# Speaking mutually intelligible languages or not **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 16, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-mutually-intelligible-languages-or-not/625376 "2012-06-16T23:16:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-mutually-intelligible-languages-or-not/625376/41 "2012-06-19T18:08:35Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > You admit she is pretty cold and not empathetic to you, and she just broke up with you, I think you should spend some time alone and then be preparing to find someone who cares for your feelings more. Just IMO. Yeah, FTN. Get out of that situation. Life is short. You don’t have time for this kind of BS. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-mutually-intelligible-languages-or-not/625376/42 "2012-06-19T19:06:47Z")
You seem like a good guy. Take a break and enjoy yourself; not every relationship is that hard. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-mutually-intelligible-languages-or-not/625376/43 "2012-06-19T19:28:39Z")
Yeah, skip the _Semaine en Enfer_ and see if you can find some old eps of _French in Action_ on public TV instead. Robert always seemed like kind of a douche, but Mireille would never treat you mean, and she was a real dish to boot. And that little Marie-Laure, what a scamp! ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-mutually-intelligible-languages-or-not/625376/44 "2012-06-20T00:04:12Z")
Well she _can_ lack empathy. I can understand the things I don’t like about her somewhat though, because they were flaws in my own character that I have, to some extent, got rid of. I think this is actually best for me because while I have the hope that things will change I can keep being cheerful as I work on thinking about her less. And to some extent I care at lot less when she does things I don’t like now we’re probably not together, so I probably feel calmer like this than I would if we were 100% together or 100% apart. I don’t know if that makes sense or not, but I’m not really being self-sacrificing - it’s more damage limitation for both of us. ---
**Author:** ![Arabella\_Flynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8491ac/32.png) [@Arabella\_Flynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arabella_Flynn)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-mutually-intelligible-languages-or-not/625376/45 "2012-06-20T17:47:33Z")
Just as general advice for this sort of thing, if you drink, this is a really good time to do so. No, really. Particularly when you know some of the language but aren’t fluent, and are insecure about your ability to follow and participate in the conversation. Anything that reduces your ability to freak out over whether you have the exact right word or not, or caught every last preposition in the flood of conversation going on around you, will help you become a part of the interaction. People don’t realize just how much of their native language they actually fill in from experience and context, especially in a noisy or distracting environment, but it’s horrifyingly obvious in a second or third language. Your brain seizes up and refuses to guess, because _what if you’re wrong?_ If you can say to hell with it and get out something that’s garbled and incomplete but contains most of the information you’re trying to convey, you’re part of the party; if you clam up and sit in the corner looking terrified with your eyes darting desperately back and forth, you’re alone. (Advice given both from personal experience speaking not-English to exchange students in the States, and corroborated by some foreign ex-pats who claim their English gets far better when they’ve had a few beers.) ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-mutually-intelligible-languages-or-not/625376/46 "2012-06-20T18:31:44Z")
> [@Arabella\_Flynn](#): > > Just as general advice for this sort of thing, if you drink, this is a really good time to do so. No, really. Particularly when you know some of the language but aren’t fluent, and are insecure about your ability to follow and participate in the conversation. Anything that reduces your ability to freak out over whether you have the exact right word or not, or caught every last preposition in the flood of conversation going on around you, will help you become a part of the interaction. > > People don’t realize just how much of their native language they actually fill in from experience and context, especially in a noisy or distracting environment, but it’s horrifyingly obvious in a second or third language. Your brain seizes up and refuses to guess, because _what if you’re wrong?_ If you can say to hell with it and get out something that’s garbled and incomplete but contains most of the information you’re trying to convey, you’re part of the party; if you clam up and sit in the corner looking terrified with your eyes darting desperately back and forth, you’re alone. > > (Advice given both from personal experience speaking not-English to exchange students in the States, and corroborated by some foreign ex-pats who claim their English gets far better when they’ve had a few beers.) If I ever do go there I will try to rely on the drinking a little bit. But I mentioned this and was told “I don’t want my brother to think you’re an alcoholic”. Fair point I suppose, but I wasn’t thinking more than 1 or 2 drinks in the evenings, and that seems reasonable for a social visit like that. Plus it’s _France_ for God’s sake! But yeah, she likes to tell me I shouldn’t do things. I think you’re right about just trying to say something though. When you think of foreigners speaking English with completely the wrong tense or conjugations it doesn’t really seem awful. I just have to get the verbs and nouns vaguely right. But there’s the damn genders too… mostly I have to make educated guesses on those. ---
