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When I was in school, I took Latin,Spanish,pencils,paper,chalk,scissors and was finally expelled when the teacher caught me going thru her desk drawers.
The problem about English speakers is not the fact they are lazy or not, the problem is that they (the monolingual ones) demand others speak English everywhere to them, even when they are tourists abroad and get bother of the language barrier.
Lol, I doubt it - most of you guys speak English, and all Swedes I've encountered want to speak English with me and not Swedish. If I try to speak Swedish to a Swede, they're like, "That's not right - shut up and speak English with me! Look at how good I speak English!"
The problem about English speakers is not the fact they are lazy or not, the problem is that they (the monolingual ones) demand others speak English everywhere to them, even when they are tourists abroad and get bother of the language barrier.
It's their loss, if they cannot work out a way to travel abroad and deal with the absence of a common language. It doesn't take long for even a middle-aged adult to pick up enough of any language to deal with hotel receptionists and ticket sellers. You can learn a couple dozen phrases from a phrase book in an hour on the train, especially in a language that has quite a few English cognates, like German or Italian. Just present yourself with courtesy and respect and a little more humility and less entitlement, and your hosts will bend over backwards to make sure you get what you need. With very, very few exceptions, the people you meet traveling will default to nice and hospitable and patient. All the monolingual traveler has to do is don't antagonize them.
The problem about English speakers is not the fact they are lazy or not, the problem is that they (the monolingual ones) demand others speak English everywhere to them, even when they are tourists abroad and get bother of the language barrier.
I can assure you most English speakers don't really like these sorts of people either.
Maybe not yours personally, but Sweden, Norway and Denmark are definitely on the British foreign policy radar, and very closely, as two of them are strong economies and all three are not in the eurozone and excercise a much greater influence than the population base would justify.
My country on the other hand is not on the British radar, as we are part of the great "evil" called the €urozone. We have to rely on Germany and France.
It's their loss, if they cannot work out a way to travel abroad and deal with the absence of a common language. It doesn't take long for even a middle-aged adult to pick up enough of any language to deal with hotel receptionists and ticket sellers. You can learn a couple dozen phrases from a phrase book in an hour on the train, especially in a language that has quite a few English cognates, like German or Italian. Just present yourself with courtesy and respect and a little more humility and less entitlement, and your hosts will bend over backwards to make sure you get what you need. With very, very few exceptions, the people you meet traveling will default to nice and hospitable and patient. All the monolingual traveler has to do is don't antagonize them.
Its not as easy as that you have to understand the fast native speakers.
I know a bit of Spanish but haven't a clue what they are saying because they speak FAR TOO FAST!
Maybe not yours personally, but Sweden, Norway and Denmark are definitely on the British foreign policy radar, and very closely, as two of them are strong economies and all three are not in the eurozone and excercise a much greater influence than the population base would justify.
My country on the other hand is not on the British radar, as we are part of the great "evil" called the €urozone. We have to rely on Germany and France.
No they aren't.
Germany, France, Spain, Ireland and America would be on our radar.
Its not as easy as that you have to understand the fast native speakers.
I know a bit of Spanish but haven't a clue what they are saying because they speak FAR TOO FAST!
Do you know enough Spanish to say "Habla mas lente, por favor".
By they way, they don't talk any faster than you do. It takes the same length of time to say the same thing in English as in Spanish, but Spanish words contain about 1/3 more syllables than English, so it sounds like they are speaking faster. More syllables per second, but the same meaning.
That paragraph above has 69 syllables in English, but the Spanish translation of the same content would have 109 syllables. It would take the same time to say it, but it would sound faster. If you think Spanish sounds fast, go to Sri Lanka and listen to people speaking Sinhalese. They sound like a fingernail on corduroy.
Last edited by jtur88; 05-18-2014 at 06:09 AM..
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