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Comment on We all took foreign languages in school and none of us can actually speak those languages

DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Most people who take a language in school don’t keep at it. We’re just doing it because it’s required, and to pass the class. I took French in high school. The only person I’ve ever met who spoke French fluently was my teacher. I really should have taken Spanish, but I wanted to be “different”.

In Europe, also, because of the open borders, and being packed so close together, people encounter foreign languages far more frequently. It makes sense they’d all want to, and benefit from, knowing multiple languages. And, they’d have more opportunities to practice. Not many Japanese speak a second language, compared to Europeans, for instance.

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Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I am from Portugal - which is a very peripheral region in Europe, bordering only Spain - but do speak several European languages, and one of my most interesting experiences in that sense you describe was in a train in Austria on my way to a ski resort, an intercity train which was coming from a city in Germany on its way to a city in Switzerland just making its way up the Austrian-Alps valleys, and were I happened to sit across from two guys, one Austrian and one French, and we stroke up a conversation.

So it turns out the French guy was a surf promoter, who actually would often go to Ericeira in Portugal (were at a certain time in the year there are some of the largest tube waves in the World, so once it was “discovered” it became a bit of a Surf Meca) only he didnt spoke Portuguese, but he did spoke Spanish.

So what followed of a bit over an hour was a conversation floating from language to language, as we tended to go at it in French and Spanish but would switch to German to include the Austrian guy and if German wasn’t enough (my German is only passable) we would switch to English since the Austrian guy also spoke it, and then at one point we found out we could both speak some Italian so we both switched to it for a bit, just because we could.

For me, who am from a very peripheral country in Europe, this was the single greatest “multicultural Europe” experience I ever had.

That said, I lived in other European countries than just my homeland and in my experience this kind of thing is more likely in places which are in the middle of Europe near a couple of borders and not at all in countries which only border one or two other countries.

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- SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  It has to be learned immersively. Also, in Canada, we take french in school, which works in France, but in Quebec they speak a slang they don’t even understand, tabernac.
  
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squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Speaking multiple languages is a thing because you need it.

Everyone needs to know English, because its the global Lingua Franca. Not only to speak with native English speakers but to speak with everyone. If as an Austrian I speak to someone from China, I will do so in English.

Everyone needs to know the local Lingua Franca, because it’s a massive career help and you will need it quite commonly. That’s why most people in Hungary learn German. They need that all the time, since the economies are tied so closely together.

Everyone needs to learn the language of the country they live in, because only if you know the language you can access the job market and all services without barrier.

Lastly, everyone needs to learn their mother tongue to be able to speak with their family.

If you are from Serbia and move to the Czech Republic, you will learn and frequently use four languages.

If you are from Germany and stay there, you will learn and frequently use two languages.

If you are from the US and stay there, English is the global Lingua Franca, the local Lingua Franca, the language of the country you live in and your mother tongue, and thus you will likely never learn a second language to fluency levels.

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- Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  If you are from the US and stay there, English is the global Lingua Franca, the local Lingua Franca, the language of the country you live in and your mother tongue, and thus you will likely never learn a second language to fluency levels.
  
  Well, sorta.
  
  In my experience with British colleagues when living in The Netherlands (were you can definitelly get away with speaking only English), whilst some of them never really became fluent in Dutch, others would become fluent in it.
  
  You see, even with English being a lingua franca, many if not most of the locals (how many depends on the country and even area of the country - for example you’re better of speaking broken German with the locals in Berlin than English) are actually more comfortable if you speak their language, which make your life easier. Also the authorities will often only communicated in the local language (in The Netherlands the central authorities would actually send you documents in English, but for example the local city hall did everything in Dutch).
  
  That said, if you’re an English speaker you can definitelly get away with not learning another language even when living elsewhere in Europe plus I’ve observed that in the early stages of learning the local language often when a native English speaker tried to speak in the local language the locals would switch to English, which for me (a native Portuguse speaker) was less likely, probably because the locals could tell from a person’s accent if they came from an English-speaking country hence they for sure knew English whilst with me even if they recognized my accent they couldn’t be sure that I spoke English.
  
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  - squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    That’s why I said, everyone needs (or has incentive to) learn the global lingua franca, the regional lingua franca, the language of the country they live in and their mother tongue.
    
    As someone from the UK living in the Netherlands, these four languages are English, English, Dutch and English, so you’ll likely learn (at least to some degree) two languages.
    
    If you are from the UK and stay in the UK, all four languages are English and thus you likely won’t have a need to ever get to fluency in a second language.
    
    (Of course, there are some special circumstances, e.g. if you are from the UK and live in the UK but work as a French teacher, you do have a need to know French, but I’m talking about the general case.)
    
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    Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Yeah, ok, that makes sense.
    
    I suppose the only part that my post adds is that in my experience for native English-speakers the tendency to learn the language of the country they live in is less than for non-native English speakers who are also not locals, because - thanks to English being the global lingua franca, almost everybody finds it easy to switch to English when confronted with a person who doesn’t speak their local language well but does speak English well, which makes it a lot harder in the early stage to learn the language of the locals (you need to be really assertive about wanting to try to speak the local language).
    
    Certainly that was my experience in most of Europe.
    
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redlemace@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

In Europe

yes for what I know, unless you are from the UK or Ireland, it’s quite common to speak at least two. Not per-se fluent, but at least conversational level. It’s usual the national language & English. I speak four and that rarely raises an eyebrow.

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