One of the most pointless phrases to learn in another language

[Janus]

For while now, I've been slowly trying to learn Finnish, since it was the natural tongue of all my grandparents.  However this isn't going to be strictly about that but abut learning languages in general.

They often start by teaching you a few simple phrases, that may come in useful, (hello, my name is... etc.)

One of those phrases is often along the lines of "Do you speak English(or whatever language you normally speak)?

For example, in Finnish, this would be "Puhetko* englanitia?"

After some thought, I realized that there is no real reason you need to know how to say this.

If you were in Finland and wanted to ask someone if they spoke English, you could just ask in English. If they do, they will understand you, and answer in English, and if they don't, they'll say something like "Ei"( no), or "en ymmärrä"( I don't understand), or give you some other indication that they don't.  Either way, you've got your answer.

Now, I can see where it would appear more polite to ask in Finnish( or in whatever the language is where you are), but in a purely logical sense. it is not strictly necessary.

And of course, the one thing you definitely shouldn't do if you get the second response is to ask the question again, but LOUDER.... AND....SLOWER.

  *or "puhutteko" if you being formal or addressing more than one person.

[Mordred]

Lmao I had to share that with my wife who is trying to learn French she just laughed her head off with the response " it's true" between gasping for breath and running for the bathroom.

Thought I would share that response lol.

[swansont]

I learned how to say “I don’t speak <language>” in both French and Italian, in preparation for conference trips back in the day. Someone on the street in Torino said something to me as I walked to the conference site, so I got to use it. Used the French version when speaking to someone from the French embassy who lived in my apartment building 

What I really needed to learn is how to apologize for speaking the few phrases I knew so poorly.

[TheVat]

Je suis désolé que mon français soit si mauvais.

I guess, logic aside, I was given to understand (while traveling in Europe) that Americans starting out speaking in English was viewed as part of our whole aura of obnoxious entitlement.  Asking if people speak English, in their country's language, is seen as a show of respect for where you are and sometimes even wins you a compliment like "Oh, are you Canadian?"  (i.e. not acting entitled causes some to conclude you're not American)  

This phrase, of course, opens many doors for you in France:

Mon aéroglisseur est plein d'anguilles.

[Genady]

Perhaps it is so in 'language for tourists' courses. In no language class I've taken I was taught how to ask that.

[studiot]

Pronunciation is a potential stumblig block in any foreign language.

 

Some years back we were on holiday in the Canaries.
We had a hire car for the holiday.

Up in the hills we had a puncture.

Finding a garage in a little place where only Spanish was spoken, I dug out my trusty phrase book.

The similarity between pinctura (puncture)  and pictura (respray) only came to light when they managed to ask

What colour did we want?

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Je suis désolé que mon français soit si mauvais.

I guess, logic aside, I was given to understand (while traveling in Europe) that Americans starting out speaking in English was viewed as part of our whole aura of obnoxious entitlement.  Asking if people speak English, in their country's language, is seen as a show of respect for where you are and sometimes even wins you a compliment like "Oh, are you Canadian?"  (i.e. not acting entitled causes some to conclude you're not American)  

This phrase, of course, opens many doors for you in France:

Mon aéroglisseur est plein d'anguilles.

My French mother in law thought an aeroglisseur was an “overcraft” in English, because it went “over” the water (in this case the English Channel/la Manche). The joke of course is that the way someone with a French accent would say “hovercraft” is more or less “overcraft”, so she had laboured under this misapprehension for years without anybody noticing.
 

[Janus]

3 hours ago, studiot said:

Pronunciation is a potential stumblig block in any foreign language.

 

Some years back we were on holiday in the Canaries.
We had a hire car for the holiday.

Up in the hills we had a puncture.

Finding a garage in a little place where only Spanish was spoken, I dug out my trusty phrase book.

The similarity between pinctura (puncture)  and pictura (respray) only came to light when they managed to ask

What colour did we want?

Or take kuka and kukka in Finnish, the first means who, and the second means flower. The only difference in pronunciation is that with the second, both ks are pronounced. Or vettä, viettä and viettää ( water, export, and  "spend"/"celebrate"/ "lead" .)

[Genady]

48 minutes ago, Janus said:

Or take kuka and kukka in Finnish, the first means who, and the second means flower. The only difference in pronunciation is that with the second, both ks are pronounced. Or vettä, viettä and viettää ( water, export, and  "spend"/"celebrate"/ "lead" .)

Every language has homonyms. In most cases, they are unambiguous in a context/sentence.

[exchemist]

49 minutes ago, Janus said:

Or take kuka and kukka in Finnish, the first means who, and the second means flower. The only difference in pronunciation is that with the second, both ks are pronounced. Or vettä, viettä and viettää ( water, export, and  "spend"/"celebrate"/ "lead" .)

