XPost: rec.puzzles, alt.usage.english, alt.proverbs   
   From: peter@pmoylan.org   
      
   On 04/06/24 09:01, HenHanna wrote:   
      
   > If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his   
   > head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his   
   > heart.   
      
   At various times I have been in places where my command of the local   
   language was somewhere between zero and negligible. That must happen to   
   anyone who has done a bit of travelling. How does one deal with this?   
      
   One approach is that of the obnoxious tourist who speaks in English very   
   loudly. (Only English speakers do this, for some reason.) The   
   assumption, I presume, is that anyone who can't understand him must be deaf.   
      
   My own approach is meek. I avoid saying anything at all. Where that is   
   not possible, I'll at least make sure to work out how to say "Do you   
   speak English or French?" in the local language, those being the two   
   languages where I can get by. (Special case: I have worked out how to   
   say "I don't speak X" for a number of different values of X.) If you   
   can't speak a language, most people appreciate that you've at least made   
   an effort.   
      
   (Exception: if you say that to a Dutch speaker, you get one of two   
   responses, in my experience. The first is "Maar U spreekt Nederlands,   
   meneer". (If you can say that much with a good Dutch accent, you must be   
   fully fluent in Dutch.) The other is a very offended "Of course I speak   
   English". How dare you suggest that I'm so uneducated that I can't speak   
   your language?)   
      
   One place where I felt completely lost was in Seoul. I knew no Korean,   
   and nobody there spoke English. (This has since changed, I gather.) I   
   couldn't even guess what the street signs said, although I did get as   
   far as figuring out that the writing was a phonetic syllabary. On   
   initial arrival, I had a card with name of my hotel written in Korean,   
   and I compared that with the sign on the front of each arriving bus.   
    From that experience, I have a lot of sympathy for people who are in a   
   country whose language is totally foreign to them. At least I can read   
   the street names anywhere in western Europe.   
      
   (Exception: the Irish don't believe in giving names to roads, so there   
   aren't any street signs.)   
      
   --   
   Peter Moylan       peter@pmoylan.org    http://www.pmoylan.org   
   Newcastle, NSW   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)