“How the fuck you know Bulgarian?”
Full disclosure: I don’t know Bulgarian.
But per usual I was trying to use as much of the local language as possible while ordering from a local fast food grill tended by a handful of young men. As I struggled through my order reading the Bulgarian Cyrillic words on the menu and the guy at the cash register patiently noted down each thing, another employee standing behind him cut in to say “I appreciate your Bulgarian skills man, but we all speak English here.” And then added with a confused tone “How the fuck you know Bulgarian?” I explained I was trying to pick up some of the language while traveling and then finished my order in the language he’d suggested.
Responses to my attempts to use languages while traveling the Balkans this summer varied widely. Sometimes people continued in the language as if I knew it well — this was always fun to feel like I had convinced them I knew the language but of course I didn’t know any of these languages. Often I’d have to switch to or ask for English hoping they could switch and help me as well. Other times I could navigate my way through the entire interaction without switching to English. The latter were of course the most exciting moments.
Naturally, sometimes people would recognize my struggle and simply switch to English. My girlfriend and I went out to a restaurant when we first arrived in Zagreb. We were greeted in Croatian, so we played along. As our server was seating us he asked us a couple questions. I quickly started losing meaning in the conversation, but then realized we were getting menus. When he came back to take our order, I completely lost what he was talking about, yet my girlfriend was sticking with Croatian. I responded to him in English, she stuck with Croatian and then finally he said in an almost exasperated voice “Are we speaking English or Croatian?”. I felt chastened and we continued the rest of our interactions with him in English. I don’t know if he thought we were insulting his English abilities by using Croatian, or if he just didn’t like mixing the languages, but clearly not everyone is ready for each conversation participant to bring all their language knowledge to bear in an interaction.
But there are also moments when people appreciated my attempts. While in Niš, Serbia I needed to buy a tie (since we were headed to a wedding later in the summer). We walked into a small shop and the salesclerk greeted us in Serbian, so as usual we tried to use Serbian as long as we could. This particular day I must have been more focused or more brave, but in some garbled Serbian I managed to communicate that I had two shirts with me and I wanted the tie to match both. The salesclerk responded acknowledging that she understood and offered an opinion on the tie we were looking at. Once we’d settled on a tie and walked up to the sales counter, the clerk complimented our Serbian, and then asked in very simple questions how we knew Serbian, where we were from and whether we lived in Serbia. She switched to English to clarify when I was slow to answer one question, but primarily she slowed down and simplified her questions so that I could understand in Serbian. Even though she knew some English (more English than I knew Serbian certainly) she seemed to enjoy the conversation and chose to adjust her communication to keep our communication in Serbian going.
There were also moments where trying to use the local language seemed to help others as well. While visiting Sofia, Bulgaria, we stopped for dinner at a small, unassuming restaurant at the foot of the apartment building where we were staying. We started our conversation in Bulgarian (at least the best we could… as I’ve already pointed out I don’t actually know Bulgarian). The server followed along and spoke back to us in Bulgarian. The communication started well, but when we ran into questions about the menu our communication ran into challenges. We made our way through the questions more or less, then the server shyly tried some English to clarify. She spoke slowly and uncertainly, but we immediately understood what she was saying and she answered our question about the menu. Despite this brief success in English (and our clear struggle in Bulgarian), she immediately switched back to Bulgarian. Throughout our interactions she only switched to English when necessary, or if it only required a word or two. She spoke and understood English well (as usual better than we could speak and understand Bulgarian), but seemed quite shy about using it. This was perhaps the most rewarding moment trying to use local language, not because it was the most effectively I’d ever communicated, but because after we tried to speak Bulgarian, and despite our own uncertainties stuck with it fearlessly (some might say shamelessly), we created a situation where our server felt safe and comfortable enough to open up with her own English. But I was only ready for this interaction because I’d tried so many times to speak whatever language I was in. It makes me wonder how our server would have reacted if we’d walked in speaking only English. Given her shyness about using it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it would have been an intimidating situation for her. To successfully communicate we probably needed to be half in English (for us to understand) and half in Bulgarian (so our server could keep up too).
While some people clearly appreciated my attempts at speaking their language, others were ready to switch to English and take the most efficient route through our interaction. Approaching these situations as opportunities to expand my language repertoire required flexibility, a willingness to be confused, to ask for help and to switch languages on a dime. It was challenging but exciting. While in some moments we were clearly switching between different languages, I think in other moments we were helping each other with language, bringing all our linguistic resources to bear — finding the overlap and supporting one another toward productive communication. And while there are certainly some language teachers who’d cringe at my “language mixing” (so impure!), if anyone asks me how the fuck I know Bulgarian again, I can say the little I picked up is because I was willing to use and mix whatever bits of language I’ve got in any situation.
