Comment by jtheory | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jtheory | Hacker News Reader

I have many years of first-hand experience; I'm an American who has lived in (mostly rural) France since 2006.

This may well be true; but I've found that in actual, real-world interactions, the fact that I'm speaking a non-native language is mostly a disadvantage in decision-making.

I'm normally relatively non-confrontational even when speaking English. But in French, I've found that this is hugely magnified, and I suffer for it. Even when people are being unacceptably rude to me or people around me, I'm stuck being polite and agreeable.

In French, when someone calls me on the phone, trying to sell me something, I'm only now (after 6 years here) getting comfortable interrupting them.

Not long after moving here, I had a clearly intoxicated man invite himself into my house (even though my wife & I had two visitors staying with us), and he eventually even asked to borrow one of my women (because apparently my wife plus the two women visiting were "mine"?!), and I eventually got rid of him, but I never said anything remotely impolite.

I hired a local workman just starting his own construction business to replace the fence around our garden, and he persuaded me to pay in advance even though his incompetence was already becoming clear (and the end result was already falling apart by the time he "finished"). I never said anything confrontational.

These are embarrassing stories to tell; I'd never let things like this happen if I were on my own turf, linguistically. In English I can be subtly cutting, or curt, or strongly rude, or whatever I want with no further thought, when the situation calls for it.

In French, when someone insults me I'm still wondering if I may have misunderstood, or am missing social cues, or if I've accidentally offended them and their behavior is justified. In a confrontation, I immediately feel like I'm in over my head, and taking control of the situation is almost impossible.

It's slowly improving -- my French is already quite good, and I'm relearning how to manage in difficult situations.

But it's been a serious downside I hadn't expected before moving here, and if this is a general effect I imagine it would offset the advantages studied here pretty significantly.

I am French native living in Australia for 11 years. I came all alone at 21 with a suit case of 21 kg. The rest is history.

I don't relate to this research at all. I found my reactive thinking has always been slower than most native.

In fact, when I go see comedians, I will quite often start laughing half a second after everyone else.

Somewhere deep down, there is a rewiring done and some latency added naturally. I believe.

I am used to live with it. In fact, thinking in French hurts my head now.

So I wonder if it's not about the fact that the person in a different language is mostly in a different place in his mind, and therefore more feels analytic, naturally.

That, or I'm just an edge case.

I've also felt at a strong disadvantage in arguments with others in the first 5 years, now I just yell French and go ape at them (not really.)

Wow, I am 100% in agreement. I'm an American living in Mexico and find it much harder to be in confrontational situations in Spanish.

My Spanish is good, but I've had almost the exact same "workman" situation happen to me. I'm positive that a native speaker would have picked up on the subtleties of the conversation and not made the same mistake, but pressure like that does not lend itself well to thinking things through carefully while trying to navigate the landscape of a non-native language.

On top of that, I'm highly sensitive to the "Americans are loud and uncultured idiots" image that seems to persist in lots of places, so I tend to err on the side of being polite to counteract that, even to my occasional disadvantage.

When we lived in Austria, where I never learned much German, things were a bit like that. Much to my regret, I never told any of the smokers in the cafes to fuck off, even though they thoroughly deserved it, lighting up around children and my pregnant wife. ( I've always loved this comic: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/Kaiser0929/que4/smoki... )

Having lived on and off in Italy for far longer, and with a much more thorough grasp of the language, I don't hesitate to snap back at people when they deserve it. Although, truth be told, lately I've just been answering the telemarketers in English - I think it must be at least novel for them to hear a foreign language in what must otherwise be a fairly boring job, even though my interaction is pretty much limited to explaining that I'm not interested, thanks, bye.

I don't know about decision making processes though, I can't say I can recall which languages various decisions in my family were discussed in. I wonder if there's a threshold above which the language is not 'foreign' enough to cause the effect.

As someone who has been living on and off outside the US since 2005, I've gone through similar experiences.

