Hi, everyone! Welcome to my blog! Hope you guys can enjoy the video and have fun~ Hoo Hoo!
This video, made by international students in America, lists almost all the situations of using foreign languages. Bilingual people can change their languages whenever they want to say secrets, describe their feeling in a better way, or even switch in the mid sentance. Some situations in the video remind me of my past experiences in my daily life. For me, I choose to use either English or Chinese due to the person I speak with. However, when I was talking with my American friends and Chinese friends in the same time, Chinese words sometimes just jumps out of my mouth and my American friends will get confused. I never mean to do this, but if that happens, I will translate what I just said into in Chinese, since I know people around will feel frustrating and uncomfortable.
However, when watching the video, the subtitle enables me to understand every language they are speaking without feeling confusion. Therefore, I don't feel sad when people cannot get the meaning and try to guess the meaning, and the more confused they are, the more hilarious I felt. For example, when I saw Steven was suffering from listening the girls says random negative words, I knew he has the illusion that the girl is complaining about him, and he might even try to recall if he did something wrong recently. For him, the foreign language is like a secret code which has latent meanings, and probably those meanings are not friendly. However, by reading the subtitle, we knew the conversation is just about the boring class and awful meal, which have no relationship with him. The ability of understanding inside story gives us superior feeling that enables us to laugh at the characters without being confused.
In the first scene, it shows that bilingual people can use their own language to say secrets in public; however, everything will go well until others start to talk with you in your own language. It is always surprised to know people can speak our own language. One day, the cook in DH said Thank you in Chinese when I has already got ready to say "You are welcome". I was suddenly amazed that he can speak Chinese, and then when I try to answer him in Chinese, I failed, because it is so hard to change languages in a second, so I just spoke in English like usual, but he then said," I am sorry, I thought you are Chinese." At that moment, I was a little embarrassing, but after I explained, we both laughed and felt it is so interesting to speak in different language. Although there are more and more people learn foreign languages, we still use Chinese to say a lot of personal experiences in the public. For example, my friend and I sometimes talk about our private life in the public just like greeting for each other, while others just thought we are saying how are you or hello.
This video makes me recall many similar experiences happened in my life. The reason I shared this video is not just because it is interesting, but also because I think although America is very racially diverse, it is not that linguistically diverse. I hope this blog can help you guys know how amazing it is to speak multiple languages, and I am glad to hear your experiences or thoughts on this topic.
That is very true that linguistic diversity is surprisingly weak in America despite the racial and ethnic diversity. Of course, there are some cities where this is not the case, but they are the exception, not the rule. In places like New York and Los Angeles, it is possible not to speak English all day in some areas.
回复删除It is fascinating how switching languages can be an example of comedic incongruity. Perhaps in a way comedy is always a type of "language switching"--not between two different national languages, but between two different ways of speaking or thinking, two different places in language. Switching languages, then, can be a great way of highlighting comic possibilities.