...
A l'étranger, dans les communautés internationales, nous faisons toujours office de mauvais exemple... Et nous sommes toujours sujet de railleries. Il est vrai que face à des Danois, des Néerlandais ou des Suèdois, on en mène pas large... Seuls les Espagnols et les Italiens sont à peu près aussi mauvais que nous !

How Intercultural Is Social Media? - notafish

notafish — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 15:23:07 +0200

To tell you the truth, I am not sure I haven't subscribed to someone whose main interest is hockey or the KKK. But what I am saying is that it's somewhat irrelevant. I agree with you, if you want to stay on the same-same, that this same-same is not bijective. You state: You and I share some interest, you and another person share something different, and insasmuch as this different interest does not collide with my main interests that I share with you, it may prove to be an enlargement of my horizon., and I see this as the point I am trying to make. You and I may have absolutely nothing in common except say, haikus. BUt because we have this one thing in common, we'll somehow "get together" and our horizon might be enlarged. The question being here, would I, in a real-life situation where I am meeting you, define myself as "loving haikus"? I am not sure. The lack of background is what I find interesting in the issue of social media and culture. I am getting to know people whom I probably would not have talked to in the first place.

As for the impossibility of conversation under 140 characters, I do not agree completely. If the exchange does not evolve in a real conversation within the restriction of 140 characters, the focus provided by social media interaction definitely gives a good basis for conversation, even if it then ends up to happen outside of the medium that started it.

How Intercultural Is Social Media? - simsa0

simsa0 — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:29:03 +0200

A huge problem in such debates are the big words like 'culture', 'lnguage', etc., sometimes the identification of cultures with languages, sometimes the sheer misreading of phenomena at hand.

Setting the big words aside the phenomena reported in the post you've mentioned seem pretty clear: We tend to talk more to people with whom we share the same interests rather than none. We subscribe to people who are interesting to us due to a direct conversation, their statements on their profile, their interactions with others that we happened to witness. Often we find them only because they are in interaction with someone whom we've subscribed to. Besides the themes, interests, comments the tone, the timbre of their voice proves very important (at least for me). The timbre is a very important 'criterion'. Sometimes it is not what they say but the attitudes, the education, the style that shimmer through the statement that makes a tweet interesting. Timbre or attitude is so important (at least to me) that one even accepts boring content.

I guess neither you nor I have subscribed to someone whose main interest is with ice hockey or who is a convinced supporter of the KuKluxKlan (or the Nazis). So besides the heavy words the observation of the blog post you've cited and the observation you shared about the two groups of subscribers on identica and twitter seem rather in accordance: One stays same-same. The difference is, that same-same is not bijective. You and I share some interest, you and another person share something different, and insasmuch as this different interest does not collide with my main interests that I share with you, it may prove to be an enlargement of my horizon.

We might read to much into this problem. Somehow this is a widespread problem pertaining to all media, somehow it is peculiar to the 'social' media. E.g., one has to force oneself to read papers that do not accord with one's political outlook. One doesn't listen to music one doesn't like. One doesn't talk with people one finds offensive. Additional to these proclivities comes the form of the 'social' media. I guess there was never a case in which McLuhan's "The mdeia is massage" was more true than with regard to twitter and identica: 140 characters do force content and conversation. (I leave Facebook aside, firstly because one doesn't have the character-restriction there, and secondly I don't know Facebook that much as I don't have an account.) The restricting power of the 140 cs can easily be seen: It's enough to yell (positively and negativeley), but it doesn't allow for discussion. The urge for brevity leaves subtle shades out of the 'conversation', it all becomes fact-stating. So simply by design, identica and twitter are good for anouncing facts, sharing links, enlisting support, spreading the news (and for haikus too). The witty statement, the apercu is cherished, not the long-winding argument. It's not about conversatons, understanding, about detecting fine differences, shades, nuances.

But for a conversation to get going under the 140 cs-restriction, one has to fimd ways of disambiguation. Misunderstandings are prevalent even in the 'same' 'culture' or 'language'. To get going without always having to clear the semantic mess one has to navigate a field in which one shares the most with the people one talks to. Simply to know how to take one post or reply. And that means that people on 'socal' media 'have' to talk about the same themes and contents, because otherwise they would have to elaborate om all the context needed to make sense of the utterance.

I guess intercultural communication is not so much a problem on the level of bread, salt, and traffic lights. It's in the more abstract, more subtle, more complex, more - well: cultural levels that the differences arise or can be ssen. To talk about the differences between muscic from say the Senegal and France, or wherever, needs more time and space for elaboration than 140-cs-psot can provide. So again: It's about small facts, yelling, point scoring, or hinting to sources. But that is not understanding or a conversation.

So, yes, I agree with the blog you've cited: it's same-same. But always in different colours. And that's nice, isn't it?

Why the French Don't Speak Any Other Language - AndreasP

AndreasP — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:17:55 +0200

I do not believe that the commonplace statement above is still true. True, the French used to deny to speak any language other than French, but last year I experienced quite the opposite, at least in Paris. I don't speak French too good, but I manage to ask and order pretty everything I want in French (hint: always order two of a kind, so you don't have to think about articles... un/une croissant? make it: deux croissants, and everyone is happy... :-) Now, in Paris, at touristy places and sometimes even in not quite so touristy places people will not wait for anyone not obviously French to try their French at all. In hotels, restaurants, but also in museums, department stores, bookshops, theatres, I have often been addressed in English from the very beginning. Example: enter the hotel, say "Bonjour", and they ask you something in English. That's kind of insulting (my French is not _that_ bad). From my observation, maybe the many 2nd/3rd generation immigrants are to "blame", who seem more at eas with speaking foreign languages and even want to show off the English they've learned, and who don't seem to have the old French attitude "if you mispronounce one sillable, I will not understand your whole sentence in what you believe is French, you foreign idiot", having all kinds of accents themselves. By the way, another observation of mine was that the good old Parisian rudeness on the streets and in shops etc. has pretty much gone away... Ils sont fous ces lutéciens!

Another regional aspect is also interesting: If you try to speak German in Strasbourg or Metz (outside a shop), people will look at you as if you just came from another planet. I'd never even dare to try this, but have seen it a lot there (of course this has not only to do with the language and centuries of difficult national relations, but also with the blandness and stupidness that tourist groups are known for internationally). If you say one or two obviously German-accented French words, they'll answer in fluent and friendly German... (also a generalization, but still astonishingly true at least for the older generation).

[ping] Pourquoi les français ne parlent pas de langues étrangères - notabene

notabene — Mon, 25 May 2009 17:54:31 +0200

Statut de notabene sur Monday, 25-May-09 15:54:28 UTC

Un test d'URL avec identi.ca : http://blog.notanendive.org/post/2009/05/25/pourquoi-les-francais-ne-parlent-pas-de-langues-etrangeres...

Why the French Don't Speak Any Other Language - Multilingual

Multilingual — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:35:50 +0200

Coming from a country, today independent but that was once a British, then a French colony, I learnt both languages from age 5 at school, where all subjects are taught in English( except for French). Now a thirty-plus adult, I speak both English and French t the level of a native, with meticulous attention to form both when speaking and writing( something native French are incapable of nowadays). My native language is neither French nor English, but Creole( a sort of unstructured French). I also read, write and speak Hindi( also learnt from the age of 5).

The reason why most British, American, or French people struggle to speak a foreign language is simple. Language-learning should be done during the early years of life, not during adolescence, when it's too late. There exists a window of language development skills that become more and more difficult to crack in later years. Very few people (I'm talking exceptional capacities here) can successfully learn a new language if foreign languages are not introduced very early. After 5 or 6 years of age, it just becomes more and more difficult to grasp new language structures, forms, etc.

This is less an issue of lingustic chauvinism or laziness.

There, that's my take( based on my personal experience) on this debate.

On the question of how the French view Americans, one major influence is dubbed American movies. Everything is lost in translation, all dialogues are dumbed down for the French people.

Why the French Don't Speak Any Other Language - notafish

notafish — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:11:18 +0200

@Fiere d'être français - Ah ben voyons. Vous avez peut-être raté au fil de votre lecture le fait que je (auteur de ce blog) suis française ? Je suis fière de l'être, sauf quand des français comme vous viennent insulter les américains (ou qui que ce soit d'autre, d'ailleurs) sur mon blog. Vos clichés à l'emporte-pièce (pas de culture, centre du monde) dénotent un manque certain de discernement, voire une impolitesse qui invalide vos propos par défaut. A bon entendeur...

Why the French Don't Speak Any Other Language - Fiere d'être français

Fiere d'être français — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:04:24 +0200

Les français apprennent d'autres langues. Moi je dirais que vous les américains vous ne parlez que l'anglais! Vous pensez toujours être au centre du monde!
Nous on est fier d'être français et on n'est pas plus impoli Les français n'ont pas non plus une bonne image des américains, et y'a de quoi : vous n'avez pas de culture et vous vous croyez les + forts!
Bye les gros

Why the French Don't Speak Any Other Language - minu546

minu546 — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:53:51 +0100

And English speakers can't do a pure 'o' without some 'w' sound attached with it.

Why the French Don't Speak Any Other Language - eman

eman — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:15:07 +0100

This is a very interesting thread.
I have studied French in Geneva and found that this language is VERY dependent on vowels. Vowels are weak letters. Even those born with vocal difficulties, they can produce the O, i, A much easier than the R, G, V, etc. Vowel letters are primitive.
This makes their pronunciation of foreign language sound funny and embarrassing.

Why the French Don't Speak Any Other Language - Scrongneugneu

Scrongneugneu — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 03:07:35 +0100

Ça me rappelle l'époque où je perdais (?) mon temps comme réceptionniste de nuit (le vrai titre était veilleur de nuit, mais bon, quand on prend des réservations téléphoniques provenant des States à une heure du mat', on fait de la réception...) dans un hôtel de luxe à proximité immédiate d'Avignon.

La clientèle était à 40 % américaine, en moyenne, et j'avais trouvé un excellent truc lorsque le client ou l'interlocuteur, qu'il soit devant moi ou au bout du fil, me demandait : « Do you speak English? ». Je répondais invariablement : « Yes, a few words, but you'll have to speak very slowly, because it's not my mother tongue. » On le croira si on veut, mais cela marchait « parfaitement », et je parvenais souvent à des échanges fructueux (même lorsque je tombais sur un client qui avait une envie subite de sandwiches à trois heures du matin, ce en quoi je m'efforçais de lui donner satisfaction, dans la mesure de mes moyens).