Conversational Klingon

[naQ]

Does anyone know what it's like to use Klingon in social conversation?
Post your experiences...
Mine was basically listening to someone spreak in Klingon. It was an interesting thing, because I learned how to make certain sounds that I had previously attempted to make (usually ending in a 5 second sound with spit flying everywhere, like Q)

[ter'eS]

What do you mean?  Are you talking about what it's like to speak Klingon, or what it's like to hold a conversation in it?

I've only had a few conversations in Klingon; it's about the same as holding a conversation in a language neither speaker knows really well (like conversations in your language classes in school).  The better speakers are more fluent, the rest of us just nod and get a thrill when we catch a joke.

As for speaking it, I've done that quite a bit, for recordings, mostly.  I think my accent is pretty good, but I don't end up spitting a lot.  It's all very well to tell outsiders as a joke that you can't speak Klingon without spitting, but in RL, you can, and I'd find all that spitting to be totally gross!

[Qunchuy]

Carrying on conversations in Klingon is simultaneously mundane and exotic.

It's mundane because it's almost exactly like talking to someone in any language you both know well. You discuss what you did on vacation, what sorts of things you're learning in school or work training, the odd dream you had the previous night, where to go for lunch, things like that. This of course requires that both you and the others participating be conversationally fluent.

It's exotic for two reasons. First, you are often aware that others around you cannot understand what is being said, even while it is all perfectly clear to you. Second, since Klingon vocabularly is ill-suited to certain contexts, there are occasional moments of appreciation (and even sheer linguistic joy) when a particularly effective turn of phrase gets used.

Alas, opportunities for me to enjoy such conversations are rare, and two of the people I consider extremely fluent in Klingon no longer attend the conferences where Klingon linguaphiles meet. All of my Klingon conversation these days takes place by email.