I only know one word of Finnish, which is hissi, for a lift. I used to go regularly to Vaasa, to visit Wärtsilä, who make a lot of the world's big marine and powergen diesels and for some reason that word stuck in my mind from the hotel I used to stay in. 

[Genady]

I also know one word in Finnish: 'talerka', a plate. I remember it from childhood because we had a Finnish set with this word on it and it was funny as it seems to be a misspelled and mispronounced Russian word, 'tarelka' (тарелка), a plate. Now I wonder which way the "misspelling" went and who in fact was dyslexic.

[Janus]

19 hours ago, Genady said:

Every language has homonyms. In most cases, they are unambiguous in a context/sentence.

These aren't homonyms, as they have distinct pronunciations.  Though Finnish does have it's homonyms(kuusi = six or spruce tree.  Voi = able to, butter, or "oh"), it doesn't have those like right,write, and rite.  In Finnish, if the word is spelled differently( even slightly) it is pronounced differently.

For example, Koira(dog) and Kissa(cat) are how you spell/say these words when they are the subject of the sentence, but Koiraa and Kissaa is used for  when they are the object.  The difference in pronunciation is that with the latter 2 you carry the ending a bit longer.  And this slight difference can actually effect the meaning of a sentence.   "Koira etsi Kissaa" and 'Kissaa etsi Koira" both mean that a dog is looking for a cat. The word order, unlike in English, doesn't matter here, So when spoken, the meaning relies on the subtle difference between the "a" and "aa" endings.

Edited October 26 by Janus

[Janus]

20 hours ago, exchemist said:

I only know one word of Finnish, which is hissi, for a lift. I used to go regularly to Vaasa, to visit Wärtsilä, who make a lot of the world's big marine and powergen diesels and for some reason that word stuck in my mind from the hotel I used to stay in. 

 

19 hours ago, Genady said:

I also know one word in Finnish: 'talerka', a plate. I remember it from childhood because we had a Finnish set with this word on it and it was funny as it seems to be a misspelled and mispronounced Russian word, 'tarelka' (тарелка), a plate. Now I wonder which way the "misspelling" went and who in fact was dyslexic.

I'm sure both of you know 2 Finnish words, the other being 'sauna'.   As far as "plate" goes, lautunen is the common Finnish word, so I'm going to assume 'talerka' is a loan word from Russian. I'm not exactly sure for the reason for the change in spelling for this one. With others, it's to compensate for sounds/letters that aren't in Finnish, or to make it compatible with the Finnish case endings.  For example, 'siideri' for 'cider'.

[Genady]

1 hour ago, Janus said:

As far as "plate" goes

Interestingly, it seems that it went through the transposition between 'l' and 'r' twice.

First, from 'taler' to 'tarel':

Quote

tarélka Russian Etymology

From Middle High German talier through Polish talerz (“plate”) +‎ -ка (-ka), with metathesis (transposition) of l and r.

(тарелка - Wiktionary, the free dictionary)

Then it flipped again:

Quote

talerka Ingrian Etymology

Formed through a metathesis of tarelka.

(talerka - Wiktionary, the free dictionary)

[John Cuthber]

 

[geordief]

3 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Reminds me very much of the Donald Flanders and Swann CD I picked up in a second hand shop.Was that the genre of the time  or were there only a few performers as excellent as them.Did the Yanks have any thing equivalent  at the time I wonder?

 

[Janus]

5 hours ago, Genady said:

Interestingly, it seems that it went through the transposition between 'l' and 'r' twice.

First, from 'taler' to 'tarel':

(тарелка - Wiktionary, the free dictionary)

Then it flipped again:

(talerka - Wiktionary, the free dictionary)

This might explain the Finnish spelling. I heard that Finnish can act as a "freezer" of sorts for older words. If they borrow a word from another language, it doesn't tend to change, even if it later evolves in the mother tongue.  So, if the Finn's borrowed it when it was in the 'taler" form, it stayed that way.  An example is tuoli (chair) which comes for the old Swedish, "stuoli".   Since then, Swedish for chair has become stol.

[LuckyR]

On 10/24/2024 at 5:08 PM, Janus said:

For while now, I've been slowly trying to learn Finnish, since it was the natural tongue of all my grandparents.  However this isn't going to be strictly about that but abut learning languages in general.

They often start by teaching you a few simple phrases, that may come in useful, (hello, my name is... etc.)

One of those phrases is often along the lines of "Do you speak English(or whatever language you normally speak)?

For example, in Finnish, this would be "Puhetko* englanitia?"

