Sal! I felt like posting this:

I have been lately entangled in wildly multilingual environments in a city which on the other hand is a haven of students of Spanish as a foreign language. I am dismayed at this atmosphere around lately whereever I go in Europe everybody seems to be determined to learn Spanish.

Every time one of those bloody students of Spanish or the tiring inmigrants come to me I suspect for practice I feel like saying: "Listen darling: are you interested in me as a human being, or just as a Spanish speaker?; because I am a human being you know, I am busy and you're not even blonde; please bugger off!" I see either disgusting or borderline retarded, alcoholics, etc., individuals you hardly ever would speak to gently approached to by foreigners, with their full attention on the words coming up; the poor devil is pleased someone talk to him unaware he is just teaching Spanish for free. If their level is poor, is just torture. Sometimes they stare at you with some sort of reverence for The Mister Native Speaker, and you can't help but feel like a fool used as some sort of for-free private tutor; often you have the awkward feeling that they really don't care too much about you. Even in the case of individuals who attained good mastery of the language, often they speak it in a so self-conscious showing-off manner, kind of too loud, too much unnecessary words, too out of the way idiom, too round-the-clock willingness for a trivial exchange, that one feel like slapping their face every time they open their mouth.

You can wisely say: you are casting your own disposition on others: right! I know the ways of languages freaks or just students because I am one of them! Yes, I sort out prospective friendships on language grounds, I eschew this, I look for that... The problem is that as the number of people like this increases the clashes among "students" crop up and the situation start to feel unbearably ridiculous. I see lingosmartasses vampirizing the poor humble monoglots of Europe.

English is a commonly called upon solution, but second best; If you speak it with RP pronuntiation, they will belittle you as the foreign speaker; trying to use Estuary Brittish is out of the question, nobody would understand, General American here in Europe is frowned upon, they would hate you as if you are faking; if you don't have good pronunciation, laughing; you definitely cannot win. If you have much more vocabulary and dumb down your language to adjust to your interlocutor's level, you can pass as bad speaker; if you linguistically outsmart them, often they feel inferior and then hate you...is like that all the time... or am I dealing just with inmature people? On the other hand now I know what Brittons have been through all this years; the amount of people going to a country which does not use RP anymore is just utterly ridiculous. There's a prestige, there's an ideal; but either if you get close to it or not, you're bound to be either despised or resented.

There's something profoundly ill about a conversation with someone who is not a native speaker; you feel some 25% per cent of his mind, conscious or unconsciously, is on language rather than with the topic dealt with.
I love using my native language with an intelligent well-read compatriot when all attention is on gaining insight into the topic at hand, and idioms, jokes, the subtle flavour of a chosen expression is perceived instantly with no analysis-wait-I-want-to-store-this-so-interesting bloody delay. Damn it, I am sick of my language being robbed off by aliens and my ears in daily life bangled upon time after time with all manner of foolish-sounding accents. It simply doesn't feel right. And they spend an awful amount of money for that!

I see everyday circles of foreigners laughing of the linguistic stupidity of Spaniards but if they confronted with an exception like me, who refuse to offer them linguistic input and most of the time widely outlingo them they go mad with jealousy, ask me to show passport and often (believe me) terminate the just started friendship.

Only I have felt right in an Esperanto chat; there mistakes don`t hurt; beginners are cared for; proficient speakers have only relative authority; correctnes is a minor worry; one can be foolishly wrongly creative and you'll only get a smiley, there's no imbalance of people with or without attention to language; language in a way doesn't matter anymore; and I experienced that after two weeks.

Oh God, when the linguistic stupidity of humankind will come to an end?

Feel good to get that off your chest?

First off, these forums may be read by younger users as well as older. Try to keep your language clean!

As a native English speaker, I have certainly spoken with my fair share of people who spoke very poor English and were extremely difficult to communicate with. I agree, it's very frustrating.

But - and this is a big "but" - I think you're being too hard on Spanish learners. The Esperanto community is very forgiving and kind to beginners, I agree. But I think you're being overly harsh regarding people who learn Spanish. I personally think that whether someone chooses to learn Esperanto or whether they are learning another language, it's admirable when they decide to expend the effort to learn a foreign language.

I agree that can be frustrating to slog through a slow conversation with a beginner - this can be equally as true in Esperanto as it is in "national languages", depending on the student. My personal opinion is that speaking Esperanto with someone who speaks very halting Esperanto is not any less frustrating than speaking English with someone whose English is very halting. Yes, it's a joy to speak with people in fluent English. And it's a joy to speak with people in fluent Esperanto. And yes, it can be slow and frustrating to speak with someone whose English is poor, and you know what? I don't know the opinions of other fluent Esperanto speakers, but my opinion is that it's equally frustrating to speak Esperanto with someone who speaks it extremely poorly. But they will never improve if we refuse to speak with them, plus Esperanto beginners need to speak with advanced speakers to help ingrain correct grammatical usage into their heads, not to mention learning new vocabulary etc.

It's easier online, people have their dictionaries and grammar guides. But in real life, it's hard, on both sides - the beginner struggling to make their thoughts known, and the fluent speaker, trying to speak in a way that the beginner can understand. In spite of that, Esperanto speakers are still very encouraging and helpful to beginners. My experience has been that they go out of their way to help beginners express their ideas in Esperanto.

It makes me ask myself whether the kind thing to do might be to show a bit more patience to students of Spanish (or English, or Swahili). You criticize how your English may be laughed at depending on how good your accent is, or on whether you use British or American English. Yet you are critical of foreign students of Spanish for their "foolish-sounding" accents, for using too many idioms, for doing various other things. Perhaps the Esperanto community's treatment of beginners should serve as a model for how other languages should treat people trying to learn those languages. I think people should learn more languages, period, and I think that as frustrating as it is, native speakers should try to be kind to those people who are trying to learn our languages. It is harder to be the one struggling to talk to a native speaker than to be the native speaker listening to it. It is hard enough to get up the courage to practice speaking a foreign language with a native speaker, without having to worry about how they will scorn your attempts to talk and disparage you on online message boards. I don't believe that international understanding is served by shutting people out when they are only trying to learn.

And by the way, I believe you will hear equally as many "foolish-sounding accents" in the Esperanto world as you will among Spanish learners - if not more. More than once I have been able to tell what region of the US someone was from, simply by listening to their Esperanto.

Fojo:

¡Qué lástima que arruinaras un buen tema para discutir en el Forum, con toda esa retahíla de sandeces y petulancias! Tus comentarios no te hacen ver como un políglota ingenioso, sino más bien como un intolerante xenófobo. ¡Vergüenza debería darte!

I have to agree a little with erinja and mendacapote:

You seem closed minded about others learning Spanish and yet you seems to be saying that we should be more accepting of other accents.

Unfortunately or fortunately, accents give the listener some clue of the speaker's background. Here, in the south-eastern USA, people that speak with a clear accent from one of the burroughs of New York City might be presumed to be rude. This assumption may be simply because the conversational tones of New York are similar to or reminescent of tones used in the southeast in anger or frustration. Another example of accents of clues: I recently heard someone speaking Spanish with an accent clearly from Spain when I usually hear various Mexican accents with the occasional other Central or South American accent.

When I speak with someone who speaks very little English and a whole lot of Japanese, Spanish, or Esperanto, I learn what I can from them and, at the same time, I try to share as much language with them as I possible can. When I try to speak any of these languages, I usually speak with the various physiological signs of embarassment; embarassment for not speaking the language as well as the listener.

You might try the same approach, speaking confidently and listening humbly and graciously, you may find it just as frustrating but far more rewarding.

