Pretending not to understand a language

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rdearman
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Re: Pretending not to understand a language

Postby rdearman » Sun Nov 22, 2015 1:08 pm

arthaey wrote:In Mexico, the street vendors are plentiful and pushy compared to in the US. Like Iversen, I generally just say "no, gracias" and shake my head and ignore them, and this tends to work just fine.

But once, I was at Chichen-Itza (a very famous archeological site in the Yucatan) and this one vendor would not let it go. He proceeded to asked me if I spoke Spanish, English, German, French, Portuguese, Greek... When he got to Mayan, I actually laughed out loud and finally told him (in Spanish) that I was very sorry but I wasn't interested.

Mayan. Hehe. Still amuses me now, thinking about it; I'm pretty damn white even with my Yucatan tan. Ain't nobody honestly mistaking me for someone of Mayan descent. ;)

That is interesting! Did that mean he would have conversed with you in any of those languages? I guess if you want to learn lots of languages, the answer is to be a street vendor.
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Re: Pretending not to understand a language

Postby arthaey » Sun Nov 22, 2015 1:42 pm

rdearman wrote:That is interesting! Did that mean he would have conversed with you in any of those languages? I guess if you want to learn lots of languages, the answer is to be a street vendor.

I would have been pretty shocked if he even knew the numbers 1-10 in all those languages. He probably could have hawked at me in English, and there's a decent chance he knew Mayan too. The others? I doubt it.

It was still amusing. :)
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Re: Pretending not to understand a language

Postby William Camden » Tue Nov 24, 2015 5:58 pm

On a few occasions, mostly in Turkey, I have pretended not to speak or understand the language so I could listen to what was said around me in the assumption that I would not understand. Sometimes it was quite enlightening.
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Re: Pretending not to understand a language

Postby LMAshton » Mon Dec 07, 2015 4:55 am

rdearman wrote:Not a story about myself, but i knew a guy who worked with me in a company owned by the french. He spoken fluent French and had worked for the company for twenty years and had never told anyone he could speak French other than a couple of English speakers like me. This is because he wanted to hear what they said without them knowing. Because they all knew i was learning French they very rarely had one of those side conversations in French in front of me, but they did it to him all the time.


My husband is Sri Lankan, where the languages spoken are Sinhalese, Tamil, and English. My husband is rather fair for a Sri Lankan to the point that Sri Lankans have argued with him over his ethnicity - "No, you're Italian!". Rather silly, but sometimes useful. When we go shopping where the prices are not fixed, he speaks only in English, so the sellers assume he's a foreigner who doesn't speak Sinhalese or Tamil - he's fluent in all three. So they talk prices and how much they'd sell to a local and other such details in front of him in Sinhalese or Tamil...
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Re: Pretending not to understand a language

Postby Random Review » Mon Dec 07, 2015 12:24 pm

Mohave wrote:Growing up in El Paso, Tx, a border city with Juarez, Mexico, I can tell you that pretending not to understand a language occurred a lot on both sides of the fences!! ;) Mainly when people approached you trying to sell something or asking someone to do something. What was the best though, was when you or your friend/relative, etc had enough Spanish to understand the conversation, but the other party assumed you didn't understand the language! Oh, some of the things you heard (and the resulting fights, embarrassment, etc). After growing up in such an environment, I never assumed that anyone around can't understand me.....


I've been teaching English in Spain since Oct 2014 (with a 4-month break this summer to return to my real passion of washing pots in a café). All my classes last year were with 2 students and about 2 weeks into my first job, I heard one of the students in one of my classes (not realising that I understood) say something to the other that I really would rather not have heard. I now always find some way to let new students know I understand Spanish very early in the first class.
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Re: Pretending not to understand a language

Postby tarvos » Tue Dec 08, 2015 5:07 pm

I wish I could do that, but normally I don't tell them and tattle to the other teachers later on :( I'm not allowed to show I speak Spanish to them
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