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

[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.