Initially, I just believed it to be about your humor, in that you can't be yourself if you have lost your sense of humor. This is an easy and guaranteed thing to have happen when you are primarily using a foreign language. But it doesn't stop at something as light as humor.

I've had a lot of people take advantage of me, business-wise, while overseas, yet I never allowed this back home. It reached the point where I just decided not to work under foreigners anymore because work ethics aren't clear cut and 'misunderstandings' abound. It doesn't help that I live in a culture where it's seen as a positive to be one step ahead of the other person (even if they are working for/with you).

I can see that as I comprehend English more, tend to start being more offencive in it. 8 years ago I started Italian and now I know a deal of swear words, but not sure if I can produce them when, say, an Italian drops a thing on my foot. By the moment I can say something offencive, the peron will have 1-2 seconds to apologise.

I'd say new languages really disarm you. I can barely argue in Spanish, least to say an offencive word (although I've seen the famous Tano Pasman, el hincha del River), and not at all in Portugese.

Also, isn't it curious: we all know a bunch of swear words in our languages. We get to know them at early age, probably as soon as we have a need for them. But it takes years to get exposed to obscenities in a foreign language: books don't print them. Dictionaries often omit them. Radio and podcats also deliver correct content.

Another likely influence is that you just aren't good at feeling strong emotions in the foreign language. Like a weaker side effect of how you almost always swear in your native language, however infrequently you use it. Anger is the emotion that tells you you need to be uncooperative and unreasonable, but your brain's not used to being angry in French, so you just... aren't.

I'd be curious if this would improve if you got together with a group of drinking buddies or something and try just hurling insults at each other for a couple hours.

I agree with this. As a Mexican who studied for 3.5 years in the UK, sometimes it was challenging to "understand" that my fellow British colleagues were making sarcastic jokes (British humour and all that), I guess part of the reason was that they used a "sarcastic tone" which I was not aware of...

I have to disagree with you. I think it is cultural much more so than language. I have lived in a couple of cultures and travelled extensively during the past ten years. At the risk of offending more than a few, there's what some have come to call the "feminization" of American men. Maybe it's a result of the ability to sue anyone for anything, I don't know. But there's a very distinct characteristic to men (an women) from other cultures that will place the uber-polite American men and women at a disadvantage in certain situations.

Here's an example that isn't really about what I am talking about but speaks to the cultural and environmental differences:

Here in Los Angeles it is not too uncommon to see people crossing a street without even looking right or left and without continuously scanning for cars as they cross the street. I've also seen (kids!!!!) crossing the street running. Now, go down to Buenos Aires and try that on for size. Or do it in Rome. Or cross a bike path in Amsterdam without looking. You'll land yourself in a hospital, if you are lucky.

It's the same out in Manhattan, of course.

Non-scientific, non-extensive observation, but I don't think the lack of assertiveness has anything to do with language but rather culture. I can be assertive in a few languages, but I spent most of my young life in a more, shall we say, "fire-y" culture.

> Here in Los Angeles it is not too uncommon to see people crossing a street

I live in SM and work in West LA. Most of the crosswalks simply don't have lights. Not even the ones in the ground that flash yellow. If you don't go for it, you'll never cross because there's no reason for anyone to stop.

"Feminized" (and I disagree with this characterization because - have you met any females in latin or european countries? Quite assertive.) men would just stand there, waiting for traffic to stop. I see that here a lot from clueless people.

Locals like me just charge into traffic on foot, consequences be damned. I just walk in front of a 50MPH vehicle and stare them down and dare them to run me over. Hasn't happened yet. Try it some time, that's livin' ;)

> Try it some time, that's livin' ;)

Or so you hope.

"Feminized" isn't the right way to put it. I just threw it out there. As you correctly point out, women in other cultures are quite assertive. I should point out that I am not the one to coin the phrase:

http://www.askmen.com/dating/curtsmith_100/142_dating_advice...

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...

Walking in front of a car doing 50mph might be OK in West LA. Please don't try it in another country unless you want to experience their intensive care facilities.

