Does it count if both characters are perfectly fluent in both languages, but do it so that eavesdroppers need to also be fluent in both languages to understand what's going on?
Is this what is happening in books like Amy Tan's where Chinese or Chinese-American characters speak mostly English, but drop in a word or two (or a sentence) of Mandarin here and there?
I have found that it is the small everyday deed of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. - Tolkien Hide / Show Replies
That is a different trope; can't remember right now what it is.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
That can't be right what it says in the article about listening being the easiest and first step in learning a language. Reading is. I know this from experience, I can read Germand and French and Spanish with no problems, and I still can't make out a single word of spoken French or Spanish (German is a bit better). I mean, it makes sense - you can read at your own pace, while listening is real time and you have to deal with dialects, etc.
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I came to the discussion page to complain about that point, only to discover that someone else already pointed it out. Anyway, I'm going to remove the offending passage, since it appears to be incorrect. In my personal experience, reading is a lot easier than listening as well.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play
It depends on the language. Japanese uses Chinese characters that take a lot of time and effort to learn how to recognize and read (unless you're a native Chinese speaker). Most English speakers become proficient at listening to and speaking Japanese much more quickly than reading or writing it.
It also depends largely on how it's learned. I can understand spoken Spanish better than I can read it, because I learned what little Spanish I know in a listen-and-repeat style class. But I read French better than I can understand it spoken, because I learned what little French I know by reading it.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Does _Children of a Lesser God_ (at least the stage play which I've seen) and similar examples apply to this trope?
These are scenes where a deaf and a hearing character - and in many cases actor - are sharing a scene. The hearing character will say the lines of both characters, while the deaf character will reply mostly or entirely in sign language.
(I think this has also been used, at least, on TV in Reasonable Doubts, CSI, and Picket Fences)
Lost In Fog
In the mid-1980s, I attended (in the U.S.) a very small, informal presentation by some Nicaraguans about the situation in their country. They gave their presentation in pretty good English, but halted quite a bit when it came to longer, more technical and jargonistic political words. After awhile, it became clear that, since most of that stuff is Latin-based, it was easier for all concerned if they just used their native Spanish for any words they couldn't translate into English, as they were probably the same anyway.
This Loser Is Me
I think the recent tech troubles messed up the character coding on this page, rendering several paragraphs broken.
Edited by Korodzik Hide / Show Replies
Japanese, German, French, Hebrew, Chinese, Russian. Bonus points for me for recognizing all of the languages except for Japanese by sight(even if I can't understand them)! :D
V?e tambi?Bono Biling?, Silencioso Bob. Usualmente evita casos de Elocuente En Mi Lengua Nativa. Idunno...maybe Italian?
That's the only one that the translator I'm using(Bing) doesn't translate properly.
Edited by Anaheyla This is still a signature.
That's Spanish. The question marks are probably because of incorrect coding, but I'm pretty sure the first part's supposed to say 'Ve tambien' which means 'See also'. I don't know how to add the accent marks.
Edited by 173.171.214.130
My guidebook to Ireland says most Irish people actually don't know that much Gaelic beyond a few stock phrases. Who is telling the truth?
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Needs a non self demonstrating version
, started by storyyeller on May 21st 2011 at 1:06:44 AM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman