I always hope that everyone speaks English and if they seem worried about how it sounds I remind them that their English is way better than my their language which usually breaks the ice.
Heard someone say this on reddit many years ago after someone was being a wise ass about their English which was obviously second or third language
You speak English because it’s the only language you know; I speak English because it’s the only language you know We are not the same
That’s pretty funny, but I’m years past accepting the “hurr durr ignorant american knows only one language” thing. Except as a response to someone harassing someone about their English capabilities, as seems to be the case in your example. 😁
The way I figure it, if the people two states away from me in every direction spoke a different language from me, and from each other, I’d probably be multilingual, too. (As would most of us)
Is this not fairly likely in the US with Mexican Spanish or/and Canadian/Cajun French?
Within the USA, the language enclaves aren’t strong enough. You might find people who can’t speak English, but there are enough people in their communities that can speak English that you can get along.
Of the countries I’ve visited so far, I find that Mexico has the strongest language barrier as Mexico is large enough to maintain an internal standard of Mexican Spanish. Outside of the northern border states, you can drive two states away in Mexico and still have people speak Spanish.
No, because these people are also highly likely to also know English and the vast, vast majority of people in any given location speak English as a default in public. Unless another language is being commonly spoken in public, it isn’t even close to having entire states speak a different language.
Not whole states, but Miami gets close.
I’m sure there are people who go to Mexico/Canada as often as Europeans seem to be popping into other countries, but most of us very rarely do.
But most of us do have to visit other states often, which works out to a similar radius as hopping countries in Europe in many cases, that’s why I made the comparison I did.
I can restrict my bullying to those living near the Mexican border and the English
Most people I’ve talked to who know English as a second language speak and read and understand it better than most American’s I’ve spoken to who know only English.
Yeah I hung out with a bunch of Germans who were really good English speakers but constantly were self critical of their English skills. They were beating my German skills by a landslide even at their worst moments.
Even if you speak Thai, complaining about someone’s foreign language abilities as a foreigner is rude.
Implying the sign isn’t talking about Australians who visit in the same numbers
But America dumbo!
And perhaps Brits and Canadians. I’m not sure about their visit numbers though.
Or anybody in europe who probably speaks english as thats the “world language”
Unless they’re from a primarily English speaking country, they’d be unlikely to complain though.
I’ve met lots of people who seem to hold the sentiment that if THEY managed to learn English, why can’t EVERYONE ELSE?
Sounds like they have something to compensate for. ┐( ∵ )┌
Yeah they wouldnt complain… except if theyre my grandfather who started complaining in vietnam to a hotel receptionist that they dont speak hungarian, a language about 14 million people speak in the world and the only language it has mutual intelligibility with is spoken by about 10000 people…
Wait, in that case maybe complaining is a bit justified? Different of course of it’s a place off the beaten path, but if it’s a hotbed of English-speaking tourists then having staff that speak their language seems pretty important.
Guess it’s really hard to say without more context (story of the internet).
I don’t even know why some native speakers complain about having to deal with broken English when the learner only needs to know a tiny fraction of the language to be intelligible. As long as they have the vocab, grammar is mostly optional.
Just remember that any Americans vacationing in other countries are Americans who can afford to travel to take a vacation in other countries (and can even take that long of a vacation at all), and that explains the sense of entitlement and rudeness you see which gives Americans a bad name.
Also except for Canada and Mexico (and even for them depending on where in US you live, to get anywhere is a very long, expensive plane trip).
Yes true but that statement is also true for anyone else. Yet you don’t see that sense of entitlement
What statement are you referring to? The point that it’s far more expensive to travel from North America to a country in Europe for example, than it is to travel between countries in Europe? Maybe Thailand would be as expensive for both, though, I don’t know. Or the point that most Americans get much less vacation time than Europeans so again, only the more privileged Americans generally have the time off to take an overseas vacation.
Of course some regular people also take those vacations, but it’s probably a once-in-a-lifetime big deal that they saved up for a long time as a dream. Those aren’t the ones acting entitled, they are appreciating the opportunity.
