• JASN_DE@lemmy.world
    401·
    6 months ago

    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.

  • troed@fedia.io
    261·
    6 months ago

    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.

      • khapyman@sopuli.xyz
        5·
        6 months ago

        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.

        • kungen@feddit.nu
          4·
          6 months ago

          they refused to sell anything to me because of my obviously Finnish accent

          Skitsnack, you’re just joking or they thought you were drunk.

          • khapyman@sopuli.xyz
            4·
            6 months ago

            I was sober, on my way to Åre - buy some beer, buy some groceries from nearby store. Just to get by for a week of off piste.

            It’s just the casual Swedish racism.

            • kungen@feddit.nu
              2·
              6 months ago

              So what reason did they say to you when you went to the checkout with your drinks?

              • khapyman@sopuli.xyz
                4·
                6 months ago

                As I understood my Swedish was so off that they couldn’t trust my Finnish passport or driving licence to be trustworthy. They claimed they could not verify my age.

                I was in over 40 in this exchange.

                • kungen@feddit.nu
                  2·
                  6 months ago

                  Did they think the majority of Finns who go through Pakkoruotsi remember anything more than “jag heter homopeter”? 😂 Still seems weird, Systembolaget has always accepted my US driver’s license (this was additionally before “real ID”; it basically was like McLovin’s fake ID), despite the fact that they’re not supposed to accept anything other than a passport for people from outside of the EU. And I looked young then, barely 20 years old.

                  I would have fought them harder instead of taking folköl instead. Regardless, sorry that happened to you, Finns are our brödrafolk, and it’s a shame if the cashier forgot that.

      • crispy_kilt@feddit.de
        3·
        6 months ago

        A Finn wouldn’t pay 100 billion trillion for a light beer at Systembolaget, he’d bring his own for cheap when crossing the border

    • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zipEnglish
      31·
      6 months ago

      Isnt rinkebysvenska swedish turning into a mix of english, turkish, arabic and serb? Tbh im really interested in what will happen to the swedish language in the future. Will they just switch to english or will it slowly turn into a mix like rinkeby? Idk but its interesting to see the lamguage develop. In hungary the state regulates the language so much that we dont really see any development.

  • humbletightband@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    25·
    6 months ago

    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.

      • crispy_kilt@feddit.de
        3·
        6 months ago

        It’s actually quite close to other European languages. It just seems more different than it is because it’s written in Cyrillic. Which is also surprisingly close to Latin once you learn to read it.

    • frickineh@lemmy.world
      5·
      6 months ago

      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.

      • Allero@lemmy.today
        5·
        6 months ago

        Basic Russian ain’t hard, and it’s easy to get yourself understood. Some are scared by Cyrillic letters, but that’s essentially a fusion of Latin and Greek, and there’s nothing special about it - it’s not hieroglyphics or something. Many, if not most, letters are same as in Latin scripture. Some are a catch though, and designate entirely different sounds - like “c” letter actually meaning “s”, “B” actually meaning “V” etc.

        Advanced Russian is a bloody meat grinder. Grammar is such a pain in the ass locals struggle with it, and there’s a LOT of synonymic words to learn if you expect to be fluent or understand what we’re talking about.

        On a positive side, despite the huge size of the country, most Russians speak roughly the same standard Russian. There are some regional words, but nothing I would call a dialect is popular anywhere but deep rural areas. You don’t have to learn all that to be fluent.

      • humbletightband@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        3·
        6 months ago

        I’m native Russian speaker and I often reflect on what I’m saying and how I say things. This is very counter-intuitive.

        Do you know the joke that ‘flammable’ and ‘inflammable’ mean almost the same things? Guess what, in Russian I can give you a dozen of such pairs, some of them are essential in a casual conversation.

    • crispy_kilt@feddit.de
      2·
      6 months ago

      Я учусь русскии язык.

      Уже могу сказать “путин иди на хуй”

      Ещё только 50 лет больше и я могу понимать родителный падеж. Навернае.

