As a fairly fluent speaker of German I tried to learn Dutch. I did manage to learn a good deal, but found it very hard not to confuse the two in terms of thinking in the language. Of course both languages are foreign to me.
Is it possible that if your native language is Catalan, it’s easier to learn the nationally dominant language of Castellano, than to go the other way? It seems to me the native Catalanophone would benefit by the immersive presence of Castellano everywhere around them. But a Castellanophone trying to learn Catalan would be deprived of that.
That, because I’m a short Greek immigrant’s kid, I’m aggressive, hard-working and rude (and, religious and Greek-speaking).
And when these assumptions prove false, that I’m weak-willed.
That, because I’m an engineer with a mathematics background, I’ve never been in a fight or gotten laid.
That because I’m from West Virginia, I’m semi-literate (at best), inbred, on public assistance, and devoid of teeth. (Although I *can *play the banjo and *do *drink a lot).
That I work here. I get asked for help in stores and theaters.
That I’m a “diatetic”. My college roommate wondered about this one when I accepted the gift of some diet cookies from our boss. She didn’t like the taste of them. Neither did I, but they were FREE FOOD.
That I’m arrogant. Not true, but I can be pushy and crabby when overworked. I’m just a garden-variety jerk, not an egotistical one.
That I’m Jewish. Because I eat bagels. This really happened.
That I’m a health food enthusiast. Because I turned down a doughnut.
My sister confirmed my parents thought I was gay because I didn’t have a girlfriend until I was well into my 20’s. Actually, I get this vibe from a lot of guys (Them: I have serious doubts about you) probably because I’m on the small and skinny side with a fairly high pitched voice. And I have little interest in professional sports. High school was not much fun.
People seem to assume that I’m sort of right-wing conservative type with some rather outdated ideas on certain issues, but according to The Political Compass I’m actually further to the left than Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama. :eek:
I’m only 1/4 Italian, but people assume I can’t be at all due to my complexion. Nonna wasn’t any darker than me, I promise I would look similar if I was 100% Ligurian.
On a good day I look 5 - 7 years younger, which if were true would make me around 13 when the first kid was born. So yes, people think I’m babysitting, or that the kids aren’t mine. It doesn’t happen a lot, but enough for me to notice such things.
No, no direction is easier, specially given the amount of Catalan immersion that you get in Catalonia velis-nolis; also, in my case I learned both simultaneously (so did most people who consider Catalan as their first language). But because my Spanish doesn’t have a Catalan accent, people from Catalonia who have heard me speak Spanish assume that I don’t speak Catalan even after months of having conversations in Catalan, which I speak with the same Barcelona accent as my Catalan-as-first-language mother, cousin or grandparents (of which the only ones who didn’t grow up fully-bilingual are the grandparents).
We’ve known each other for months and have been speaking Catalan. They’ve been assuming, based on my dialect, that I’m from Barcelona. Then they hear me speaking Spanish with my Ebro River accent, and from that point on they do things like switch to Spanish in my presence or apologize for speaking Catalan (if they’re polite), or sneer and switch to Catalan and then be surprised when I respond in Catalan (if they’re assholes).
Note that this same people will complain about xarnegos, that is, about people who have immigrated to Catalan-speaking areas and haven’t learned Catalan. Move in and don’t learn Catalan, you’re a xarnego; move in having known Catalan your whole life, you’re… some kind of outer-space alien.
I also get the assumption that I am a lesbian (not that there is anything wrong with that!) To be fair, I can understand it completely as I work with horses and dress accordingly. I LOVE my carhartt pants, t-shirts and work boots. Also, I drive a Hummer H3 and I carry a Maxpedition Neatfreak as purse. I am not girly in any way, don’t give a fig about getting my nails done and keep them short anyhow as I play guitar. I am, however, clean, I shower every day, wash my (long) hair everyday and put on minimal makeup, mostly to cover acne scars. I will be married 25 years in June. I do, actually, feel much more masculine do to my interests than I have ever felt feminine.
Once I brought my guitar to a memorial gathering because the host had asked me to play along to a song he was performing. Before the song, I was playing solo, and was about two pages into Asturias by Albeniz, and at that point I was asked, “Do you play guitar?” Listen and don’t learn, that seems to be a way of life for some people.
Many of my co-workers have assumed that I’m very “prissy” and feminine, because of how I dress for work. (Suits, dresses, skirts, high heels, even the occasional pair of hose.) I thoroughly shocked one young co-worker one Saturday, when I came in to finish up a couple of contracts before going on a motorcycle poker run/fundraiser wearing jeans, boots, t-shirt, and denim jacket. When she asked why I was dressed in such a way (she’d only ever seen me in my professional garb before,) I told her. She giggled at the notion of “Miss R.” on a motorcycle. Another co-worker was literally open-mouthed with shock one day when I drove into the parking lot (in my Mom-friendly mini-van) with Black Sabbath blaring.
