English as second language *rant*

Salty

Salty

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Salty
I have no problem with people that grew up speaking some other language. I give anyone credit for being able to communicate in more than one language. But it drives me freaking crazy when you have a conversation with someone and they act like they understand everything you said, smile, nod, even respond with relevant full sentences in decent English, but in fact, they have no idea what you were saying. Don't pretend, just tell me if you don't understand so I can try to explain in a different way.

Sheesh.

/rant
 
^the "smile and nod" is a common tactic.. not only employed by ESL but also by idiots

Also not sure why horrid accents get a pass.. I had professors at BU whom you genuinely could not understand.. the mind boggles
 
Craig said:
Heck, there are huge swaths of people here in the US where English is their primary language and can't seem to understand it most of the time!
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I can't argue with that.
 
Craig said:
Heck, there are huge swaths of people here in the US where English is their primary language and can't seem to understand it most of the time!
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oh, you live in the south too? :)
 
Ever stand in line at the grocery store or something and the person in front of you tries to say something and you’re not sure what they’re talking about? I don’t care enough to ask them to explain, so I just nod and smile and then carry on with my business...and I’m fluent in English!
 
Salty said:
I have no problem with people that grew up speaking some other language. I give anyone credit for being able to communicate in more than one language. But it drives me freaking crazy when you have a conversation with someone and they act like they understand everything you said, smile, nod, even respond with relevant full sentences in decent English, but in fact, they have no idea what you were saying. Don't pretend, just tell me if you don't understand so I can try to explain in a different way.

Sheesh.

/rant
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Que?
 
clinteastwoodnod.gif
 
Salty said:
I have no problem with people that grew up speaking some other language. I give anyone credit for being able to communicate in more than one language. But it drives me freaking crazy when you have a conversation with someone and they act like they understand everything you said, smile, nod, even respond with relevant full sentences in decent English, but in fact, they have no idea what you were saying. Don't pretend, just tell me if you don't understand so I can try to explain in a different way.
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And it's always men. Right?

It's a cultural thing. In some cultures, men are expected to pretty much know everything, so they will NEVER admit to not understanding something. I had a truck driving trainee from Guinea once, and training him not only took longer than normal (6 weeks instead of 4), it was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life!

Open and honest communication is a good thing, but expecting someone who was raised in one of those cultures to completely go against how they were raised... You might as well expect Americans to voluntarily surrender their right to free speech. Ain't gonna happen. So, you've got to find other ways of determining whether the message got across yourself.
 
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I'd say a good 95% of the people I interrupt mid sentence to tell them "I AM DAMN NEAR DEAF" proceed to talk at the same volume.
 
When I tell people here that my German is awful and please slow down, they speak louder but at the same speed. Or faster. I smile and nod.
 
:):)
NealRomeoGolf said:
When I tell people here that my German is awful and please slow down, they speak louder but at the same speed. Or faster. I smile and nod.
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I thought that only happens in France. Actually, almost 4 years ago my wife and I went to France and Belgium for our 10 year wedding anniversary. I was completely expecting the French to be rude and overbearing, and was completely surprised about how polite and accommodating they were. My wife taught my a few words of French, mostly a polite greeting, and then they spoke English at least as well as I do.

Maybe its the younger generation. They don't resent Americans coming over and pulling their butts out of the fire after the Germans had occupied France in WWII.

We ended up getting a top floor room at the Madeline hotel, and the only room in the building that had a view of the Eiffel tower, and our first day their was Bastille day. I swear they had an hour's worth of fireworks; probably longer than the actual Battle of Bastille. And, it was my late mother's birthday, so it was nice of them to celebrate her birthday with so many fireworks. :)
 
Crashnburn said:
:):)
I thought that only happens in France. Actually, almost 4 years ago my wife and I went to France and Belgium for our 10 year wedding anniversary. I was completely expecting the French to be rude and overbearing, and was completely surprised about how polite and accommodating they were. My wife taught my a few words of French, mostly a polite greeting, and then they spoke English at least as well as I do.