I can’t wait for us to start exploring the galaxy and giving aliens shit for not speaking English lol
I’m sawwry, I don’t speak ‘at squeaky squacky, beep boop shit. Why don’t you try talking like an American?! You’re in American space space!
I’m American and I am continually shocked and grateful how commonly I’m catered to internationally. I mean it’s not fair in a sense but also there does need to be a global language and the English happened to be the right kind of assholes to win that honor.
It’s not necessarily just for Americans. English is the most spoken language in the world when you include people’s second language. That German tourist probably isn’t going to know Thai and that Thai cafe probably isn’t going to know German, but they can muddle though with English.
Right. I was addressing the title of the post. I am assuming Americans are among the worst among presuming English should be spoken everywhere, but I don’t fall into that category. I marvel at the fact that it’s so widely spoken.
It’s always so foreign to me that anglophones never need to switch to English to communicate internationally, that’s just their everyday language
Yeah, it’s pretty crazy to me and I’m an anglophone who barely knows other languages. It’s a marvel.
To be fair. Learning english is a must nowadays. The closest we have to an universal language.
And I say it as a non-native English speaker.
As a developer in a non English speaking country, in the last decade having English in your resume has moved from nice-to-have to mandatory, now the nice to have is having a third one.
A third what?
Eye. Clairvoyance really helps with bug testing.
Language
Ahhh
Language.
I can speak Thai so I guess I’m okay
I can’t speak Thai but I am not complaining because I’m not an asshole
Why are people from the USA always called Americans?
Because they’re the only country with America in their name whereas United States is shared by Mexico
Also in English there’s a distinction between North and South America, with the supercontinent being referred to as “The Americas”, so America isn’t really ambiguous, they’re also geologically and environmentally distinct enough that “The Americas” isn’t used so much and “New World” is often more relevant to include Australia as another somewhat culturally similar sparsely populated former colonial area.
So is someone from Brazil an “American”? Surprisingly yes, and straight to jail.
In Portuguese (as spoken in Portugal, Brazil, USA, Japan, Ghana, wherever) they’re an americano/a but in English (as spoken in USA, UK, Brazil, Portugal, Nepal, wherever) they’re South American but not American because it’s a linguistic difference rather than a geographical/cultural one
Same reason why people from the United Kingdom are called ‘British’, despite Northern Ireland not being in Britain.
There just aren’t better proper adjectives for these 2 countries.
While you can say ‘North American’ to mean anyone from North America and not specifically the US, I’m not sure there’s a fitting word that refers to anyone from North or South America. Although, at that point, the group of people you are talking about is perhaps too broad to be useful in most cases.
Same reason why people from the United Kingdom are called ‘British’, despite Northern Ireland not being in Britain.
Ireland is part of the British Isles, so you could even call people from the Republic of Ireland british (and then run away really fast).
I recommend not doing this 😂 I prefer to call the British isles “the European archipelago” :)
TEA
For exactly those reasons at least Ireland no longer calls it the British Isles
And saying North America includes Canada, and I think out of respect to the Canadians they don’t wanna be lumped together with us
Why does someone always smugly point this out in these threads?
Because there’s always got to be some young “boo America” edgelord contrarian that thinks they’re really doing something by saying it. But really they are just an idiot in a long line of idiots who isn’t saying anything at all.
US Americans are seen by basically everyone as the most obnoxious tourists on this planet. Their self importance and undeserved national pride is second to none and it shows in every thread like this. Its just fun to see them get defensive when anyone points it out.
This is literally what that sign is about and its odd that you are confused that people would point this out.
Why are you assuming the sign is about Americans? There’s no reference to the US anywhere except OP’s title
Speaking of obnoxious self importance
No youuu 😭
Is all i get from that.
Because calling anyone else an American is insulting.
USAmerican, USAian, USAn, lUSA?
Unitedstatians. Thats how we call them here (estadounidense)
USAmerican is my go to yep.
