Re: OT: Icelandic help

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 5:58 AM, Benct Philip Jonsson <melroch@...> wrote:
>  And yes, Icedlanders normally speak very fast.
*Everyone* normally speaks very fast from the perspective of L2
speakers (or non-speakers) of their L1.

> I had to say  "Gjerþu svo vel að tala hægara" all the time.  Probably they
>  didn't believe me because I pronounced it as
>
>  [,k_jEs:'vEl a't_ha:l 'hai)ra]
>
>  I'm too good a parrot, you see.
I have a friend who had similar issues when he was doing phone
solicitation in Atlanta.  When someone answered the phone in Spanish,
he would say "Lo siento, pero yo no hablo español" - except he got too
good at saying it and they stopped believing him.  Or else they were
just cursing him out regardless.  Phone solicitation does tend to
elicit that sort of reaction.

I do definitely have the "better parrot than listener" problem with
Spanish.  I've never understood all the people who say they can listen
and get the gist of something but can't say anything themselves; I've
always had the opposite problem.


--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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