I hate those guys
Now if I were in the conversation, my response would almost certainly be, “So you don’t speak French?” That’s what I typically do when people answer questions other than the one I asked.
Well I hate them more. Almost as much as I enjoy being right. Which is all the time.
I’ve got a guy in my office who’s way worse than that…
No, I’ve never noticed this conversation pattern. I’m fairly certain I’ve never heard any conversation like this in my life. I don’t think it would bother me if I had, but I am kind of wondering why that this comes up often for you. When I’ve lived or worked in situations where translation issues were likely to come up, everyone had a pretty good idea of who spoke what language. I have encountered people who felt the need to drop “impressive” facts about themselves into the conversation, but not with regard to languages. Of course, I’m an American and my countrymen aren’t prone to embarrassment over being monolingual.
Anyway, if I were in David’s position I probably would explain that I don’t speak French at all but do speak (some) German, because I’d want Sarah to know that I could help her if a German-related question came up. If I knew that someone else at the office had studied French I’d also tell her to go ask that person. This is assuming that for some reason Sarah couldn’t just look the word up online – Babelfish or Google Translator would usually be able to handle translating a single word from French to English.
“Does anyone here know CPR?!?”
“No, but I know what to do for a bloody nose, and I think I could manage the Heimlich maneuver.”
Wow. I never thought about it, but I probably do this too:
Sarah: “Hey Doctor Who, do you speak French? I need to know what this word means…”
Doctor Who: “Nope, not French. I do speak English, but not French.”
I’d like to think I would just be providing information in case she ever needed the services of a native English speaker, but I think we all know I’m just showing off.
If I’d been in David’s shoes, I’d have attempted to surreptitiously use Google Language Tools to translate the word. And any other word in any other language that anyone mentioned. Win-win-win - Sarah gets her translation, David saves face by not having to admit to his lacking French, and the OP isn’t irked. Thanks, Google!
Thoogle.
What do you mean this doesn’t actually help resuscitate the person? Don’t you want to hear about my many other skills? I have them. I swear!
Really now? Your answer to “Do you speak Japanese?” is “I speak Spanish”? I understand that Spanish may be important to you, but it’s not important to the person asking the question.
It might not be important to you, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important to someone other than me. If it’s not important to someone, that someone suffers two seconds of inconvenience. If it is important to someone, I just made a new friend. Guess which side I’m going to err on here?
You make a good point. Next time someone asks me something, I’ll just talk about something else instead of answering the question, and hopefully we can become friends.
This is very silly. I answered the question. What is at issue here is the extraneous information provided in addition to the response. The OP’s ire makes perfect sense, in that it sounds like he’s dealing with a bit of a douche. But that doesn’t mean all people who respond in this way have some secret underlying motive beyond friendly conversation.
See, if we were kibbitzing at the bar, and extraneous information were provided, I’d take that as conversation, and likely not be annoyed. In the situation the OP described, someone needed something translated from French. If I need something done and say, “Hey, do you speak French? I need help translating this French document,” and the response is “I speak German,” my response would be, “Thanks a lot, asshole, that helps me translate this French document.”
It just strikes me as the person saying “I am good at other things!” Great. So is everyone.
To me, it just sounds like someone defining their skillset, so people will know for next time.
Like my assistant at work, who comes to me with a patient with carpal tunnel syndrome, asking me if I inject wrists. I inform him I don’t, but I do inject shoulders, clavicles, elbows and knees.
Next time maybe he’ll remember not only that I don’t inject wrists, but I could do those other things for him.
Also in this instance, Spanish is a close relative of French so there’s at least a possibility that he may be able to help answer her question even without knowing French.
We don’t know the originating circumstances. If the reason Sarah needs to know this is that the building is on fire, but the instructions to the fire extinguishers are in French only, then I could understand her becoming increasingly impatient, annoyed, and vexed while David expounds on his fund of general linguistic prowess. Otherwise, not really.
If “David” always does this sort of thing, doesn’t that mean he’s just another variety of bore? I don’t think it’s the language thing specifically.
If you ask me if I speak a particular language, I’m going to assume that you have some interest in what languages I speak. If my answer is sufficient and brief, despite not being narrowly limited to your query, please forgive me.
Agreed. I think it depends on the circumstances, too - if this was a one-off kind of thing, it might come off one-uppy (but depending on the person, I would probably just find it conversational); if you have an office that is always needing to do translations beyond Babelfish, it is very helpful to know who knows what language.
I don’t think people should provide any more information than was directly asked in the question. This is why instead of asking people “How are you?” I say “Please assess your current state of well-being on a scale of one to ten and give me absolutely no more information.” It really cuts down on unnecessary conversation.
Okay, some people are just annoying and show-offy, and a little thing like “but I do speak Spanish and German” can be eye-roll worthy coming from them. But from a normal person it would just be an interesting fact.
Zing and zing.
If this person is a one-upper, he’s a one-upper. When he’s not doing it, you’ll think he is, when he is doing it you might give him the benefit of the doubt.