        • ikka@lemmy.sdf.org
          2·
          6 months ago

          I’m not the same guy you’re responding to.

          • Russian language sounds awesome
          • Many talented Counter Strike players from Russia that I need to communicate with in games
          • Russian language lands in the top 10 of most spoken languages

          Point #3 is not the strongest but it is the reason why I have an interest in learning Mandarin (although I have NEVER started the process)

          • humbletightband@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            1·
            6 months ago

            Russian language lands in the top 10 of most spoken languages

            It doesn’t necessarily mean that Russian/Mandarin will be in the top 10 among people you meet

            • crispy_kilt@feddit.de
              1·
              6 months ago

              There’s a figurative billion of Ukrainian war refugees in Europe now, and almost all of them speak Russian as a first or second language

        • crispy_kilt@feddit.de
          1·
          6 months ago

          Спасибо! Мне нравится учить разные языки. Я знаю языки из группа немецкий и латинский, но не славянский. Поэтому я начинал учить русскии.

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      11·
      6 months ago

      I just think сука блять иди нахуи дурак мне похуй дебил козёл ёобаный урод блин ёб твою мать and пиздеч are fun to say чувак.

  • rainynight65@feddit.de
    201·
    6 months ago

    The correct legend for France is:

    "Please don’t.

    Also, don’t speak foreign. Especially not English."

  • IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social
    16·
    6 months ago

    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.

    • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
      191·
      6 months ago

      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.

    • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zipEnglish
      71·
      6 months ago

      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.

      • kungen@feddit.nu
        5·
        6 months ago

        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.

  • ladicius@lemmy.world
    217·
    6 months ago

    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.

    • Miaou@jlai.lu
      7·
      6 months ago

      I’ll stop trying to learn your shitty language when the Finanzamt start communicating in English. Deal?

        • noli@programming.dev
          2·
          6 months ago

          My experience with the german healthcare system begs to differ. Bürokratie ist Deutsch und Deutsch ist Bürokratie.

  • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
    11·
    6 months ago

    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!!

  • Servais@dormi.zoneOP
    9·
    6 months ago

    As a Belgian, I’m a bit annoyed with the lack of Dutch/French distinction, but at least they mentioned that on the side

  • Captain Baka@feddit.de
    7·
    6 months ago

    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.

    • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
      31·
      6 months ago

      Do you think this is because English is a more flexible language or simply because Germans are more exposed to English culturally?

      • Captain Baka@feddit.de
        3·
        6 months ago

        I think a bit of both. English is definitely more flexible in terms of understandability as a second language for non-native english speakers. You can learn it relatively easy, unlike german (if you are not raised by german speaking folks). In the past we had a few TV programs that came unlocalized in german TV (Jackass, Beavis & Butthead, Celebrity Deathmatch). This exposed many of the younger people to english. The school system picked up english to the curriculum already in 1964. Back in my day (late 90s) we learned english since the 5th grade, today it seems to be third year primary school. Everyone learns english here, but too many people don’t bother anymore after school and practically unlearn it.

        • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
          31·
          6 months ago

          That’s really interesting. I’ve noticed quite a few German creators on YouTube and similar recently, there’s a much bigger market for english language videos so it makes sense they’d target it. I wonder how this will affect language learning, likewise the other way around with so many viral videos being in English.

  • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
    6·
    6 months ago

    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

    • Skua@kbin.social
      10·
      6 months ago

      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

  • pocopene@lemmy.world
    5·
    6 months ago

    The thing with France is that their reaction is the same if you don’t speak French either.

  • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
    4·
    6 months ago

    I’m from Marseille so not strictly speaking french but if you speak my language I’m going to be delighted and will let you know. France should really be sliced in half at around waist height

    • Aux@lemmy.world
      11·
      6 months ago

      French should really be sliced in half at around waist height

      FIFY

      Sorry, I’ve spent too much time in UK, lol.