Expatica.com, a website for expats living and working in Holland, has a guest weekly blogger who can write 'wry commentary on expat life in Holland'. He writes about being a non-conformist in a country where more and more people are becoming nationalistic, which isn't always good for people like us ---> immigrants! I think it is a good post/article, and I can naturally very much identify with some of his language issues/problems. This in particular:
"I no longer try to communicate with shop assistants in my imperfect Dutch. They do not react as in other countries, where delight greets your attempt to speak the language. At the very first mistake the arm is raised. A yellow card is unavoidable. One more wrongly pronounced vowel and it's red. You hear, 'So! Now we will both speak English, together.' What a thrill! "
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=38220
This is what I am partly so afraid of. I feel guilty that I should be speaking their language in their country, but the few times I do try, shop keepers or whoever, can obviously tell right away that Dutch is not my native language, so they respond in English, without even first seeing if I understand their response (besides the IKEA incident). This whole process is just so frustrating. I feel guilty for not speaking 'their' language, but geeze, I've only been here a few weeks, and granted I've lived here before (but they don't know that!), but that was as a student when English worked all the time and I didn't care what shop owners thought of me. Now I'm supposed to be an actual resident, long term, and I do care what other people think of me...especially when I don't have a support group/friends that I belong to here. I can't magically speak Dutch, and its a very hard language at that. There are vowel sounds I simply cannot say. For example...the most important and embarrassing example...I can't even pronounce the 'ieu' in the name of the person I moved here to be with!
A more practical example...yesterday I went to the Aboriginal Museum in Utrecht, since I have the museum card and the ticket is then free...and I have nothing else to do...I went in and wanted to get a entrance ticket. Perhaps I did not start the conversation off as a proper Dutch person would, but I spoke in Dutch. Red card goes up; the girl, who looked my age, looked at me and took a stab in the dark and squinted, and asked, "English?" and I replied.."sure"....another attempt denied. She was trying to be nice I'm sure, as she handed me a booklet of the English translations of the artists' biography. I can't go a day without this happening at least once. That is, unless I stay inside and not go anywhere.
Due to my sensitive and sometimes anxious personality, I (want to) avoid interactions like this. I realized I was in the fitting room at the 'WE' clothing store and I knew I wouldn't know how to respond to the girl on the way out while giving my clothes back that I didn't want them. For the whole 5 minutes I was in there, I was thinking of what to say..and I knew in the end I wouldn't be able to say anything. Well, at least I walked away too fast for her to say something in English.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment