Re: CHAT: Being taken for a furriner ...

On Wed, 1 Sep 2004 12:16:50 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:

>
> (OK, I suppose the idea that all furriners speak Spanish is not as common in the
> 'States as that that all speak English is in Sweden. But it's not all our own
> fault I guess - yesterday night I met yet another of those foreign students who
> go to Sweden in order to improve their English. Freaking freaks!)

Around here in Monterey we assume foreigners to speak whatever we
think we can place their accent. If it's vaguely Latino and they look
latino then sometimes people will break out the Spanish. But usually
if you can communicate well enough in English to be understood, people
will explain things as simply (or complexly depending how fluent you
are) and then say: "God, I LOVE your accent! Where are you from?!"

We have so many tourists from around the world here we don't usually
attempt to place them, we simply just ask.

In Mexico people constantly told me my accent was good and I didn't
sound American. I was pretty amused because i thought I was butchering
it a lot (since i'd often omit /D/ and trilled /r/ didn't always
happen (context helps a lot). I knew I sounded bookish because I
didn't use any of the slang there (and I REFUSED to pick up a certain
slang word "guey" /wej/, which every Mexican male from 40 to 9 seemed
to put at the end of every sentence (i think i hate that word because
i was partnered with an idiot and he used it with every other word or
sentence:

¿Cómo estás guey?, ¿Barry guey, vamos a Santa Rosa guey, que piensas guey?

It´s equivalent to saying:

Hey dude like what´s up dude? Dude, you wanna like go to Santa Rosa?
Dude what do you like think?


--
Something gets lost when you translate,
It's hard to keep straight, perspective is everything

- Invisible ink - Aimee Mann -