in reply to Chatterbox Linguistics

Tone, posture, and facial expressions. That often gives large amounts of context. In fact, some studies were done and if someone spoke gibberish in an angry tone as opposed to a happy tone, others reacted to the tone more than the words. (This is similar to the post about two months ago re: misplleing the insdies of wrods lngoer more than four letetrs long, so long as the fisrt and last ltteers were rhgit.)

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Re^2: Chatterbox Linguistics
by demerphq (Chancellor) on Aug 25, 2004 at 08:57 UTC

    When you aren't used to it and are missing emotional indicators like facial expressions or hand gestures innocuous German conversations can be easily mistaken by an English ear for a very high tempered argument. When I first got here I thought Germans were always arguing with each other. The my ear acclimatised and now I know they argue in public no more than we do. :-)


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    demerphq

      First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
      -- Gandhi
[reply]
      That reminds me of the Simpsons Episode Lost our Lisa, where Lisa Simpson gets lost in the Russian district of Springfield: 
      % Lisa walks around the Russian district of Springfield. She walks over to
% two chess players.

 Lisa: Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the museum?
  Man: (Shouting in Russian. Dialogue is translated at bottom of screen)
       My pleasure. It's six blocks that way. (Lisa runs away.)
  Man: (Shouting) Hey, she went the wrong way.
Man 2: Checkmate. (the other man throws the chess board to the ground.)
  Man: (Shouting) Good game. How about another?
[reply]

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