Communication?

[beige_alert]

They tell us that studying languages can help us communicate with our fellow humans. Sure, but sometimes you don’t want to communicate. Do you really want to communicate with that panhandler asking for “spare change?” I don’t, but I tend to get sucked into lengthy discussions with them. Sometimes I’m just to polite to tell them to buzz off. I tried a different approach today on the streets of Milwaukee. The encounter went something like this:

Begger: Excuse me....
Me: Guten Tag!
I don’t mean to be any harm I’m just looking for some change to...
Wie geht es Ihnen?
Huh?
Wie geht es Ihnen?
Uh......
Wie bitte?
Um.......

At this point, I had successfully achieved my goal, which, you’ll recall, was to fail to communicate, but to do so in a creative manner.

I suppose it’s unnecessarily cruel to cheerfully speak to someone who probably has mental health issues to begin with in a language I chose to use specifically because I doubted he had any knowledge of it, but it was way more entertaining than these encounters usually are.

Comments

[lisande.livejournal.com]

:rofl: That reminds me of my way to handle them - I usually offer to tell them the address and opening hours of the social welfare office (were I'm working).

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

Hey, telling time and opening and closing times, right here in chapter 2. I could do that in German, too! *laughs*

[lisande.livejournal.com]

*rofl* I'm sure that would be quite fun!

[legoline.livejournal.com]

Heh - I knew German was useful for SOMETHNG! :p

[legoline.livejournal.com]

make that SOMETHING. I can't spell. :p

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

Well, it's useful for talking to Germans, too.

I doubt that using German with the panhandlers in Germany has the same effect. I suppose you could try your best "Clueless American" impersonation. ("Where is the train station? And these streets are so confusing! Here I am at the intersection of Einbahnstraße and, um, Einbahnstraße? And where is that on this map?") Spanish would probably work. I didn't want to try Spanish here because of the significant chance of the beggar speaking Spanish much better than I can, which would defeat the purpose, which was, after all, to fail to communicate.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

My father told a story about someone he knew, decades ago, who encountered a bunch of toughs who went into a schpiel about how they needed him to give them money for some reason, with the implication that they would beat it out of him if he didn't give it. My father's acquaintance just said "Ich spreche kein Englisch" and kept walking, and he got away.

[lisande.livejournal.com]

That was luck! Could have gone horribly wrong, but I think it was worth the try...

[aryana-filker.livejournal.com]

*rofl*

[lisande.livejournal.com]

By the way - there's a funny story about a colleague of me, who worked in the asylum department of the social welfare office were those foreigners whose demand for asyl isn't deicded yet get money. And there was a couple of Croatians who were not happy with her decision and started to insult her in Croatian, feeling safe... What they didn't know was that my colleague is half Polish and half Croatian... *ggg*

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

*ha*

David Sedaris is one of the funniest writers I know of. He's an American who's lived in France and he has lots of really funny stories about trying to learn French and also about encountering rude Americans who assume he's French and doesn't speak English and so feel free to say insulting things about him, the country he lives in, his friends and his neighbors in what is actually his native language.