When your friends visit

[Saholy]

Have you ever lived in a country whose language you are trying to learn and then had friends and family come to visit? Do you find this a challenge? We are trying to travel with a friend at the moment who is insisting on speaking English to everyone. We try to help with translation but it ends up being more of an embarrassing situation that being helpful. Does anyone have any tips for traveling with a new arrival who is very limited in their knowledge of the local language. It seems any visitors we have had, have struggled more than we were expecting. I'm trying to find a pattern that works for everyone but it might be something that has to be handled on an individual basis. 

[宇崎ちゃん]

I had a nice experience recently.
My mum can speak Dutch and Polish, but no English, her childhood friend can speak Polish and English, but no Dutch, and her childhood friends boyfriend can speak Dutch and English, but no Polish.

This made explaining stuff to all 3 of them at once impossible, I often had to explain things twice until the message came to all 3 of them, while 1 of the 3 would always hear the message twice.
And I functioned as a translator too, since I was the only one that could speak all 3 languages.

[Trellum]

Well, there were so many misunderstandings with my future father in law several times because his English is just too crappy, and my dutch was just nonexistent back then. Oh yes, things will be very hard until I can learn proper dutch and can get my point across  It's so hard when you move into a new country, fortunately most people in the Netherlands speak English, not all of them of course, but many of them  do or at least the one I have met so far

[lushlala]

I often hang out with expat friends who are keen to learn the local language. There are a few awkward but also funny moments here and there as they try to get their tongues and brains wrapped around the language, but I don't think we've yet experienced anything embarrassing. The approach that we've taken is for them to just go with the flow, and basically have fun with it. Of course, as with any language learners, you just encourage them to practice as much as possible, be their sounding board and their guide. You don't want the experience to become a chore and something that they end up hating because of the negative experience.

[roger1003]

What I would advise them would be to just calm down and feel okay about it. They will learn the language naturally, just like how newborn babies learn a language. They are with a local, so they would be fine.

[宇崎ちゃん]

4 hours ago, roger1003 said:

What I would advise them would be to just calm down and feel okay about it. They will learn the language naturally, just like how newborn babies learn a language. They are with a local, so they would be fine.

Not unless you spend a long time with them speaking their language constantly.
Back when I was in Spain, I had to speak Spanish with most locals, but:
1. I've been there for only 1 week.
2. I spent more time talking Polish to my mum, Dutch to my younger sister, and English and Japanese online.

So just being with locals alone isn't enough.

[darkchild]

I guess the person is just excited to speak English. Encourage him to relax and take time to say his words clearly, be ready to correct and assist. It is normal for someone learning a language and then given the opportunity to speak publicly.

You could make the embarrassing moment a chatty one to amuse everyone but not to discourage the new speaker.

[reverserewind]

Well, I have no idea if it exactly applies to this topic. Anyway, I'm gonna tell you this. I have a couple of friends in Italy. They usually visit me once a year. Even though I've been learning their language, let's say, semi-hard for 3 years, I still prefer talking to them in English. I know a lot about Italian. I can say something very complex. However, I'm still not fluent. The only way to solve this is to practice more. The only method is talking to natives. And, of corse, a lot of listening, too.