I can identify with this! Not the language angle, but the desire to keep the exotic feeling of a foreign holiday alive. A couple of trips had me chatting with fellow travellers and then discover their home was less than two hours drive away from my home. Virtually neighbours! Well, I came all this way to escape the current events and attitudes of home, so we parted as soon as politeness allowed.
I was in a conference in Germany, and we were a small group of people discussing, me, my co-author (also husband) from the same country, another scientist from our country, and then a couple of people from elsewhere, so naturally we spoke English. When the others left three of us from Finland continued speaking until the third person asked why we were still speaking English. We've lived abroad so many years that it was completely natural to us :D
I can identify with this! Not the language angle, but the desire to keep the exotic feeling of a foreign holiday alive. A couple of trips had me chatting with fellow travellers and then discover their home was less than two hours drive away from my home. Virtually neighbours! Well, I came all this way to escape the current events and attitudes of home, so we parted as soon as politeness allowed.
ReplyDeleteExactly! This is why I avoid American tourists no matter where I am. Also because I don't like being reminded of what I look like to everyone else XD
DeleteI was in a conference in Germany, and we were a small group of people discussing, me, my co-author (also husband) from the same country, another scientist from our country, and then a couple of people from elsewhere, so naturally we spoke English. When the others left three of us from Finland continued speaking until the third person asked why we were still speaking English. We've lived abroad so many years that it was completely natural to us :D
ReplyDeleteMy wife sometimes doesn't even notice what language she's speaking. Now THAT is fluency!
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