It’s not that much of a problem in France once you get out of Paris and Lyon
That’s because Paris and Lyon remove the “please”
I think people have a better english in big cities than in small ones and it’s a trend to hate parisians in France for no actual reason.
Source : lived around Paris my whole life apart from an exchange semester. I now live in a smaller city far from Paris
As an American who learned German, this is very accurate for the krautistanis.
Until you get to a certain point, and then every German turns into your 10th grade German teacher .
I hadn’t spoken German in 9 years, and the help desk lady at the airport told me if I don’t practice I won’t get better. At the airport.
True, kinda. But every foreigner I met who is not Russian learns at least some conversational Lithuanian really quickly.
Ive heard from a few different tourists who went to places like Italy and South and Centeral American countries, and aparently often times people there want to practice their english which can cause quite the funny scene where you’re both speaking each others language poorly at one another.
This happened to me in Ecuador! Hah! It was nice for learning as each one can correct the other if they fumble any pronunciation
That’s actually one of the best ways to learn a language short of full immersion, we call it a tandem!
Fun fact: in Soyuz-Apollo docking Soviet crew speaked English and American speaked Russian.
Sprich Deutsch, Du Hurensohn!
Yeah I lived in Germany and speaking German was not encouraged. In France, they pretended they didn’t speak English and ignored you if you spoke in broken French.
Interesting, that hasn’t been my experience. I found that French people appreciated that I’d made an attempt and then they’d talk to me in English if they spoke it. Sometimes they just replied in French as well and then I’d ask if they spoke English because my French sucks.
Interesting, that hasn’t been my experience. I found that French people appreciated that I’d made an attempt…
That was also my experience in Parisian places of business. In terms of the streets, I agree with OP they were less motivated to engage.
In terms of rural areas, I wouldn’t be surprised if dialectical française was the only thing spoken or listened to… kind of a different situation entirely. For example, one might be completely fluent at course-taught or Parisian French, and still have a devil of a time.
Thirded. Had zero trouble. Made sure the prerequisite greeting was in place and was able to ask if they spoke English, absolutely use the please and thank you, everything went fine. Never encountered anyone rude, even if English wasn’t spoken people were generally helpful or at least willing to figure out what was needed.
Courtesy and understanding go a long way.
Most Germans are just trying to be helpful when they talk to you in English. You can straight up tell them “Wir können auch Deutsch sprechen” and they will have no problem switching.
Hahaha this was my experience. I can hold very light conversations in Québec French like to ask directions, how’s it going, ordering tickets and food and the like. I’ve gotten a few stares like I’m a mythical swampbeast who just awoke from a 100 year slumber.
Also my experience in French-speaking parts of Belgium.
I had a guy in a chip shop give me the nastiest scowl after ordering in french out of the phrase book.
Imagine being that much of an arsehole. Like he’s swanning over to Italy with perfect Italian.
I honestly can’t understand people with that level of built in bad intent towards well intentioned people.
Like he’s swanning over to Italy with perfect Italian.
That’s the thing: people like that don’t travel.
Maybe I am assuming a lot of things here but is this your experience with businesses or people in the streets ?
In France we have a totally different approach than Americans for exemple regarding people we don’t know. Even between french speakers we will generally not be light chatting with strangers (exacerbated in dense populated areas like Paris/Lyon), as opposed (as I understand) to Americans who can talk to anyone anywhere.
I often wonder if this sentiment of disdain for English speakers is not due to this misunderstanding of our habits.
Wait is this a thing in the US? It would explain why they are so surprised that nobody talks to strangers in the street and ignore them, it’s just normal for me
So you lived in Berlin.
Just recently, I was in France and all the reactions were just lovely. Everyone replied in French to my French but asked if we should continue in English, when they noticed my understanding was incomplete.
Some cashiers spoke really fast, so I just pretended I understood and nodded. But everyone was very accommodating and repeated sentences if I asked or explained with different words.
Most people even spoke English with my colleagues, who don’t speak French, and French with me. Even one waitress, whose English was really at the beginner level, made it work.
Went to a pub in Reykjavik.
English Brother-in-law had finally decided to learn the language after like 15 years of living there. Had just about learned enough to order the drinks and have a basic conversation.
He orders slowly. The barman looks increasingly perplexed. He finishes and looks up, proud of his first real test of Icelandic.
“Sorry mate, I dunno what you’re saying” says the barman in a thick Australian accent.
Honestly, just try English. Most small European countries speak it better than we do.
Lol I have a similar problem, I’m from Iceland but I don’t live there anymore, so whenever I go back I try to enjoy the novelty of speaking my native language as much as possible. Trouble is, almost every service worker downtown doesn’t even speak Icelandic lol
I remember this one. I love this story.
I was confused for a moment why the purple regions don’t appear in the legend then I realised those are mostly populated by fish
The Spaniards like that?
I remember one time I was at a resort in Mexico and I asked reddit how service workers feel when foreign guests start speaking their language. Don’t remember what the hive mind said.
All I know is I asked for my drinks muy fuerte and I didn’t feel anything until I switched to cerveza. I watched them pour, I’m pretty sure the booze was watered down.
Here in the states whenever I butcher Spanish to Spanish speakers they are actually quite happy lmao
France: ohhhh un Québécois! Tabernacle!
but if you’re Acadien they looooove you, as they should, because Les Acadiens know how to party.