Maybe its the younger generation. They don't resent Americans coming over and pulling their butts out of the fire after the Germans had occupied France in WWII.

We ended up getting a top floor room at the Madeline hotel, and the only room in the building that had a view of the Eiffel tower, and our first day their was Bastille day. I swear they had an hour's worth of fireworks; probably longer than the actual Battle of Bastille. And, it was my late mother's birthday, so it was nice of them to celebrate her birthday with so many fireworks. :)
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I visited France last year, and had no problems. Knowing a bit of French helps a lot. Having a daughter with you who is fluent helps even more. It does seem that the people
there are more friendly than in the past (my first visit was 1970).

As for Bastille day, you should experience it on the Champs Elysees. Big military parade, firecrackers being thrown every which way, wall to wall people - and no way to escape!

Dave
 
cessna182b said:
I visited France last year, and had no problems. Knowing a bit of French helps a lot.
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Quebecois - now they had some attitudes to non French speakers back in the ‘70s. Any better now?
 
Tantalum said:
^the "smile and nod" is a common tactic.. not only employed by ESL but also by idiots
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This also happens when someone in a technical field starts using jargon with their friends who are not in the same field.
 
Tantalum said:
^the "smile and nod" is a common tactic.. not only employed by ESL but also by idiots

Also not sure why horrid accents get a pass.. I had professors at BU whom you genuinely could not understand.. the mind boggles
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I had a number of profs (and TAs) that I took classes from back in the early 1970s who were not native speakers of English. The accents were BAD. I finally told my advisor that I was finished with them. If a professor didn't speak English as his native language, I wasn't taking the class. I made one exception to that, but I knew the prof and had gone to high school with his daughter.
 
Ghery said:
I had a number of profs (and TAs) that I took classes from back in the early 1970s who were not native speakers of English. The accents were BAD. I finally told my advisor that I was finished with them. If a professor didn't speak English as his native language, I wasn't taking the class. I made one exception to that, but I knew the prof and had gone to high school with his daughter.
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Yeah, how well did THAT work? o_O

When I was in college, we had an EE professor who had a horrible asian accent and was pretty much impossible to understand. At least it wasn't a hard subject, only electromagnetic fields. :rolleyes: Some students put a "professor-Law-to-English Dictionary" together. It still wasn't enough... And he was the only prof who taught that (required) class. I ended up dropping it, and took it years later when I went back to school and could take it in a Russian accent instead. :crazy:

But seriously... I went to a major university with 25,000 students, and a pretty big engineering department though I don't know specifically how big... And once you got into the 300 and 400 level courses, most of them were only taught by one person. If you lucked out, you might get one that was "easier" where it'd be taught by a TA and if you got one you couldn't understand you could try again the next semester. In fact, one of those guys was really good and I managed to get him for five different classes. But there were plenty of other classes that were taught by one person only, for years on end, and there was no way you could possibly make a demand such as you describe. At least not without changing your major.
 
Hell, I didn't understand the rant,.
 
cessna182b said:
I visited France last year, and had no problems. Knowing a bit of French helps a lot. Having a daughter with you who is fluent helps even more. It does seem that the people
there are more friendly than in the past (my first visit was 1970).
Click to expand...

Crashnburn said:
Actually, almost 4 years ago my wife and I went to France and Belgium for our 10 year wedding anniversary. I was completely expecting the French to be rude and overbearing, and was completely surprised about how polite and accommodating they were. My wife taught my a few words of French, mostly a polite greeting, and then they spoke English at least as well as I do.
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Did you only stick to touristy places? Most places in Europe that get a lot of tourists will speak English. We had no problems getting along in Paris last year. But when you have to talk to the plumber, the cashier at the grocery store or the cable guy, let me know how that goes. Most office type workers do fine with English. I speak English all day at work.

@German guy - Ja, ich verstehe das. Lauter bitte! Es sind die Verben dass ich mit abmühen. <---- and I am sure that sentence isn't even correct.
 
