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Which Languages do we speak?

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oddtail:

--- Quote from: Tlaloc on 29 Aug 2017, 03:58 ---Yeah. I'm sure. It helps being immersed and having a relationship and close friends who speak English as a second or third language and their firsts are Slovak and Czech.

--- End quote ---

It can help, but it can also hinder. When you have another language to fall back on, you're never *forced* to use Czech, per se, when talking to them. That can slow progress down, a lot. It's not a huge problem, but it helps to keep it in mind.

Tlaloc:
I try to speak Czech in the wilds, to bar staff, people I meet etcetera. There are people I've never spoken English to, even though I know they know it. I do challenge myself somewhat, but yeah, most of my interpersonal in my relationship stuff beyond 'turn on the television' and 'where did you put my lunch' is generally in English alas. It doesn't much help that I usually ask for Slovak/Czech and then look puzzled as hell, prompting a quick reversion.

zisraelsen:
Wow, this forum is impressively multilingual! English is the only language I am fluent in, but I am (painstakingly slowly) making noticeable improvements in my Spanish. I'm assuming it's more common to speak multiple language in Europe than it is here in the states?

oddtail:

--- Quote from: zisraelsen on 29 Aug 2017, 10:36 ---Wow, this forum is impressively multilingual! English is the only language I am fluent in, but I am (painstakingly slowly) making noticeable improvements in my Spanish. I'm assuming it's more common to speak multiple language in Europe than it is here in the states?

--- End quote ---

English and, from what I gather, at least one other foreign language (usually German, French or Spanish) are mandatory in Polish schools. Many people from older generations in Poland speak Russian, because it used to be the main foreign language taught in school.

As to other countries - I know from experience/anecdote that most people in Norway speak very fluent English (partially due to their very good school system), and I think it's similar for most other Scandinavian countries. Can't speak for the rest of Europe, but from what I've heard, yeah - there tend to be at least a few years of foreign language classes in schools throughout European countries. It helps that so many languages are spoken in Europe, so people have an extra incentive to pick at least one foreign language (otherwise you go abroad for, say, holidays and you can't even ask for directions...). In the US or Canada, unless you live in some specific areas, foreign languages are not that useful, and a country like US is so big that I'm assuming many people rarely even leave the country.

Plus, there's bound to be some selection bias for this forum specifically, in terms of people speaking foreign languages. If I were a person who doesn't speak English, I wouldn't be reading the comic, or the forum, in the first place ;). And since English is not the native tongue of most people in Europe, a non-British European forumite is pretty much guaranteed to know at least one foreign language.

zisraelsen:
So my last post has a typo in it but I'm leaving it there because I think it's hilarious that there's a typo in a post where I claim I'm fluent in English. Anyway:

I think you're right about travel outside the U.S. being outside the norm for people who live here. I live in southern California, and discounting travel to Mexico (which is less than an hour away by car), I and most people I know have never travelled to another country. I have no stats or anything to support this but I would also assume this holds true for much of the country.

Something interesting to note is that a foreign language was also mandatory for me here stateside, but it was only two years, very few languages were offered, and it didn't happen until grades 9 and 10. It was treated as such an afterthought that what little knowledge stuck from these classes, slid back off pretty quickly. Conversations with spanish-speaking friends and coworkers has proven a much more usable education.

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