Source post: https://lemmy.world/post/13376939 !funny@lemmy.world
In Germany, it will absolutely depend on where you try this. Bigger cities? Yeah, likely. Countryside? You're lucky if you find someone speaking understandable German, let alone English.
As a Russian, I agree. Like okay, man, you have challenged yourself to the level when you easily construct sentences in accusative case, but why? To read Bakunin or understand Letov's metaphors?
Foreigners who learn Russian out of curiosity are true madlads.
I took Russian in 6th-8th grade and switched to Spanish the second I could. It's a cool language but it's so hard. The only thing I remember are a couple common words and a weird poem about killing a fly with a gun. I don't even know if it was a real poem or if my teacher was a lunatic.
Swede here. We all speak English. Heck - my kids use English whenever they're speaking about games or Youtube anyway.
Come to think of it. We should just drop Swedish altogether.
The last time I went to Systembolaget I said "hej" to the cashier who replied "you're from Finland aren't you?"
Last time I went to Systembolaget they refused to sell anything to me because of my obviously Finnish accent. Luckily the nearby ICA had no problem in selling me some folköl. My Swedish is passable, it is just obviously from wrong country.
I was in France and when I tried my best French (which admittedly is not that great) all I got was an angry stare. Like, not one time, but in several cases. I did not understand why. I was just doing my best. 😢
So, I think the map is correct for France.
Did you perhaps forget to say bonjour/excusez moi or other necessary greetings? That'll make people look angrily at you regardless of how good your french is
Wait those are necessary for social courtesy? Like you have to say, "hello" first?
In case you're not joking, yes, the French are extremely formal, and starting any interaction without a "hi" will get you weird looks. Main reason Americans think the French are assholes, I guess
Yeah... American here.. In my area, a greeting isn't necessary. It can be appreciated but isn't required. Even ending conversation without a closing is not uncommon. Spouse gets mad because people just hang up the phone when done instead of a proper goodbye.
We’re you in Paris mayhaps?
I had only very friendly reactions to speaking okay French in Paris which goes against everything I expected. It happened multiple times that people spoke English to us and we answered in French because they forgot we were able to speak it but they obviously didn't mean to be rude with it, much thr opposite. Maybe I just ran into some very foreigber friendly servers etc.
The correct legend for France is:
"Please don't.
Also, don't speak foreign. Especially not English."
“In fact, just don’t speak to me at all.”
This is why expats in the Netherlands never learn Dutch even after years of living there. I know of people who lived in Amsterdam for 10 years and still don’t know any Dutch beyond “Hoe gaat het? Één stroopwafel alsjeblieft” the worst thing is that their kids who have spent most of their lives in the Netherlands don’t speak a lick of Dutch either, because these elitists send their kids to international school.
I hate the term expat. It’s completely made up to not be grouped with the not white immigrants. It also goes with the condescending attitude of not really wanting to integrate with their new country, such as your international school and not learning the language examples.
I think it has its place. There is a clear difference between someone coming to a country for a limited time to do some specialized work with the intention of leaving, compared to someone who has little or no intention of ever returning to their country of origin. Both categories are incompareble in the type of support they need (or want), where they live, whether they need to learn the language, etc. Just ignoring the difference is a bit silly.
Although I agree the term is misused sometimes.
There is definitely a distinction between expatriate and immigrant, but I have very very rarely seen it used properly. As the previous poster wrote, it really does feel like the main difference between an expat and an immigrant, colloquially, is the color of skin.
expats
You mean immigrants?
Lol what? In sweden for example i go to an international school because i dont speak swedish. And when i want to learn it they tell me that i cant attend the lessons because i cant speak swedish. When i try to speak to someone in swedish they notice that im making mistakes and automatically switch to english without even asking me. Its not the immigrants its the native speakers who have an attitude.
when i want to learn it they tell me that i cant attend the lessons because i cant speak swedish
What courses exactly? What's your knowledge level? Because you won't be able to join SAS (svenska som andraspråk) classes until you have a good basic comprehension from for example SFI (svenska för invandrare). Depending on your age, your town should have Komvux (adult education) classes for both SFI and SAS.
German here: There's more than enough Germans who don't master the language so please don't torture my ears with your butchery, too.
You're welcome.
I'll stop trying to learn your shitty language when the Finanzamt start communicating in English. Deal?
Finanzamt does not speak German. It speaks Bürokratie.
Completely different language.
I spoke Spanish at a shop in Barcelona and they were not my friend.
Barcelona is the capital of Cataluña. Try a few words in Catalán next time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement
That's because you spoke Castilian, not Catalan.
Germany might be like that in Berlin and to an expect in some other big cities, but in most of the country, das ist Deutschland, wir sprechen deutsch!!
Das Leben ist zu kurz um Deutsch zu lernen.
As a Belgian, I'm a bit annoyed with the lack of Dutch/French distinction, but at least they mentioned that on the side
As a german I can say this seems legit. I'd rather speak english to a non-native speaker than german, because most of the time it is hard to follow their speaking due to their faults in pronounciation and grammatics. Well, except when they speak german good (at least A2 or higher) or need it for their training.
Went to Turkey once and people seemed genuinely impressed when we attempted to speak Turkish. They also seemed impressed we were Americans. Almost all the other English-speaking tourists we met were older Brits, many of which acted pretty haughty. I guess they're less used to Americans visiting. Turns out on the West Coast at least a large portion of Turks speak English
There's a huge contingent of Brits who go to a place that's sunny, reasonably close by, and relatively cheap and just stay on a gated resort for the entire week. I've had lengthy conversations about holidays with people before where it took a good while to discover that they saw literally none of the country they visited beyond the resort and the route between the resort and the airport
The thing with France is that their reaction is the same if you don't speak French either.
Is the blue bit in Sweden near the Norwegian border a dialect area or a lake?
Lake
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