Good fishin’ in Quebec.
Great fishin’ in Qwee-bec!
“Kebek”
Since youtube’s algorithm started feeding me videos of multi-linguists running around and speaking lots of languages in various contexts, this seems accurate.
Here’s one of them: https://youtu.be/CGi5W-gG-vs
Oh, and East Asia is mostly all colored red, especially if your pronunciation is good.
Love seeing that guy and the reactions he gets, it’s inspiring!
Britain and Ireland be like “what else would you speak to me in?”
I wonder what it would be like as an American to spend a couple months on Duolingo Welsh and then go to Cardiff.
Link with tracking removed: https://youtu.be/dp-QCiACGAU
I am not a bot, and this action was performed manually.
Scots, Gaelic (Scottish & Irish), Welsh, and any of the other minority languages
Totally agree but English would be the totally unsurprising choice
I never understood the “ugh you’re trying to speak my language, I don’t feel like listening to you butcher it” that some countries get.
Like every time a coworker bitches about how they can’t understand a warehouse worker because of their heavy accent, the fuck do you expect them to do, not try to talk at all? (the real answer is usually “hurrrr go back tuh where dey came frum”) but you’re gonna sit there, butchering the language you use every single day by the way you speak and how you spell, while they’re in a country they likely did not grow up in, and are learning the language still. If they don’t converse, they have a harder time improving. If you truly cared about understanding them, you would talk to them more.
Anecdote time: one of the forklift drivers was fairly new when I started last year. She’s a social butterfly. Comes over to ask how we’re all doing, asks how my wife is, how coworkers kids are, how our weeks are going. She moved here from Puerto Rico, and barely has an accent anymore. It’s definitely there and you can place it, but 0 problem understanding every word.
A couple guys started just after I did, and they stand around the compactor all day where it’s too noisy to talk, and nobody voluntarily goes near. They still have very broken speech and heavy accents. They’ve been going out to clean things recently so I try to strike up conversations but they don’t seem too social when they’re working.
I have no way of knowing what these people do outside of work, but if inside is any indicator, being social and talking goes a long way to improving speech in any given language.
So maybe don’t go “that’s cute. Stop trying.” instead go “hey cool, but if you’re up for some constructive criticism…” and be helpful. Or shut the fuck up.
The top one might even be called an “expat” rather than “immigrant”.
“Expat” is just British term used in Britain about British “people” living abroad, innit?
I’ve heard it for Americans also.
Also in my experience, when living abroad most Brits will describe themselves whilst there to others there as expats, rather than say they’re immigrants there.
So it’s not just used in Britain - as people living abroad whilst abroad say they’re expats - though it’s mostly Brits doing it.
I’m ethnically Chinese/Vietnamese but raised in the UK/Canada and basically have only had a really crap grasp of Chinese. So I’ve been actively trying to learn. The number of fucking Chinese people that tell me to shut up or that I sound stupid is insane. These aren’t even random Chinese neither, it’s my fucking friends. Some of these people speak English with a shit accent. I’ve never made of theirs and I just lightly correct their word usage (like if they’re missing a word or something). How the hell am I supposed to get better?
Three years ago I said screw it and went with doing Duolingo with YouTube video support. I can now read and “write” (use pinyin) but speaking is poor because nobody wants to talk to me despite me having a lot of Chinese friends. Not gonna stop though. I’m starting to pay for tutors but this feels so silly because the point of me learning was to connect with my Chinese heritage. I should have picked up french instead.
Should’ve learned Vietnamese
Objectively speaking, Vietnamese is much easier to learn for an English speaker too since they also use the Latin alphabet.
Not sure how many Vietnamese speakers are in the UK though.
deleted by creator
I dunno about “much” easier, as all tonal languages are pretty rough for English speakers and many of the phonemes are totally new. Easier to learn to read and write for sure, but listening and speaking are a different beast.
True, but I was comparing it to Mandarin and Cantonese (OP didn’t say which Chinese language but I assume it’s one of these). Both of them are also tonal languages from what I understand so in that way they are all different from English.
However, Vietnamese is easier since the characters are more recognizable. Listening to movies/shows with subtitles makes it easier to understand and it’s easier to pick up reading Vietnamese than reading Chinese.
The issue here though, is that for OP it seems like Chinese is the more practical language to learn since their “friends” also speak it.
I wanted to share a quick story, but it’s intention is not to excuse bad behavior. I speak two languages very well. One of the languages is relatively uncommon and I have only ever heard it spoken by native speakers. Recently I was at an event and am American told me they learned this language. I’m like that’s cool as hell, let’s hear. What came out of their mouth shorted out my brain and my brain refused to answer them in anything other than English.
I have no rational explanation of what occurred inside of my head. My partner actually asked me why I didn’t respond back in the same language and I had no answer.
こんにちわ
Btw I only understand some vocabulary and am still learning grammer so I won’t understand anyone responding in japanese unless I know that specific bit of grammer and vocabulary
わ
It’s the は particle in this expression
日本語上手 everywhere I went
They fucking loved it when I tried to speak Japanese
You know you’ve really learned Japanese when you finally stop hearing about your jozu nihongoes.
