Which language to use when addressing strangers? (etiquette question)

[fcgamer]

So today I stopped by a popular bakery chain on my way home from work.  As I was parking my scooter, a woman suddenly appeared out of nowhere and told me that I couldn't park there, since she and some others were apparently involved in some modeling stint across the street, and they didn't want a beat up scooter in the image.  The whole incident left me feeling a bit disgruntled and angry, on several levels, but I think part of the feelings would have never even come about, had the woman addressed me initially in Chinese[/b]. 

To begin, some studies have shown that when Chinese / Taiwanese people are speaking in Chinese, they are less outgoing / aggressive than when using English or some other western language, likely due to the cultural differences between the realms.  Then there is the whole nuance thing, with possible wrong phrasing / grammar / word choice slightly changing the meaning, for the worse. 

While the above may have played a part in my feelings, I feel the fact that I have lived in Taiwan for over seven years, and speak Chinese at an intermediate conversational level, also plays a role in the matter.  What is the point in learning someone else's language, if the vast majority of the population automatically assumes that either you don't speak their language, or speak it on a level worse than the language they assume you speak? (on this point, for all they know I am German or French or something, and don't even speak English).  While they might think they are being helpful and friendly, it is actually a bit insulting towards those who have learned the language. 

To make people see what I am saying, a bit of a reversal:

If I am back in the States and start talking to random strangers in Chinese, how would they take it?  A more common situation in the USA is with Spanish.  I've heard dozens of cases where people who looked Hispanic were addressed in Spanish, despite being fluent in English and maybe not even speaking Spanish at all! 

I feel that the most appropriate conduct with strangers is to use the local language initially.  If the other person is a guest / tourist / doesn't speak the language, then it is most courtious of him / her to learn how to say "Sorry, I don't speak xx language very well" in the local language, thus giving the green light to use another tongue as a lingua franca. 

Thoughts?

[L___E___T]

 



Did you leave your scooter there?  That's the real question!  They don't own the street.  I had similar in NYC.  No closed set?  Then you've no right to boss me around.

She probably just assumed you're a tourist incorrectly right?  Perhaps unfair but not unexpected.  People assume I can speak Chinese when I travel, I've no idea why..

[P]

Probably a lot of people on this forum assumes you can speak Chinese due to your flag. haha

Living and working in Japan I get lots of different reactions from strangers, most often they assume that I don't speak Japanese (store clerks always speaks Japanese though). This just can't be helped in a country where there are very few foreigners (especially westerners), so I have long ago accepted various types of reactions. What is most irritating though is when they don't speak English but for some reason don't fully understand that you speak Japanese (usually because they are too nervous) so they continue speaking using body language and stuff. This isn't that common though.
In Japan they mostly assume westerners to be Americans though, although that's seldom a big problem since I speak English good enough.

Yeah many Japanese people that are very good at English (probably lived in an English speaking country for some time) also has got the misconception that speaking proper English means that you have to be rude. Some people I know totally change their personality (for the worse) when speaking otherwise perfect English.

In Sweden I also always start with Swedish and go over to English if they clearly don't understand. Even if they are foreigners they might be want to practice Swedish as much as possible if they don't already speak it fluently already. In student residential areas in Stockholm however there are so many foreigners that I gave up on Swedish long ago (which gets awkward when you actually speak with a Swede).

[famifan]

wait ... what?

you guys have touched a very interesting topic of which I've never thought before.

so, usually, I'm trying to express myself as good as i can. And here goes the sad thing. All my good intentions might be probably getting ruined by not good enough knowings of how to express myself politely using English. I don't mean any harm, don't mean to be rude or something. I was just trying to be helpful.

And there's no way to interpret, if i understand that my personality may have been changed to worse when i speak foreign language. There's no way to figure out my initial thoughts since a lot of intentions were lost during switching to another language due to the lack of perfect knowing all cultural differences and whatsoever. Absolutely no way to surely check if I'm not taking any advantage over you in a such way.

This's a vicious circle. What an awful situation.

May be you could give any advice how to mitigate or minimize this type of confusion during the conversation? Constantly asking for sorry about my English doesn't seem to improve the situation a bit. It's just wasting my confidence. What's the rule of thumb?

this reminds me a one case happened with my colleague. after the confronting conversation with a native speaker, the last one said "you're wrong". i don't know much of the context. but shortly after that my colleague told that it was unexceptionally rude saying that, especially for a native speaker. Almost like using strong types of f-words. Meanwhile in Russian, it's not any kind of big deal and means just being on a state of disagreeing with what you've just heard.
what a bummer

[P]

I don't think you should feel like a target to the above conversation Famifan. Of course when speaking another language you don't yet master, you will probably say many awkward things, that's just part of learning it. It does almost not pass a day at work here that I'm not told that whatever I just did or didn't do was very rude to the customer.

The most you have to worry about is probably just that to learn the strength of words. When I was new to Japanese I often told people I met to tell me whenever I say or do something inappropriate or awkward, as that's not my intention and I want to learn from it when I do it.

I was talking mostly about Japanese trying (too) hard speaking perfect English. I guess they might be looking at American movies where the f-word is used left and right, and starts thinking that it can be used in normal conversations for example. Or certain Japanese people might just over-thinking it, doing things that's absolutely taboo in Japan and thinking it's normal in English, because everyone knows westerners are rude from birth or something.

Just go to a information guide at train stations in many big Japanese cities and don't be too surprised when you face a Japanese girl speaking flawless English but with and attitude like she just gobbled down a bottle of vinegar.