**Author:** ![Arabella\_Flynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8491ac/32.png) [@Arabella\_Flynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arabella_Flynn)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-mutually-intelligible-languages-or-not/625376/47 "2012-06-21T08:35:53Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > I think you’re right about just trying to say something though. When you think of foreigners speaking English with completely the wrong tense or conjugations it doesn’t really seem awful. I just have to get the verbs and nouns vaguely right. But there’s the damn genders too… mostly I have to make educated guesses on those. I’m sure there’s a native francophone around here somewhere that can give better technical advice than I can, but as a non-native speaker of French, I can tell you that I’ve personally run into very few situations where screwing up the gender makes what you say incomprehensible. If you’re just talking general nouns here, then typically what happens is that the French-speaker recognizes the noun and mentally corrects for you screwing up the gender. The worst that generally happens is, if you are using a gendered noun referring to a person and forget to give a name or a correct pronoun earlier in the conversation, a francophone might be confused as to who you’re talking about. Failing that, things that end in -tion or a double consonant + e (-lle, -nne, -mme, -tte) are generally feminine, and if you need to guess at things beyond that, statistically your chances are overwhelmingly better if you guess masculine. The most common class of verbs (the ones that end in -er) sounds exactly the same in 4/6 present tense conjugations. And if you bungle the subjunctive – well, so do a lot of natives. Seriously, just spit things out. Mime if you have to. Drop an English noun into the middle of the sentence if you really have no idea what the French one is. They speak some English, you speak some French, you’ll have a common location and a common goal. This is how pidgins and creoles are born. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-mutually-intelligible-languages-or-not/625376/48 "2012-06-21T19:58:36Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > At best we’re going to have a break of some kind. We didn’t actually argue or anything but she’s very stressed with other issues at the moment and, for reasons I don’t quite understand, that means she prefers a break/to break up. Maybe part of that is me being unsure about going to France, I’m not sure. > > … > > I’m not sure what kind of relationship we’ll have then, but she needs a break from her family in France and if she needs a friend more than a boyfriend I’ll be that. :rolleyes: Move on. Drama llamas are lame and she didn’t really sound like a catch anyway. I hate this “one last smile before you go” crap. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-mutually-intelligible-languages-or-not/625376/49 "2012-06-22T17:04:28Z")
> [@Arabella\_Flynn](#): > > I’m sure there’s a native francophone around here somewhere that can give better technical advice than I can, but as a non-native speaker of French, I can tell you that I’ve personally run into very few situations where screwing up the gender makes what you say incomprehensible. If you’re just talking general nouns here, then typically what happens is that the French-speaker recognizes the noun and mentally corrects for you screwing up the gender. The worst that generally happens is, if you are using a gendered noun referring to a person and forget to give a name or a correct pronoun earlier in the conversation, a francophone might be confused as to who you’re talking about. > > Failing that, things that end in -tion or a double consonant + e (-lle, -nne, -mme, -tte) are generally feminine, and if you need to guess at things beyond that, statistically your chances are overwhelmingly better if you guess masculine. The most common class of verbs (the ones that end in -er) sounds exactly the same in 4/6 present tense conjugations. And if you bungle the subjunctive – well, so do a lot of natives. > > Seriously, just spit things out. Mime if you have to. Drop an English noun into the middle of the sentence if you really have no idea what the French one is. They speak some English, you speak some French, you’ll have a common location and a common goal. This is how pidgins and creoles are born. Yeah I realize gender isn’t important for understanding, but I like to get things correct. I know enough French to be able to make a good guess at the gender (like the stuff you mentioned) so it’s not a big problem. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-mutually-intelligible-languages-or-not/625376.md?page=2)