• GingaNinga@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I would fully expect to get made fun of if I said something funny by accident in a different language. I’ve had that happen when I tried speaking Thai in thailand and spanish in south america and you know what? It is funny! They explain why its funny and everyone has a good laugh and I learned something! Thats how I found out the double meaning of caliente! Languages are hard and sometimes the mistakes happen to be hilarious, its not punching down. I probably sound ridiculous to a native speaker but at least I know that and I’m making an effort.

    • fine_sandy_bottom
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      14 hours ago

      This isn’t saying something funny by accident though.

      When you’re on holiday and you ask the barman for nipple juice sure, you can all have a good laugh about languages.

      This person is an employee, doing their best to perform a complex task that you were lucky enough to learn as a child. Imagine walking into the shop and having a good old laugh with the signs author about their bad spelling. I don’t think they would find it very funny.

      Additionally, there’s a profound difference between having a light-hearted joke with someone, and posting it on social media where everyone can make lame jokes about people struggling to get by using English as a second language.

      Honestly, I’m amazed that you’re insensitive enough not to understand that the two situations are completely different.

    • Drusas@fedia.io
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      20 hours ago

      It might be funny to you personally, but other people might be more self-conscious. When I first moved to Japan, I was extremely self-conscious about speaking Japanese because I knew I was making tons of errors and had the vocabulary of a college educated 5-year-old.

        • Drusas@fedia.io
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          18 hours ago

          I was below age at first, not that that stopped me completely. But yeah, when I returned to Japan a few years later, that helped a lot. A lot a lot. Alcohol may be poison, but it’s great for helping you learn a language.

          • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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            16 hours ago

            Also the reason I still have trouble using even the most basic politeness levels in my speech here-- people at the bars definitely weren’t throwing around keigo, and even -masu didn’t often make it past beer #2.

            • Drusas@fedia.io
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              14 hours ago

              Hah!

              I guess I had the fortune / misfortune of working for a very traditional company. So I heard plenty of keigo at work.