Are you joking though? I’ve never heard this phrase uttered out loud except by that one miss America contestant who was derided for being stupid.
Judging by their instance they’re german where “US-Amerikaner” is a pretty common term, never heard it used in english though.
Found the lUSA
what?
Would you prefer “yanks”?
Just what people commonly understand so people say it. I always read it in a disapproving Russian accent because of too much TV, the americans
So here’s something wild I learned.
To Canadians, when I speak French, I have a very thick American accent. However, when I speak English to Canadians, they really can’t tell my accent (presumably because I live in a bordering state?).
I always respect anyone who knows just enough English to communicate something simple/frequent. Because there is no fucking way they’d understand what I was trying to say in their language.
Man that’s crazy, I speak French with an undertone of a Belgian accent, but pretty close to French general accent (I know every dept has their accent, chill!), but Canadians have an extremely heavy and weird non standard accent compared to other people.
Language is strange man
Incredible our brains can make sense of any of it sometimes
I’m not American but I also assume everyone speaks English. Other languages are cool but they’re just not very useful. I’ve almost forgotten my native language at this point.
I guess that really depends on your location
Jesus Christ
No, I don’t think he spoke English.
Sumerian
I think OP means there aren’t a lot of use-cases where a non-english language is helpful in communicating more than english is. Like if you learn swahili, there aren’t a lot of people around the world who speak that language, and you’re unlikely to run into any of them. Millions of people speak swahili, and I’m sure that it has wonderful elements (as all languages do), but there are way more english speakers, and english is spoken in many more places around the world
With that mindset they probably live somewhere where English is the main language. I can’t imagine why a Swedish speaker for example would think “eh English is more important I’ll just use that instea” lmao.
Or they’re terminally online or work in an industry where English is the default language. I definitely use more English than Estonian throughout the day, but the English is nearly all written and the Estonian is mostly spoken.
What does that even matter anymore really? Only corpos worth slaving for are global, with a good WFH gig you’ll have colleagues from all over the globe and you ain’t gonna be speaking Swedish to 'em. Globalization means countries also want to be open to other nationalities. Sure it’s good to learn other languages, and I like it, but most everywhere knowing good English will open more doors than good of any other language, provided that you have at least a basic utilitarian grasp of the majority spoken language of where you live
I can’t anything more obnoxious than a native speaker switching to English when talking with other native speakers to be more ✨global✨ or whatever.
I always speak English with all my friends who also speak (and are by origin) Russian because we live in England and find it easier since it’s the language we use more. Plus everything else is in English so it’s just extra effort to find words to talk about it in Russian, like translating a movie quote instead of just quoting it.
It’s not there to upset you by being “global”, it’s a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
Kinda sad to forgo your own language like that but it is what it is and you do you.
BECAUSE ENGLISH ALWAYS WORKS IF YOU CAN SPEAK IT LOUD ENOUGH
Are there still people that use an accent of the country that they are in but using English words expecting the native person to understand them?
That vaguely works in Japan, because they have a ton of English loanwords, and a lot of them wouldn’t be understood by a monolingual Japanese speaker unless you say them in a Japanese accent (it’s a bit more complicated than that but that’s the gist).
Man, that bugs me how many Americans are out there giving the rest of us a bad name. I don’t travel, but if I did, I’d be grateful a non-native English speaker knew any English at all. And not learning enough of their language to at least get you by for the trip just sounds like poor planning in general. Some people are just incapable of looking before they leap, and for some reason a bunch of those people travel.
I’ve been to a few other countries. The people (especially retail workers) are extremely patient. All it takes is a smile and “excuse me” and they will try as hard as they can to build a communication bridge. I don’t know why we Americans have no patience
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I think you should go take a nice walk. Could do wonders for you
I got confused, I was replying to daniskarma below this op
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because they’re frequently proven right, English is the most commonly spoken second language after all
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Americans who can afford to travel abroad are generally more wealthy, and tend to be more over entitled in all aspects of their lives
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as if it’s not the english making this complaint
