Being in Turkey now, its the first time in about 30 years that I have spent any significant amount of time in a country where I cannot speak the language. This has caused my mind to play some tricks on me. We spent 2 hours at the Paris airport and then about 3 hours flying Air France from Paris to Istanbul. As the flight attendant worked his way up the aisle offering food and drinks, I knew I would have to summon up my over-10 years of French study (5th grade through college) to respond to his upcoming French question. So, in my mind I practiced over and over again the French phrase, Pardon-moi. Je ne parle pas le français. (Im sorry. I dont speak French.) And finally when the attendant reached me and rattled off some unintelligible question in French, my mind switched to foreign language mode and I said, すみませんが... (SUMIMASEN GA... = Im sorry but...). Realizing I was speaking Japanese instead of French, I stopped myself and became a babbling idiot. Thankfully, the kind flight attendant switched to English. I was able to get something to eat and drink. How he knew I wasnt Japanese, Ill never know! Then, in Turkey, at a restaurant, I wanted to ask the waiter about a photo on the menu. I knew no Turkish at all, but my mind went into foreign language mode, and going the path of least resistance (in my case, Japanese) I pointed to the photo in the menu and started to say すみません。これは何ですか。(SUMIMASEN. KORE WA NAN DESU KA = Excuse me. What is this?). The waiter looked at me quizzically and I realized my faux-pas and somehow the waiter realized what I wanted to know and answered my question is passable English. It was lamb shish kebob. This afternoon I asked my my future daughter-in-law (who speaks perfect English) a question about a traffic sign written in Turkish. It was a STOP sign but I asked her how to pronounce the word DUR (stop). I didnt quite catch it so I responded in Japanese 何？ (NANI? = What?). Again my mind had gone into foreign language mode. I find that when I hear someone speak Turkish, my mind automatically goes into foreign language mode, I start thinking in Japanese and if someone speaks to me, even though I dont have any idea what they are saying, I want to respond in Japanese. But before doing so, I come to my senses and avoid an international crisis! My mind tells me that people are speaking a foreign language so I should also speak the only foreign language with which Im comfortable, Japanese, even though that is not a language that can be understood here! Its an interesting phenomenon!
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 16:41:21 +0000
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