Marlana
When you meet someone who is rude (who is a native speaker in your target language)
For most of us, learning a new language opens us up to new people from other countries and cultures that we love. Many people feel happiness to meet people from these other places to practice our new language and learn more about where they're from.

But sometimes...we meet someone rude. I'm talking specifically about people who are native speakers of the language you're learning, and for whatever the reason, decided to be unpleasant to you, trying to put a damper on your day.

How did you feel in these situations? How did you pick yourself up from a bad experience with someone? Did the experience make you feel any resentment about learning the language? Did you bear in mind there are rude people everywhere? Did the encounter even affect you at all?
Jun 20, 2020 12:22 AM
Comments · 18
6
Unless you are talking about culture clash, which is a completely different matter, I don't think rudeness has anything to do with the language one speaks. Rudeness is a character trait. You will find rude and inconsiderate people in every single language that exists.

I would certainly not give up on my target language. However I would say farewell to whoever treats me badly, and look for kind and considerate people to practice with.
June 20, 2020
6
If it’s just once in a while, I’d completely ignore it. If it happened a lot, I’d find a new target language. That's one way to save time in language learning. There are so many languages I'd love to learn.

June 20, 2020
4
I'm from Israel and since there are lots of disputes regarding Israel and Palestine, it does happen from time to time, that people try to connect to me only to let me know what they think about me, my family and my country. I'm learning Arabic and I even had a teacher at this site that just refused to teach me (without ever talking with me, so her decision was not based on my personality of something that I've done). When ever someone feels the need to let me know what he thinks about me, I make them understand that I'm not here to pick a fight. With most of them, that would be the end of it and I won't hear from them again. Some of them continued so I just blocked them. One of them continued talking with me in a normal language and we ended up being good friends. We actually speak with each other few times a week.
June 20, 2020
3
The thing about rudeness is the fact that it's relative just like many other things. While I find it rude not to thank the one who corrected my notebook entry (or not to be thanked for taking the time to correct someone's entry), others may just find it normal and ok.

Since I've never looked for a language partner before and usually study on my own and take language lessons whenever I can, it happened to me once that my teacher simply yelled at my face all of a sudden when I asked her to start with something in my class before the other thing. What I asked for wasn't going to ruin what she had prepared for me in any way, but I was simply yelled at and told that (no, this is not possible and stick to the way I prepared things). My face became in colours mostly green like Kermit because I was shocked for the way she reacted and I wasn't really sure where I went wrong. I only asked nicely! It was even a suggestion and since it was my 1 on 1 class, I didn't really think of it as weird to ask for what I want. I gathered myself that day and continued the class normally as if nothing happened.
Told myself I would give her another chance (because it's possible that she was having a bad day) but it happened again!
I don't usually stay quiet in these situations but she was old and I just couldn't break that cultural thing we have about treating the old people nicely no matter what. So I kept quiet and thanked her as I normally do but never booked any class with her after that.

The way people of my target languages behave would never change my idea about the language itself and I would definitely stick to learning it. The only action I would take is staying away from these individuals and avoid them like the plague :D

June 24, 2020
3
I find the general trend in the population; then perhaps look at the city, but at the end of the day,if someone leaves me feeling worse off for having met them, why should I stick around? Leave.
June 20, 2020
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