On the point of crossing the street with fast moving traffic, you don't really need to do what you are doing. It's a dance. If you've ever been to Manhattan you know what I am talking about. Cross a little, wait, one more lane, wait, etc. No big deal if you know what you are doing.

What I am talking about is the total absence of the external appearance of awareness. It's one thing to cross the street and stare a driver in the eyes. It's quite another to cross the street while looking at the ground. I teach my kids that if there's no eye contact with the driver they don't get in front of that car. Plain and simple. They've also had some "training" in Manhattan and parts of Europe. You'll never see them cross a street without looking.

To be clear, being masculine does not mean being a complete asshole. In fact, quite the opposite, in my opinion. It's a balance. It's being a gentleman while remaining assertive and considerate. It is yielding your seat in the train to an older person. While, at the same time, not bending with the wind when it is important. It's about a balance that I can't fully define. All else being equal, I don't think it has anything whatsoever to do with language.

I find it somewhat cute you think New York and Europe have aggressive drivers. In my experience, with the exception of Rome, they basically follow the rules and give right of way. Boston is worse than NY. Nobody even stops at red lights.

Try visiting Asia. They actively try to hit pedestrians to teach them a lesson, especially in large cities like Shanghai in China (TW and SG and JP are a bit better).

The opposite end of the spectrum is Denver, CO. People just wander around in the streets. It's a known thing. The cab drivers all hate it.

My point is that the culture of LA allows it, so you should do it. LA isn't any of these places. And yes, I'm bragging about how well traveled I am right now.

I wasn't necessarily talking about drivers but rather people in inter-personal contact.

Asia is on my list. I've mainly done Europe and S. America. Almost went to Tokyo to study Aikido for six months but just couldn't pull it together. Maybe next time.

Wow, Japan, where they worship white people.

How adventurous and original of you. Did you think of that one all on your own?

Why HN is my favorite site. People bring up viewpoints that I haven't even thought of, yet agree with.

I live in S. America and I see the same thing you're talking about in BsAs...but I actually prefer the way crossing the street is (I think it's safe to say anywhere) outside of the US because it makes people be aware. I've found myself many times taking chances with this because of my US attitude that I can just sue anyone that might hit me (as an aside, my cousin was hit by an ambulance in the US and won 250K, then invested smartly and turned it into 1 mil...at 21 yrs old). These days, this viewpoint of suing people in another country makes me chuckle.

I can't speak generally, but in my case it's not primarily a cultural issue. I also spend a decent amount of time in urban Malaysia, and the cultural gap to that (from the east coast US, where I grew up) is a much further jump than I get coming here to France; but I'm interacting in English there, and I'm more comfortable if confrontation arises than when speaking French.

I've also traveled elsewhere (fairly widely in India), and the need for confrontation does arise (being a tourist in any hugely-trafficked area makes you a nice fat target if you can't stand up for yourself), but I got the hang of it -- again, speaking English. France is ridiculously tame, by comparison... but it's been here where I've had to relearn how not to get scammed.

I think the real problems were mentioned in other comments: added latency, and lack of gut emotional connection to the words. (Interestingly, the cultural-gap-doubt I mentioned -- "is this normal behavior?" -- applies to travel in places where I don't speak the language at all, like eastern Europe, but the latency doesn't, since I'm just sticking with English in my head).

Side note #1. I really bristle at the arguments (and terminology) about "feminization" of men; there uglier terms for this idea, but in any form it's offensive. The idea that any trend of men being less aggressive, dominating, and verbally or physically violent is NEGATIVE just blows my mind. There's a huge difference between calmly standing up for yourself (an admirable action in a man or woman) and strutting around with your fists always at the ready and a sneer on your mouth.

Societies in general are better places with fewer of the latter wandering around and breaking each others' noses. And most folks who are succeeding in life according to my definitions have far more social sophistication.

Side note #2: It's not that hard to cross a road in any country. If you've never been there before, just spend a few minutes observing people and cars, and do what works locally. Dunno how this has anything to do with gender or culture, though I do see Americans overseas who seem to think they haven't left America -- that may apply as a cultural failure.

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