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language barrier

Robsweezie

is this an issue that has affected you often? are foreigners really that hard to understand? in scenarios like placing an order in fast food joint or restaurant or working alongside them, I sometimes have to ask them to repeat themselves but not often enough to become a full on problem . oftentimes words and sentences are just phrased in different ways by different nationalities, and to be fair they are nicest people, in my own experience. how about yours?

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The Backwards Man

Je ne sais pas pourquoi

Tugboats

Robsweezie wrote: »

is this an issue that has affected you often? are foreigners really that hard to understand? in scenarios like placing an order in fast food joint or restaurant or working alongside them, I sometimes have to ask them to repeat themselves but not often enough to become a full on problem . oftentimes words and sentences are just phrased in different ways by different nationalities, and to be fair they are nicest people, in my own experience. how about yours?

Where can I find friendly foreign staff in a fast food joint these days? Since the tiger ended I'm getting served more often than not by a miserable Paddy

shruikan2553

I can barely understand most Irish people, never mind foreigners.

Zebra3

Robsweezie wrote: »

is this an issue that has affected you often? are foreigners really that hard to understand? in scenarios like placing an order in fast food joint or restaurant or working alongside them, I sometimes have to ask them to repeat themselves but not often enough to become a full on problem . oftentimes words and sentences are just phrased in different ways by different nationalities, and to be fair they are nicest people, in my own experience. how about yours?

Corkies, eh? :pac:

endacl

Robsweezie wrote: »

is this an issue that has affected you often? are foreigners really that hard to understand? in scenarios like placing an order in fast food joint or restaurant or working alongside them, I sometimes have to ask them to repeat themselves but not often enough to become a full on problem . oftentimes words and sentences are just phrased in different ways by different nationalities, and to be fair they are nicest people, in my own experience. how about yours?

Heh?

padd b1975

I just speak really slowly in English, but with the accent of the person I'm trying to communicate with.

Waving my hands around while I do this doesn't really help either.

Cookie_Monster

It annoys me over here sometimes. Part of getting a visa was being able to speak a reasonable standard of English. Being from an English speaking country that not a big deal but we have to deal with plenty of Asian customers who barely have a word and stumble through conversation in near incomprehensible pidgin. I don't understand how they get a long term Visa if they can't demonstrate a decent level of English to the visa & immigration officers.

Calibos

Imagine this. Your Polish friend arrives at your gaff in a Ferrari.

You say. Whoja nickta karoff.

He's says, Sorry what? I'm Polish not fcuking Serbo-Croat??

ie. bit a slang, bit of an accent, spoken fast

Doesn't sound like English at all.

I once made the mistake of asking a Chinese customer, "How can I help you?" in Mandarin. They looked at me like I had two heads. Did not know wtf I was saying. I repeated in English and then they said, "Ah!! [To my ear, repeats exactly what I had just said in Mandarin]

Obviously not to her ear though. There must have been subtle but important differences but enough to make the sentance incomprehensible to a native Mandarin speaker.

foggy_lad

Robsweezie wrote: »

is this an issue that has affected you often? are foreigners really that hard to understand? in scenarios like placing an order in fast food joint or restaurant or working alongside them, I sometimes have to ask them to repeat themselves but not often enough to become a full on problem . oftentimes words and sentences are just phrased in different ways by different nationalities, and to be fair they are nicest people, in my own experience. how about yours?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpiAhxaE_oI

Slicemeister

Standing in an imbiss in Germany once chatting to my irish buddy in English only to be approached by a staff member, "In Deutschland spricht Mann Deutsch", and then basically told us to fvck off out of his joint.

Looking back now I realise he was right.

kneemos

Only foreigners I have difficulty understanding are in Three customer service in India...and they speak English.

LucidLife

I bumped into a guy from Donegal in Vegas. I'm from Kerry. Not long after we were asked to leave because they assumed we were speaking a language other than English which is against the rules. This has happened me in Canada and Holland too at poker tables!

Mellor

Robsweezie wrote: »

is this an issue that has affected you often? are foreigners really that hard to understand? in scenarios like placing an order in fast food joint or restaurant or working alongside them, I sometimes have to ask them to repeat themselves but not often enough to become a full on problem . oftentimes words and sentences are just phrased in different ways by different nationalities, and to be fair they are nicest people, in my own experience. how about yours?

Having difficulty understanding foreigners speaking English isn't a language barrier.

mikemac1

kneemos wrote: »

Only foreigners I have difficulty understanding are in Three customer service in India...and they speak English.

Were you talking to John? Next time ask for the other John, helpful guy

kneemos

Mellor wrote: »

Having difficulty understanding foreigners speaking English isn't a language barrier.

Technically it is.

Robsweezie

poor English is a barrier certainly.

