What to do when people respond in English

It’s something that’s probably happened to everyone at some point or another: you’ve finally summed up the courage to speak in a language you’ve been studying, and the person you’re talking to responds to you in English, or another common language. Depending on the situation this can feel anything from amusing to mildly embarrassing to deeply demoralising, but what’s the best way to roll with it? There are several paths you can follow. 

Your first option is to continue speaking in English if that’s what you feel comfortable with. There’s no shame in doing so, and you might be helping out the other person, either because they want to practise or because it keeps the conversation moving faster. Also, the person you’re talking to might also be a non-native speaker of your target language and it might be genuinely easier for them to use English or another common language instead. 

Your second option is to continue responding in your target language even if they address you in English, although this can be challenging depending on how persistent the other person is, and depending on how receptive they are to letting you speak in their language. If after a few lines of dialogue you’re still getting nowhere, you might want to politely ask to continue the conversation in their language so that you can practice, and if you do so then it’s always worth saying that in the target language.

It can also be useful to consider how practical it is to continue using your new language in the present situation. Things to take into consideration are situational factors like whether you’re in a busy or safety-critical situation, whether there’s a queue of people waiting behind you, your level of rapport with the other person, and how likely you are to encounter them again. If it’s someone you anticipate coming into contact with often then you might feel more serious about trying to get into speaking in their language so that you don’t set a precedent of every conversation being in English. If, on the other hand, you’re just buying a ticket or a drink then it might be easier to respond in whatever language you’re spoken to in. 

Remember that if you’re early in your language-learning journey then you can become more persistent about speaking in your new language later, so just because people are speaking to you in English now doesn’t mean that you can’t switch to using your acquired language more as your command of it progresses. A lot of language-learning advice focuses on using your new language immediately, but in reality it can take a lot of passive exposure to a language before we really feel confident using it in active situations. If you hit too many setbacks at the beginning then it might become a morale blow that dissuades you from continuing, so be open to taking situations as they come and changing your approach later whenever you feel the time is right. 

Lastly, if you are really passionate about speaking in your chosen language and you keep getting responses in English or another shared language, try not to get too disheartened. It can be really demoralising, particularly if you’ve been studying that language for a long time or living long-term in a country where it is spoken, and particularly if for whatever reason you don’t look like the typical speaker of that language or if people constantly respond to you in the same way when you try to speak it. However, it’s worth being open to the idea that in a lot of cases people might respond to you in a different language either because they genuinely want to help you or because they want to practise speaking English or your language. It’s also worth mentioning, as written in a Duolingo blog post about this same topic, that if you’re operating in a foreign language then by definition you’re likely to be in a situation where you’re less able to interpret cultural cues and so it’s maybe better not to read too much into people’s motivations for not responding to you in their language. 

If on the other hand you feel that people are deliberately answering you in English or another language to demoralise you or to make you feel foreign, try not to take it personally. You can have a very good degree of fluency in a language and this kind of thing can still happen to you, even if you've been living in that country for a long time. In some cases, for whatever reason, people might just not be that receptive to foreigners. In other cases, they might judge you based on factors that are unrelated to you, such as prior experiences of being spoken to by learners who are less proficient at their language than you are. 

It’s also worth remembering that that accent bias is an unfortunate but very real phenomenon and that it’s something that’s virtually inescapable for anyone who learned a new language as an adult. Even non-native speakers with a very high level of proficiency can be judged as not only less competent in that language but also less competent generally, and that’s not your fault. And while it’s possibly worth being aware of the fact that speaking with an accent is an additional hurdle that you might have to overcome, it’s also important to remember that speaking with an accent is proof that you speak at least one non-native language fluently, which is also something to feel proud rather than ashamed of. It’s also worth using your adverse experiences to be more empathetic towards people who are trying their best to speak in your language, since a lot of the time only other language learners understand that particular struggle. 

Lastly, even if your command of that language is very good you can always improve your conversational fluency by gaining exposure to a wide variety of ways of speaking in your target language and trying to spend time with native speakers of that language where possible, since this will help you to feel more confident. Learning local idioms and colloquial ways of speaking, particularly if you’re in a place where a less commonly-spoken variant of a language is used, might also help you to build up a rapport with people, as will expanding your range of cultural references in that language, so that you’re better to able to understand factors like humour.

And most importantly, don't stop trying! Becoming comfortable using a new language is a marathon rather than a sprint, and it typically involves a lot of setbacks on the way to progress. Try to find small ways to keep moving forwards. 

That wraps up this month’s translation industry updates, but if you have any additional suggestions then we’d love to hear them in the comments. Happy learning (and speaking), and see you again for next month’s updates! 

Sources 

Kristin Bach | Duolingo blog

Dear Duolingo: What should I do when people switch to English?

https://blog.duolingo.com/people-switch-to-english-when-i-want-to-practice  

Alice Foucart, Luca Bazzi and Susanne Brouwer | The Conversation

How foreign accents subconsciously shape the way we interact

https://theconversation.com/how-foreign-accents-subconsciously-shape-the-way-we-interact-252689