Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: Kitt@cary.demon.co.uk (Kittredge Cowlishaw)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!nntp.club.cc.cmu.edu!godot.cc.duq.edu!news.duke.edu!MathWorks.Com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!demon!cary.demon.co.uk!Kitt
Subject: Languages in which total immersion is impossible
Organization: The Old School House
Reply-To: Kitt@cary.demon.co.uk
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Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994 09:43:53 +0000
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Jim Tyson (skgtjt1@ucl.ac.uk) wrote:
> When I am in the Netherlands, people tend to recognise my British
> accent and immediately respond to whatever I say in English.
> [...] Swedes refuse to speak Swedish to English speakers for
> any reason whatsoever.

And Erland Sommarskob (sommar@enea.se) replied:
> But that sounds [...] like me!
[and went on to discuss various reasons for it]

When I'm learning a language, I always respond with a look of blank
incomprehension if anyone tries to speak English to me.  Replying in
Finnish, or in some other language the helpful native speaker is
unlikely to know, sometimes does the trick.

Caveat:  you must scrupulously avoid any obvious English sounds to
carry this off, and have a story prepared to explain your passport.
(You know the sort of thing:  expatriate parents, extreme social
deprivation, lesion to the left temporal lobe, etc.)

This has always worked fine for me, and I've been pretty smug about
it, but last week I heard a heart-rending tale suggesting that total
immersion in Dutch is impossible.  If this is true, then Dutch is
dropping out of my language queue forever.

<aside:  my language queue gets pruned frequently, as time runs
short and priorities change; most recently, Danish got replaced by
Dutch--there's only one slot for another Germanic language, and
Jane has moved from Copenhagen to Paris.>

Here's the story:  a multilingual anglophone currently on sabbatical
in the Netherlands was looking forward to improving his Dutch.  The
weekly informal talk given every Wednesday afternoon seemed like the
ideal opportunity for practice.  Alas, one other English speaker
attended the talk as well--one who spoke no Dutch.

I interrupted him at this point to nag:  "For heaven's sake, don't
allow yourself to be drawn into conversation with another English
speaker.  Just avoid him!"

But that wasn't the problem.  It seems that the appearance of
the lone English-only speaker was sufficient to cause the entire
department to switch instantly and effortlessly into English.
The informal Dutch talk became an informal English talk.

As my dismayed friend put it, "the ***** Dutch [...] are too good
at English, so that one bad apple (the non-Dutch speaker) spoils the
whole department."

Now, I had already given up the idea of learning Welsh, having
spent enough time in Wales to notice that strenuous efforts are
required for a stranger to hear *any* Welsh, let alone avoid
hearing English.  This tale of woe convinced me that Dutch, too,
would have to go.  Probably Swedish, too, from what Erland says.

Any others?

--Kittredge
