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LOL. My favorite is the observed tactic of repeating the English words slowly, loudly and firmly with a slight edge. Apparently that will make the natives understand. ;-)>
>We had a very good German friend - Gaby Lochmann - that came to visit us with her husband Hans some years ago. We were shopping and when Gaby didn't understand the sales woman, the sales woman started talking louder and louder as if that would help Gaby to understand. Gaby finally turned to the sales woman and said "I am German. I am not deaf."
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>Having spoken at many conference where English was not the first language of most of the attendees, I can tell you that enunciating and leaving a small pause between words really does help with comprehension - the same as it does for me when I am trying to understand someone speaking Spanish. Without the pause and the enunciation, it all sounds like gibberish.
Very good point about the
pause. Even a pause between sentences makes quite a difference in understanding a foreign language.
"The creative process is nothing but a series of crises." Isaac Bashevis Singer
"My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all." Oscar Wilde
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." W.Somerset Maugham
