Yesterday I was talking on the phone to a friend called Christophe, who is French and lives with his partner in Barcelona. We were discussing plans for going to the Pyrenees this weekend.
We met on a Catalan course last year, but, curiously, he also speaks Norwegian from having learnt it years ago. We have a habit of speaking sometimes in Catalan, and sometimes in Norwegian, depending on which we feel most like practising at the time.
This time it wasn’t clear at first which language we were going to use, but I was feeling tired and a little stressed and because of this I asked him if we could speak in Catalan.
Now, this seems a bit strange… In Norwegian I am a native speaker and he has a more-or-less intermediate level (but lacking practice). In Catalan I am on the low- and he is on the high end of intermediate. Being tired and stressed, I wanted to be sure that I was in control of the conversation. So, logically I should I have been more comfortable speaking in Norwegian, shouldn’t I?
I think I felt that speaking the language where my level was higher than his, I would say something that he would not understand correctly, without me noticing; whereas speaking in the language where my level was lower than his, any misunderstanding would be on my part, and I would therefore be able to get clarification.
Speaking in the language where I was at a disadvantage meant, therefore, that I was more in control!
(Of course we could just have spoken in English, where I suppose we are both equally fluent, but what would be the fun in that?)
This is exactly how it is when I speak with finnish speaking friends. If they are comfortable with swedish then we use that (I’m worse in swedish than most finns) and if not, then english is the lingua franca. Pretty cool what you say about control of conversation, or maybe meaning, it resonates with how I feel when I try to inverview people about their information needs in the library. I try to get them to use as technical language as possible, and then I ask for clarification. Best way to avoid misnunderstanding:-)
Great post!
Th.
Comment by Thomas — 2009-07-01 @ 11:14
I think I know what both of you mean, and here’s another aspect:
When I’m tired, I find it easier to listen to someone who is reasonably fluent in the language they’re speaking. I recongize and understand far more words than I can actively use. Even if others use a language at a level far above mine, I may still be able to understand or (relatively) easily reason my way to what they meant. But ‘debugging’ a language the speaker doesn’t master so well, takes a lot of attention, and is stressful, when you’re allready tired :-)
Comment by Hege Folkestad — 2009-07-02 @ 12:36