Re: Excuse me, ...?

Hello!

From: "Carsten Becker" <post@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 6:39 PM
Subject: Excuse me, ...?


> Hello everyone,
>
> I wanted to ask you what to do (/what you do) when you hear someone
talking
> in an interesting sounding language you do not know but it would be
unpolite
> to ask in that situation (e.g. someone is speaking to his/her
> telephone/mobile, the table next to your one in a restaurant, ...).
> I had this situation recently, I'm still wondering whether I should
have
> asked or not.
>
> Carsten
Leafing through my archive of mails, I found this one. It's still
unanswered. I'm just curious. Perhaps to make it clearer what I mean:
Someone talks in a language that sounds interesting, but you absolutely
do not know which language this might be. As I said, this occured to me
"recently". A woman answered her mobile speaking a language I did not
know what it might be. Standing there, waiting and asking *then* would
seem a little odd and would make the person feel uncomfortable. But
disturbing a person you don't know while he/she is speaking with someone
is also impolite I think. What could I have done?

-- Carsten

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