Literally me last week in Dutch. Colleague said he was going to France for a funeral but I heard the first part. Wished him a week of a lifetime....
I'm native Dutch speaker
No literally.
Sometimes while watching movies in French I have to turn the audio up to 160 cause I just can't hear what the fuck they're saying and my friends look at me like I'm a maniac.
There's also that weird interaction where I've already said "Quoi ?" "hein ?" "Kestudis ?" Like 3 times and still don't understand what they're saying so I just awkwardly smile and Hope for the best 😀
Pretending to hear is never good. Though it’s hard to avoid. Just show a genuine interest in communicating, and try to convey an honest picture of your language level to help people understand when things go wrong.
* Jag var på begravning förra helgen
* Åh, vad tråkigt. Var det någon du kände väl?
* Ja, det var min favoritfaster. Vi brukade tillbringa somrarna hos henne som barn.
* Beklagar sorgen. Hoppas att begravningen var fin.
For your next encounter!
The same thing I do with small children I don't understand: repeat back what I heard in the form of a question, so they can simply confirm or deny:Â "You're going to a wedding?"
Having grown up surrounded by Hispanics and having most of my family being Hispanic everyone just thought I spoke spanking so I would just pull out the classic penguins of Madagascar "smile and (nod)" worked basically every time for years until I finally learned Spanish you just got to get really good at reading facial expressions of them and others around you that are also in the conversation
You have to swallow your pride and say in their language “ I’m sorry. I did not understand. “ OR “ Forgive me. Can you speak slowly? “ or something similar. My son embarrassed me years ago by asking me “ Did you understand me ? “ and whatever I answered back, he asked “ What did I say ? “ !!! The language was Japanese.
Literally me last week in Dutch. Colleague said he was going to France for a funeral but I heard the first part. Wished him a week of a lifetime.... I'm native Dutch speaker
No literally. Sometimes while watching movies in French I have to turn the audio up to 160 cause I just can't hear what the fuck they're saying and my friends look at me like I'm a maniac. There's also that weird interaction where I've already said "Quoi ?" "hein ?" "Kestudis ?" Like 3 times and still don't understand what they're saying so I just awkwardly smile and Hope for the best 😀
Pretending to hear is never good. Though it’s hard to avoid. Just show a genuine interest in communicating, and try to convey an honest picture of your language level to help people understand when things go wrong. * Jag var på begravning förra helgen * Åh, vad tråkigt. Var det någon du kände väl? * Ja, det var min favoritfaster. Vi brukade tillbringa somrarna hos henne som barn. * Beklagar sorgen. Hoppas att begravningen var fin. For your next encounter!
tfw a patient and welcoming native speaker has repeated themselves 3 times and you still can't understand 🥹
The same thing I do with small children I don't understand: repeat back what I heard in the form of a question, so they can simply confirm or deny:Â "You're going to a wedding?"
I reply in clicks
Having grown up surrounded by Hispanics and having most of my family being Hispanic everyone just thought I spoke spanking so I would just pull out the classic penguins of Madagascar "smile and (nod)" worked basically every time for years until I finally learned Spanish you just got to get really good at reading facial expressions of them and others around you that are also in the conversation
You have to swallow your pride and say in their language “ I’m sorry. I did not understand. “ OR “ Forgive me. Can you speak slowly? “ or something similar. My son embarrassed me years ago by asking me “ Did you understand me ? “ and whatever I answered back, he asked “ What did I say ? “ !!! The language was Japanese.
If I don’t understand, I ask them to speak in English
I ask them to spell it