(And erinja, sorry for any online frustrations I have and will cause you as my Ana Pana person... )

dygituljunky

dygituljunky:
(And erinja, sorry for any online frustrations I have and will cause you as my Ana Pana person... )

dygituljunky

My AP students never cause me frustration! Frustration is watching someone struggle to express themselves and feeling badly that they can't make their thoughts known. Frustration would be standing over your shoulder, watching you work out answers to the questions! Correcting the answers is the easy part

I see where you're coming from but goodness, careful what you say. Bloody Spanish Students? Tiring Immigrants? Do you have any idea how annoying us E-ists are with our "linguistic equality" chants and "Fundamento de Esperanto" toting? With more than a century of history, we've done close to nothing yet remain persistent. We acknowledge this as perseverance and strength in or universal language, but the non e-o world sees it as stubborn and tired. E-o promotes a love and peace between nations, not a hot-headed hatred for them or discouragement of their advancement.

Couldn't have said it better myself, fratino

erinja:Feel good to get that off your chest?

First off, these forums may be read by younger users as well as older. Try to keep your language clean!

As a native English speaker, I have certainly spoken with my fair share of people who spoke very poor English and were extremely difficult to communicate with. I agree, it's very frustrating.

But - and this is a big "but" - I think you're being too hard on Spanish learners. The Esperanto community is very forgiving and kind to beginners, I agree. But I think you're being overly harsh regarding people who learn Spanish. I personally think that whether someone chooses to learn Esperanto or whether they are learning another language, it's admirable when they decide to expend the effort to learn a foreign language.

I agree that can be frustrating to slog through a slow conversation with a beginner - this can be equally as true in Esperanto as it is in "national languages", depending on the student. My personal opinion is that speaking Esperanto with someone who speaks very halting Esperanto is not any less frustrating than speaking English with someone whose English is very halting. Yes, it's a joy to speak with people in fluent English. And it's a joy to speak with people in fluent Esperanto. And yes, it can be slow and frustrating to speak with someone whose English is poor, and you know what? I don't know the opinions of other fluent Esperanto speakers, but my opinion is that it's equally frustrating to speak Esperanto with someone who speaks it extremely poorly. But they will never improve if we refuse to speak with them, plus Esperanto beginners need to speak with advanced speakers to help ingrain correct grammatical usage into their heads, not to mention learning new vocabulary etc.

It's easier online, people have their dictionaries and grammar guides. But in real life, it's hard, on both sides - the beginner struggling to make their thoughts known, and the fluent speaker, trying to speak in a way that the beginner can understand. In spite of that, Esperanto speakers are still very encouraging and helpful to beginners. My experience has been that they go out of their way to help beginners express their ideas in Esperanto.

It makes me ask myself whether the kind thing to do might be to show a bit more patience to students of Spanish (or English, or Swahili). You criticize how your English may be laughed at depending on how good your accent is, or on whether you use British or American English. Yet you are critical of foreign students of Spanish for their "foolish-sounding" accents, for using too many idioms, for doing various other things. Perhaps the Esperanto community's treatment of beginners should serve as a model for how other languages should treat people trying to learn those languages. I think people should learn more languages, period, and I think that as frustrating as it is, native speakers should try to be kind to those people who are trying to learn our languages. It is harder to be the one struggling to talk to a native speaker than to be the native speaker listening to it. It is hard enough to get up the courage to practice speaking a foreign language with a native speaker, without having to worry about how they will scorn your attempts to talk and disparage you on online message boards. I don't believe that international understanding is served by shutting people out when they are only trying to learn.

And by the way, I believe you will hear equally as many "foolish-sounding accents" in the Esperanto world as you will among Spanish learners - if not more. More than once I have been able to tell what region of the US someone was from, simply by listening to their Esperanto.

Mendacapote:Fojo:

¡Qué lástima que arruinaras un buen tema para discutir en el Forum, con toda esa retahíla de sandeces y petulancias! Tus comentarios no te hacen ver como un políglota ingenioso, sino más bien como un intolerante xenófobo. ¡Vergüenza debería darte!

Secundo este sentimiento.

Doesn't it strike you as a little bit hypocritical to talk about the need for people to use Esperanto when you don't even encourage them to learn your own native language, which just happens to be the second most widely-used in the world? Is Spanish too good for anyone who wasn't born into it, like myself?

Wow... I thought this forum was to learn and enjoy each other about learning Esperanto language. Please, leave your frustrations and bigotry somewhere else. Peace

The thread you are responding to is nine years old.