At a recent gathering of my husband’s family, my husband’s brother and stepsister were both shocked when I started a sentence with “When I was tending bar downtown…” They both thought that I was much too prim and proper to have ever tended bar! (I guess I won’t mention to either of them that I was an ecdysiast in college…)
My husband has used the word “aristocratic” to describe me, even though he was there when I met his father’s side of the family (fish fry at the farm, drinking canned beer out of the cooler in the back of his Dad’s pickup, etc.) He later clarified that he thinks that it’s very classy to be able to fit in and make coherent conversation, whether we’re hanging out with his dotty-but-very-proper aunt with a geneaology obsession or his redneck paternal family, drinking beer and discussing dogs/trucks/guns/the best time to plant soybeans. Hubby also thinks that I’m beautiful and sexy, so I’m not going to try to disabuse him of his (mis)perceptions!
Blonde + boobs = stupid. That’s what. Also that I think I’m “too good” to go certain places. I was at a dive bar recently and someone from work saw me and came up and said “What are you doing here? I wouldn’t expect to see someone like you in a place like this.”
I didn’t ask her what she meant. Could mean anything, I suppose.
It’s the opposite for me. I’m somewhat overweight, but I exercise all the time. I take 15- to 20-mile bike rides a few times a week, walk at least 3 miles a few times a week, go to spin classes, do Pilates, weight train–and people assume that all I do is sit around and eat. They couldn’t be further from the truth.
I have never figured out the intense desire that people have to figure out who’s Jewish! It’s like it’s an expression of some sort of widespread cultural anxiety, that we have people wandering in our midst who are different but can’t be easily distinguished. My father’s family is Polish and I have a -wicz name, and people have very nearly whisked the bacon bits out from under my nose while apologizing. I’m not Jewish. Really.
Clearly this happens to people of other ethnicities, as all the people with red hair find when they have to explain that they’re not Irish (doesn’t Scotland actually have the higher percentage of redheads anyway?), but there does seem to be an odd general preoccupation with scouting out Jews.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily evidence of widespread vicious antisemitism, but it is interesting that so many people have the experience of either being assumed to be Jewish or told they are not, when only 2% or so of the American population is Jewish.
Well, to put my husband’s experience in context, the college we attended was notorious for having a relatively large Jewish population (18.3%) and the dorm in which we lived had an even higher Jewish population than that. Now we live in South Jersey, which also has a lot of Jewish people (although I gotta be honest, it has a lot of Italians too.)
And the comments weren’t like, ‘‘You’re a Jew, right?’’ They were more along the lines of, ‘‘Did you enjoy your Passover?’’
Also, people mistake him for a lot of different ethnicities and nationalities. In Spain he was assumed to be Spanish, in Greece he was assumed to be Greek, and I’ve even heard comments from my Jewish co-workers that he looks Arabic (I don’t see it, but okay.) He is three-quarters Sicilian, so he definitely has a very distinct look.
Personally, I can’t really tell if someone’s Jewish or not, though the last name can be a good indicator. I do care. It has less to do with anti-Semitism and more to do with just being curious about the lives of other people.
[ol]
[li]That I could care less about your study abroad in London or Scottish grandfather.[/li][li]That I am left-wing politically.[/li][li]That I like soccer (wrong country, for a start).[/li][li]That I care about 1776.[/li][li]That I want to get into an extended discussion about what you think America’s most pressing flaws are.[/li][li]That I want to remain in America permanently.[/li][/ol]
I guess the most common are that I’m shy and easily offended. I’m quiet, not shy. I don’t talk much especially if I don’t have anything useful/interesting to add to a conversation, but that’s entirely different than being scared or uncomfortable talking to people, whether it’s one-on-one, with strangers, or in front of a group. My boss in trade school didn’t like me and thought he’d “get me” by telling me to give a bunch of new students a tour of our shop and explain our trade. The look on his face when I cheerfully (and confidently) spoke to the crowd was priceless.
I also have one of those faces where I look like a nice, sweet girl, and I guess nice sweet girls are offended by raunchy, tasteless jokes. I’ve had people apologize for swearing around me. I likely won’t laugh if I don’t think you’re funny, and yes I think standing on a cloth and saying “guess what I am! On the rag! HAHA” in the middle of an open room, surrounded by women who may be offended, is inappropriate for work, but it’s very difficult to offend me.
