I always try to learn how to say, "I'm sorry, I don't speak X" in language X. When I was in Japan I got an unbelievable amount of leverage out of being able to say, "Sumi masen, Nihon-go hanasei masen" which, of course, means "I don't speak Japanese" in Japanese. The local's faces would light up and often they would respond in Japanese despite the fact that I had just told them that I don't speak Japanese.
Haha, I wonder if they assumed you were doing something that's very Japanese, namely having much more humility about your skill level than is actually justified. So they just assumed you're perfectly fluent but you were being very Japanese about it.
I had a year of French at school, and my teacher kept saying all year that no matter how much or little we learn from his classes and exercises, as long as we are able to say "I don't speak language X, do you speak language Y?", everything would be so much easier when dealing with strangers in foreign countries. It also helps a lot to add a "please" and "thank you".
This piece of advice helped a lot in both Germany, Ukraine, and Russia.
It doesn't always work though… I just had an issue with a Spanish airline (of all things I would assume all their employees would have to speak some English), where the session expired, the online payment went through but the ticket reservation didn't. I called the number and asked if Se habla Inglès o Francès? and no, I had to use my broken Spanish to sort it out. The lady was very helpful though.
I agree. The French are clever (and very nice people). They know you’ve just learnt that one phrase in order to unlock their English: you have to work a bit harder. They want to see a bit of pain first.
French mathematics is famous for being written as prose and by extension for being much more instructive than an English equivalent (provided that said mathematics was discovered by a French person).
This is very relevant to my interests. My French doesn't go past "haltingly read newspapers" and "acquire food, shelter, and directions in a French-speaking region", so would any of this prose-heavy mathematics be available in English translation? Are there any particular authors you have in mind?
I can't speak French, so my comment is based on what other mathematicians tell me.
Unfortunately, Grothendieck, Galois and as far as I know, Bourbaki is not fully translated. And unless someone actually spends many years doing it, a lot of it never will be.
I also think Russian is useful, especially to read some old texts from the cold war era. But a lot of the books are translated (but not the papers). Kolmogorov's books and probably quite a few others were translated not very long after they were written.
But, to be honest, I think knowing French and Russian is more of a personal pursuit than a necessity to access the mathematiacs. Galois wrote down very little and his memoirs (written by someone else) should be the interesting historically. Grothendieck should also be interesting, especially to see his unrelenting commitment to translate everything to category theory. However, for almost any topic, somewhere, in English, there would be a good source. Bourbaki was never really "completed" and I am not sure whether it's useful to read those texts (rather than the stuff that was inspired by them).
I can recommend Lawvere's books, especially Conceptual Mathematics since it's even accessible for high school students. My main interest is in category theory and set theory, so it may well not be what you are interested in.
I've also seen really useful stuff in the internet era, like Category Theory for Programmers by Bartosz Milewski.
Exactly this. There is a crossover point where their pain of listening to your horrible French exceeds their enjoyment of watching you suffer, and that's when they let you off the hook.
In Paris in the summer this crossover point is higher since I think they're pissed they are stuck in the city for the summer dealing with tourists rather than frolicking in the countryside.
Nice... probably should be "Comma Apple Two" though :)
PS. To clarify for others - It's a bastardized version of "Comment tu t'appelle?" which means "What's your name?" or more precisely "How do you call yourself?"
“Parlez-vous Anglais” will get you nowhere, but “Pas de palais, pas de palais” is how you earn a nightful of drinks by a French guy.
Seriously, don’t learn boring words, we already know someone doesn’t speak French. Learn movie quotes and you’ll kickstart a discussion. Learn awesome movie quotes and you’ll have something to discuss about.
FYI, "hanaseimasen" is not a correct negative of "hanasu", it should be "hanashimasen". Also an easy way to say you don't understand anything is "wakaranai".
It's arguably more proper to say "nihongo ga hanasemasen" (I can't speak Japanese) than "nihongo wo hanashimasen" (I don't speak Japanese). The first is a statement of my personal abilities. The second could easily be a statement of my attitude. "nihongo ga hanasemasu kedo nihongo o hanshimasen" (I can speak Japanese but I don't speak Japanese)
For whatever reason I've never heard wakaremasen (can't understand) but only don't understand (wakarimasen).
Well, the original wording was "hanasei masen" and I assumed the OP wouldn't know about the potential form at their current level. Potential form when talking about knowing the language doesn't sound right to me, but I can find example sentences using both potential and normal form. In natural language I think normal form would be used. Potential form of "wakaru" is "wakareru" which happens to be a verb with a completely different meaning "to diverge/separate/divide", so I don't think anyone uses it and it makes little sense anyway.
> I assumed the OP wouldn't know about the potential form at their current level.
You assumed correctly :-) I thought that adding a "sen" suffix to any verb was the only way to negate it. Wakarimas = I understand. Wakarimasen = I don't understand. (Yes, I read Shogun :-) Japanese is apparently much more subtle than I realized.
I have asked my Japanese friends about this and they are usually convinced after discussion that "ga" is the correct particle to use here. But "wo" sounds fine.
I think it is very much like "was/were" in English. "If I was to give you a cookie..." / "If I were to give you a cookie..." "were" is "correct" (as though there is such a thing in English), I think, but "was" sounds fine. "Was" looks pretty abrasive in writing but say it out loud and you'll notice that you hear it a lot.
> For whatever reason I've never heard wakaremasen (can't understand) but only don't understand (wakarimasen).
One of my teachers explained to me that "wakaru" (to understand) already has the implicit meaning of "able to" in the word itself, so you should never use the potential form. Searches[1][2] for "分かる 可能形" seem to agree.
In Japan I was at a German language insitute and asked the Japanese guy at the reception if he spoke German. His reply was "Leider nicht"/"Unfortunately not", which I thought was a fantastic reply for this kind of question. Very simple, yet much more sophisticated than a simple "Nein"/"No".
Please don’t learn “I don’t speak X”, this is useless and it kills the interaction. Instead, learn a movie quote. This will get people to joke with you and will start off a discussion, “Where did you learn that” and all.
— “Pas de palais ? Pas de palais” - see here for example: https://youtu.be/ghiMU3seRVM
- “Je m’appelle Juste Leblanc”
— or even asking for a local celebrity is more fun.
For starters, I can tell you from firsthand experience that saying "I don't speak X" does not "kill the interaction." It is invariably taken as ironically humorous, and a sincere effort to fit into the local culture. I've never had anything but a positive response to it, and I have traveled extensively throughout the world.
Furthermore, putting myself in the listener's shoes, if a foreigner walked up to me and recited a random movie quote in broken English I would be utterly nonplussed. I mean, think about it: a random stranger walks up to you and the first words out of their mouth are, "No palace, no palace." I can't imagine any reaction other than: WTF?
I think people have varying opinions on this. Many of us don't really want to launch people into a phony conversation -- you convince the other person that you understand the language, then they talk for a while, and then they realize that you didn't understand anything they just said. Now your newfound friend thinks you like wasting their time.
This happens all the time in other contexts. "Have you seen movie X?" "mm yeah" "what did you think about the part where <20 minutes of explanation>" "oh you know I didn't actually see the movie I just didn't want to say no". The reason people do this is because they hate saying no, and 50% of the time having seen the movie / heard the song / know the celebrity / is not actually relevant to the anecdote. But when it is, you sure look like an idiot.