Tom-D said:
Hell, I didn't understand the rant,.
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Maybe we need a Google translate to English? :)

Salty said:
...But it drives me freaking crazy when you have a conversation with someone and they act like they understand everything you said, smile, nod, even respond with relevant full sentences in decent English, but in fact, they have no idea what you were saying. Don't pretend, just tell me if you don't understand so I can try to explain in a different way.

/rant
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That pretty well describes both my parents when I was about 16. Didn't understand anything. I was amazed at how much smarter they both had become by the time I turned 20. ;)
 
Kent got it right. Much of it is a cultural thing where you're just not allowed to admit you know don't know or don't understand something. It happens. Yes, it's frustrating. Us Americans frustrate lots of people, too.
 
Not really on topic, but I wanted to comment on how my second language skills have deteriorated rather quickly.

I grew up in New Mexico, then moved to Texas when I was 20. My mom was in poor health since youth, and we had a Hispanic housekeeper to help her. I was thus exposed to the Spanish language from infancy, and eating green chile by the age of two. :D

I took two years of Spanish in school, and most of my career was in the construction industry. By the time I was 50, I was very comfortable speaking Spanish, and not just the jobsite version. Sometimes I was even complemented on my lack of an accent.

I retired when I was 52, now I'm 62. Now the only times I speak Spanish are when talking to the ladies of our housekeeping service that come every three weeks, my usual waiter Daniel at the Mexican restaurant we frequent, and incidental contacts around town.

Lately I find I am increasingly unable to engage in conversation in Spanish without using workaround methods to communicate, having forgotten certain descriptive nouns, adverbs, and phrases.

I used to be able to say stuff like "I thought we purchased a dozen eggs at Walmart last week" without thinking twice. Now I struggle with this. I try to practice by conversing with my barber solely in Spanish. It really reveals the deterioration of my skills.

As the saying goes, use it or lose it.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Yeah, how well did THAT work? o_O
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Actually, it worked quite well. Nice thing about growing up in the town where you went to college. Had a prof that I used to babysit his kids. My major advisor was a member of our church and had been my Scoutmaster. That, and I only had one class after I made my ultimatum where it mattered. He told me that they had a visiting professor teaching Fields and Waves the next semester and I delayed taking the class until a prof who spoke English as his native language taught it again. After getting burned by too many Taiwanese imports (mostly over in the CE department) and a math professor from Czechoslovakia teaching his first semester in the US, I wasn't dealing with that any longer.

Didn't seem to hurt my career too much. I've been retired for almost 4 years and had a wonderful time when working full time. Still active in national and international standards work (in EMC, Chair of CISPR SC I) and will do that for a few more years before completely pulling the plug.
 
1RTK1 said:
Try flying at a non controlled airport that is frequented by foreign students..... it will keep you head swiveling and not nodding.
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Even sharing a frequency with those guys from afar is a challenge.
 
Tantalum said:
^the "smile and nod" is a common tactic.. not only employed by ESL but also by idiots

Also not sure why horrid accents get a pass.. I had professors at BU whom you genuinely could not understand.. the mind boggles
Click to expand...
I had a math professor way back whose class I dropped after he launched a lecture with intent to prove "Tayo Teewum". Yes, eventually I realized he meant Taylor's Theorem. But most of what he was trying to say, I never figured out.
 
azure said:
I had a math professor way back whose class I dropped after he launched a lecture with intent to prove "Tayo Teewum". Yes, eventually I realized he meant Taylor's Theorem. But most of what he was trying to say, I never figured out.
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I had years of that at Georgia Tech. Learning e-mag, carcurus (tm), statics, deformable bodies, dynamics, thermo, and a host of other things from people who spoke english with such bad accents your first priority was to translate from pidgin to english, forget really following the intent of the lecture. You'd have to go back later and read your notes to try and pick out the concepts someone was trying to teach. This was why the lecture halls weren't filled to capacity. Sometimes it was better to just study the text for an hour or two, as opposed to trying to follow a horrible lecture.
 
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