(no subject)

[khiemtran]

I went to a new Vietnamese restaurant today. New to me, that is, it's actually been around for a while. Anyway, the food and the company were good, but there was the usual awkward moment when the staff realised my name. It's quite an obvious Vietnamese name, you see, and yet I don't look particularly Vietnamese and I'm not really comfortable speaking the language.

That last bit is interesting in itself. Relatively speaking, Vietnamese is actually one of my better languages, especially if I've had a week or two to "tune up". But I tend to forget it quickly and since my imaginary bar is set quite high, I'm always self-conscious about using it cold. I probably know fewer than a hundred words of Norwegian, yet I'm far more comfortable at "having a go" at it. No-one ever expects you to speak Norwegian, right? Actually, no-one ever really expects you to speak Vietnamese either, if you look like I do. But I expect that I should, and hence the problem.

On another day, I would have made a talking point of it, apologised for my poor speech and maybe made some smalltalk. Today, I just wasn't in the mood. I guess I'll just have to go back some other time and start over. I could always do with more places to practice.

Most of this is all self-inflicted, of course. The only one judging me is myself.

Comments

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

My grandparents knew five languages between them, other than English -- none of which I speak more than a very few words.

I'm curious: if you don't look particularly Vietnamese, do you look particularly something else?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

It depends on who is doing the looking, but I've had everything from Chilean to Indian and Arabic.

(Homeland Security has been a bit of a pain of late, now that they've learnt to recognize Vietnamese names...)

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

<intrigued> JPEG? :o