Boskowski

Slicemeister wrote: »

Standing in an imbiss in Germany once chatting to my irish buddy in English only to be approached by a staff member, "In Deutschland spricht Mann Deutsch", and then basically told us to fvck off out of his joint.

Looking back now I realise he was right.

We're a great bunch of lads we Germans. Friendly to a fault.

Btw damn you mention the word imbiss. All I can think of now is curry wurst mit pommes.

TheBeardedLady

Robsweezie wrote: »

and to be fair they are nicest people

Ohhh they are, they are! LOVELY people, the foreigners! Every last one of them! Lovely!

Jinonatron

Boskowski wrote: »

We're a great bunch of lads we Germans. Friendly to a fault.

Btw damn you mention the word imbiss. All I can think of now is curry wurst mit pommes.

Haha. I thinkk that is sarcasm. I live in Germany and can speak German but when I come across people like this I make a point to absolutely not speak German. It winds them up so much.

Teyla Emmagan

Calibos wrote: »

I once made the mistake of asking a Chinese customer, "How can I help you?" in Mandarin. They looked at me like I had two heads. Did not know wtf I was saying. I repeated in English and then they said, "Ah!! [To my ear, repeats exactly what I had just said in Mandarin]

Obviously not to her ear though. There must have been subtle but important differences but enough to make the sentance incomprehensible to a native Mandarin speaker.

What made you think she spoke Mandarin?

worded

Do you speak english sketch
http://youtu.be/rxUm-2x-2dM

I like the one where they speak louder to someone doesn't understand them. Think it was Basil Faultly

Buona Fortuna

shruikan2553 wrote: »

I can barely understand most Irish people, never mind foreigners.

Huh?

Depraved

I can never understand that language that they speaking in counties outside Dublin.

The Corinthian

Slicemeister wrote: »

Standing in an imbiss in Germany once chatting to my irish buddy in English only to be approached by a staff member, "In Deutschland spricht Mann Deutsch", and then basically told us to fvck off out of his joint.

I'd have responded with "Und wenn ich möchte mit Ihnen zu sprechen, werde ich Deutsch sprechen".

Looking back now I realise he was right.

He would be right were you expecting Germans to speak with you in English, but you weren't - you were speaking to a fellow Anglophone. This chap was clearly a bit of an Arschloch.

The irony is that in his Imbiss, he was almost certainly serving such traditional Germanic delights as Doner and Currywurst.

SimonTemplar

The worst is getting through to technical support who has a thick Indian accent.

Grayson

TheBeardedLady wrote: »

Ohhh they are, they are! LOVELY people, the foreigners! Every last one of them! Lovely!

Great bunch of lads

I actually do have trouble understanding some thick Irish accents. especially north side Dublin or Cork.

A little bit is because I'm actually partially deaf. thanks to meningitis as a child i have trouble picking up certain types of sounds. I'm generally OK but thick accents just befuddle me. I like the Donegal accent but when i lived there I had trouble understanding a few of the locals because the accent was just too thick. The same happened with the local accent where I grew up in the midlands. for 99% of people i was fine but for some I was completely lost.

Grayson

worded wrote: »

Do you speak english sketch
http://youtu.be/rxUm-2x-2dM

I like the one where they speak louder to someone doesn't understand them. Think it was Basil Faultly

there are times it all sounds a bit dago

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11ppso_blackadder-and-dr-johnson_creation

FTA69

The Corinthian wrote: »

I'd have responded with "Und wenn ich möchte mit Ihnen zu sprechen, werde ich Deutsch sprechen".

I'd have responded with "f*ck off ya gowlbag".

Slicemeister

The Corinthian wrote: »

I'd have responded with "Und wenn ich möchte mit Ihnen zu sprechen, werde ich Deutsch sprechen".

He would be right were you expecting Germans to speak with you in English, but you weren't - you were speaking to a fellow Anglophone. This chap was clearly a bit of an Arschloch.

The irony is that in his Imbiss, he was almost certainly serving such traditional Germanic delights as Doner and Currywurst.

He wasn't an asshole at all. I was, I should've been using the Muttersprache in his home country in a public place.

I'm a guest in his country as far as I'm concerned, his tongue his rules.

FTA69

Slicemeister wrote: »

He wasn't an asshole at all. I was, I should've been using the Muttersprache in his home country in a public place.

I'm a guest in his country as far as I'm concerned, his tongue his rules.

So you can arbitrarily demand that people speak a given language in a public place when they're minding their own business? By your logic I could stroll up to a French tourist couple in a pub in a Galway and start angrily demanding they speak English (or Irish if I was a really pedantic bastard.)

This "guest in my country" stuff has limits like, as if you need the permission of some sausage-seller to speak to your buddy just because you happen to be in Berlin or someplace. F*ck that.