• Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Um, plenty of Europeans speak 3 or more languages. Native language, language of the country you’re living in, and English.

    • magicalbeast69@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      This. I think european and asian should be swapped in this meme. I think its rarer to see asian speak 3 languages than seeing european speak 3 languages

      • camillaSinensis@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        Surely that depends on where in Asia you’re looking at as well? On average, the number of languages people speak is quite different between, say, India and Japan. Or Switzerland vs Romania in Europe.

  • BruceLee@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Meanwhile, many africans speak 2 languages in their family, a third one for people that don’t speak one of theses two and have studied french and english.

    • nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      So, exactly how it works in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesian.

      They speak native local language from their city, other two from other islands, English for international language, sometimes Chinese, Malay, Arabic, Korean, or Japanese. Not to forget the national language, Indonesian.

  • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    My 3 favorite experiences with language as an American:

    (1) My Jamaican coworker who I couldn’t understand for the life of me and my Ukrainian coworker who my Jamaican couldn’t understand at all, the Ukrainian coworker understood the Jamaican coworker just fine though and I understood my Ukrainian coworker just fine. Basically it turns into a fun game of telephone whenever we need to talk.

    (2) My former coworker from Haiti who no one but the hiring manager and I could understand, the best part about this is that I didn’t know he had an accent. I just didn’t hear it somehow. He was a great guy, he went back home a few years ago when his mother passed. Got stuck due to the pandemic and never came back to the company. I hope he’s doing well.

    (3) My former coworker from Guatemala insisting English wasn’t my first language as to him it sounded like English was my second language at best. I’ve been working on it since then. I still suck at it.

  • HurlingDurling@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Excuse me, but as an American I take offense to this meme. I speak 4 languages, English, Southern, Bostonian, and Spanish /s

  • ElPussyKangaroo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Well, as an Indian with a love for anime, I speak 3 languages and am learning a 4th (Japanese).

    मुळात माझी मातृभाषा मराठी आहे. आणि मी बरीच वर्ष महाराष्ट्रातच राहिलीय…

    लेकिन school और दोस्तों के वजह से हिंदी भी बोल लेता है. और तो और, इन दोनो की लिपी एक जैसी ही होने के कारण पढणे मे भी दिक्कत नही आति.

    わたしはあにめがすきですから、にほんごをべんきょうおします。今は、にほんごのうりょうくしけんのN5できました。今年の12月にN4できますよ。

    And I plan on learning more soon 🙃.

  • andresil@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Americans have trouble with any accent that isn’t the blandest, nails on chalkboard accent.

    Once had one ask me if I was speaking English when I spoke to him (for context I am Irish, the north bit)

    • el_bhm@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Oh look, it’s the same old reposted garbage comment that I have seen on Reddit hundreds of times.

  • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Fun fact: Some places in Europe “bilingual” is used as an euphemism for students with middle eastern backgrounds. When used like this it carries lots of negative connotations and authorities try to limit the concentration of “bilingual” students at schools as they’re seen as the source of all kinds of trouble.

  • BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    The only good thing that the Americanization brought is, that, except the French, the world can communicate with each other in English.

    • ForbiddenRoot@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I know you are joking but based on my purely anecdotal personal experience, the French (at least in Paris) can now speak and are willing to speak in English much more than a few decades back.

      The first time I went to France, almost 25 years back, I had a rough time communicating at restaurants or even buying tickets at the Paris metro stations. Not sure if the latter was an ability or willingness issue because even holding up two fingers and saying “two tickets” was apparently indecipherable. Had to muster my school days French and say “deux billets” to produce instant results.

      Edit: And no, the two fingers I was holding up were not the middle finger of each hand :P

      • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        it’s like the one upside(ish) of capitalism they had to start communicating in English, because tourism.

          • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            well because it’s kind of a forced adoption in an ideal world we would have developed a common tongue by slowly merging the languages, or at least would have taken one that’s pretty good and then improve on it. For example Hungarian is much better in the sense that what you write is what you pronounce, not the mess that is English, so in an ideal common tongue I feel like that aspect would be adopted.

            Of course Hungarian also has stupid parts, ly (<- that’s supposed to be indeed one letter) and j is the same thing. x is just ks, y is pronounced the same as i and w is just v so there is some extra fat on it, but other than that the 44 letters cover all the sounds you make while pronouncing words.

  • Melllvar@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    I’ll never understand this attitude that Europeans have towards Americans. I thought we were friends.

    • Stuka@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      My theory is they don’t like constantly seeing us in their news and entertainment when we rarely see anything at all from their country.

  • where i grew up in burger land, back in the 80s, the public schools were teaching us all spanish in from age 5 to 10. not like true bilingual education, but we had a spanish class once a week. it last about 2 years before the white nationalists–who panic at the idea of working class people easily communicating with each other–got it shut down. between that and some years working with seasonal agricultural workers practicing their english, i am at the comprehension level of an inebriated toddler. i wish i had more opportunities to practice. honestly, the US should have all its signs in english and spanish anyway, but you know the reactionaries would go info a full blown pogrom over even a whiff of that being proposed.

    i remember some small business tyrant in florida in the 2000s called up my work one time and wanted me to pass along his complaint to my boss that our phone system had an option to “press ocho for espanol”. he said that our company even offering the option to “those people” was wrong… in FLORIDA… the state with the name that means “land of flowers” in spanish.

    • TheCaconym [any]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Are foreign languages classes in general not mandatory in US schools ?

      Here in france-cool every kid will have classes for at least two languages (one for four years, one for two IIRC), sometimes three. Depending on where they go to school the kids will sometimes have a lot of choices (Chinese, Polish, regional languages, etc.) or sometimes only either English, Italian, German, or Spanish.

      • Ubermeisters@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        Sure was mandatory in my achool, but you could take ASL (sign language) as a language requirement instead of (French or Spanish).

        • TheCaconym [any]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Learning sign language sounds pretty cool but I’d be afraid to lose it even faster than an unused spoken-language if not actively using it

          Also you’d be able to communicate semi-secretly like a fucking Bene Gesserit so there is also that incentive