If you meet a foreigner in America who speaks english well, your foreign language will be ignored?

Question

I've kind of experienced this with japanese people( foreigners coming to study or visit) i've met here in america. If they are good at english, and you study japanese and try to speak it, they are not really impressed or interested. The ones that are english beginners, are so happy and interested if you speak their language.. but the others don't even want to share their language.. they only want English all the time. It's like they don't care about your interest in their culture. If i meet such a person, how can i let her understand that sharing both languages is better than me just speaking english?

Answer 1

Explain that you appreciate their excellent English, but they would be doing you a favor if they would speak some Japanese with you, as you don't often have this opportunity. It probably is easier for them to speak English, which they do well, than to work with your rudimentary Japanese; but if you put it this way, that they would be helping you out, they may be more willing.

Answer 2

You touched on a topic which has irked me for some time. I have found the exact same thing to be true of Japanese people whom I meet here who have a good knowledge of English and are not eager to either be spoken to by a non-Japanese foreigner in their native language nor to share their culture with outsiders. It gives some Japanese the well-deserved reputation of being xenophobic or, at best, too much on the defensive.
. Your best bet is to stick with the beginning English learners who, like you say, are eager to reveal something about themselves and their country in Japanese and to help you with your own studies of their delightful language.

Answer 3

Oh certain. There are those who extremely look unable or unwilling to attempt to make the sounds of the different language. once you listen people speaking a overseas language like this, you listen all those American vowels and r's and that's fairly sparkling. If I stated to you "parlay voo francie" in an exceedingly exaggerated undesirable accessory, you may want to tell it develop into fairly diverse from "parlez vous francais". an exceedingly reliable American accessory isn't fairly that undesirable, notwithstanding it will be close. On one social gathering, i develop into shocked to comprehend i might want to %. up an English accessory in French. It develop into contained in the action picture "Persepolis" that's about Iran yet is written in French because the author now lives in France. At one aspect there is an English diplomat chatting with the Iranian rulers, and his French has a huge accessory regardless of if you aren't to any extent further that strong in French like me. for sure possibly that develop into also an exceedingly exaggerated accessory, because they were attempting to intensify his idiocy. yet nonetheless, in case you get a probability to work out this action picture (that's an exceedingly strong action picture), see in case you could tell what i'm speaking about in that scene. i for my section attempt very perplexing to get pronunciations authentic, yet I extremely have some times been requested if i develop into American, so there is clearly some thing there that promises me away.

Answer 4

Sometimes sharing ones culture or language can make them uncomfortable. It becomes a private thing that can be open to criticism and depending on who they are, they may not want to open themselves up to that - despite how eager you may be to learn.

I wish I had advice on how to get them to open up, but I don't. The only thing that I guess I could tell you is to try and find someone who is thrilled that you want to learn. In my dealings with learning German and Spanish, I found people very open in helping me. Perhaps its different with the Japanese?

Answer 5

I have had this experience already. I would say that the best thing to do is maybe offer to help each other with your languages that you are studying. She can help with your Japanese, and you can possibly help them with their English.

Answer 6

you can begin by telling them as those who speaks english well are willing to teach u their language too if given a chance, u might find that they prefer to speak english and that's just because they want to perfect the english language as well, communicate...communicate....