After some thought, I realized that there is no real reason you need to know how to say this.

If you were in Finland and wanted to ask someone if they spoke English, you could just ask in English. If they do, they will understand you, and answer in English, and if they don't, they'll say something like "Ei"( no), or "en ymmärrä"( I don't understand), or give you some other indication that they don't.  Either way, you've got your answer.

Now, I can see where it would appear more polite to ask in Finnish( or in whatever the language is where you are), but in a purely logical sense. it is not strictly necessary.

And of course, the one thing you definitely shouldn't do if you get the second response is to ask the question again, but LOUDER.... AND....SLOWER.

  *or "puhutteko" if you being formal or addressing more than one person.

If you're interested in maximizing your chance of having a helpful conversation (which, after all is the central point of learning a language), then learning to ask in the person's native tongue will accomplish this. Asking in English will not.

[toucana]

Duolingo the popular foreign language learning app is famous for offering quite bizarre sentences as exercises. This one turned up at an early stage in the Duolingo Scottish Gaelic course when I was trying to improve my grasp of an ancestral language.  I'm still struggling to imagine an appropriate social context for this remark.

[John Cuthber]

2 hours ago, toucana said:

 I'm still struggling to imagine an appropriate social context for this remark.

 

There's this
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/wilhelmina-ice-pole-sitting-contest

and also everyday life in Scotland.

[dimreepr]

On 10/25/2024 at 1:08 AM, Janus said:

For while now, I've been slowly trying to learn Finnish, since it was the natural tongue of all my grandparents.  However this isn't going to be strictly about that but abut learning languages in general.

They often start by teaching you a few simple phrases, that may come in useful, (hello, my name is... etc.)

One of those phrases is often along the lines of "Do you speak English(or whatever language you normally speak)?

For example, in Finnish, this would be "Puhetko* englanitia?"

After some thought, I realized that there is no real reason you need to know how to say this.

If you were in Finland and wanted to ask someone if they spoke English, you could just ask in English. If they do, they will understand you, and answer in English, and if they don't, they'll say something like "Ei"( no), or "en ymmärrä"( I don't understand), or give you some other indication that they don't.  Either way, you've got your answer.

Now, I can see where it would appear more polite to ask in Finnish( or in whatever the language is where you are), but in a purely logical sense. it is not strictly necessary.

And of course, the one thing you definitely shouldn't do if you get the second response is to ask the question again, but LOUDER.... AND....SLOWER.

  *or "puhutteko" if you being formal or addressing more than one person.

Indeed +1, all we really need to comunicate in another language is a smile and a willingness to try; the minute we start to think that we speak it like a native, is the minute we start to piss the natives off...

[Janus]

9 hours ago, LuckyR said:

If you're interested in maximizing your chance of having a helpful conversation (which, after all is the central point of learning a language), then learning to ask in the person's native tongue will accomplish this. Asking in English will not.

If you are asking another person in another country if they speak English, you are indicating that you want to converse in English, which is not going to help you in learning their native tongue.  If you are truly interested in improving your language skills, you might try requesting that they speak in that language rather than English, even if they can. For example "Haluaisin puhua suomea." ( I would like to speak in Finnish.) If they say something you don't get, you could say "Anteeksi, en ymmärrä. Hitaasti, ole hyvä." (Excuse me, I don't understand. Slowly, please.)

[Genady]

The tables are often turned nowadays. The locals here usually ask visitors, "English, Espanol, Nederlands, Papiamentu?"

[Janus]

4 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Indeed +1, all we really need to comunicate in another language is a smile and a willingness to try; the minute we start to think that we speak it like a native, is the minute we start to piss the natives off...

It would be hard to pull off "talking like native" as a tourist in Finland, largely because the common spoken language differs somewhat from the written/formal that you'd be taught in a language course.  For example "minä olen"( I am) is "mä oon"  or Kello on kakskymmenta yli yksi"( the time is 20 past 1) is Kello on kakskyt yli yks.  (BTW, 'y'  in Finnish is always a vowel and is pronounced similar to the 'u' in 'cute'.)

[LuckyR]

2 hours ago, Janus said:

If you are asking another person in another country if they speak English, you are indicating that you want to converse in English, which is not going to help you in learning their native tongue.  If you are truly interested in improving your language skills, you might try requesting that they speak in that language rather than English, even if they can. For example "Haluaisin puhua suomea." ( I would like to speak in Finnish.) If they say something you don't get, you could say "Anteeksi, en ymmärrä. Hitaasti, ole hyvä." (Excuse me, I don't understand. Slowly, please.)

I don't disagree with your commentary, but I was addressing prioritizing getting the native to want to speak to you (which is when higher quality conversations occur).