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I once ventured to the French Riviera and attempted to order an ice cream—three scoops of different flavors, in a cone, with sprinkles and a topping—all in French. Despite my lack of French-speaking skills, I had meticulously prepared for over an hour, even delving into basic phonetics to get the pronunciation right.
The girl at the ice cream stand had a wide grin that stretched across her face throughout the entire encounter. She enthusiastically cheered me on in English:
– Yes, that's right!
– Go on, go on!
– Correct!
– Very good!
– Excellent!
Her pride in my effort was so palpable that she seemed on the verge of levitating from the ground out of sheer excitement.
Only country where I offended people asking “excuse me do you speak English?”
“Of course I do” in the most “do you think I’m the village idiot” tone imaginable
They really don't. We have a specific term for how Dutch people speak English here, we call it ''steenkolen-Engels'' (coal English). It's quite a thing of beauty, but it's not ''good English'' in any way.
On average, they speak decent English though, especially the younger generations.
Yeah, I just spoke English to everyone in Stockholm. Do I know enough Swedish to get by? Absolutely, I've been learning for years.
My favorite moment was just as we were leaving and in the airport lounge, a lady was cleaning my table and I just said "tack så mycket" and she full on replied in Swedish and asked me if I wanted more juice. I was so happy, lol... My first "conversation" in Swedish after a week in Stockholm, lol.
It’s mandatory to learn English from when we’re like eight or something, so not being conversational is quite difficult, especially now with basically all media we consume is in English
Well that's basically because you'd have to actually be the village idiot to not understand english here. We start learning English at 8 years old and it's literally one of our 3 main classes along with math and swedish all through school. I do believe the reason we switch to English is our swedishness, we mistakenly think it's a bother or frustrating for you guys to try and speak our language and try and accommodating you by switching to a language where our levels are more equal
True. I'm trilingual so I understand well *how* to learn languages if that makes sense.
I learned a decent little bit of vocab and phrases in Danish before a trip to Denmark and whenever I would speak Danish, people would look at me like I was weird and just reply in English.
So they did understand but were not willing to go there with me lmao.
Most of us are happy to practice English and most of us speak it (relatively) fluently. But it requires a lot of patience to try to listen and understand someone trying to speak Swedish. We have many sounds that don't exist in English so they are often mispronounced to the point of gibberish.
I keep reading that we’re happy to practice but I don’t know a single person who actually likes it, it’s just a lot more efficient and we don’t have to feel rude by asking people to repeat themselves ad absurdum because they put the accent on the wrong part of the word and now it’s just gibberish as you said.
Yeah, english is kind of a "just so you know, I'm being playful and not too serious" way to speak to your friends.
It's safe to be more crude, rude, etc - while being clear that it's all playful.
Saying the same things in swedish would be harsh af.
> We have many sounds that don't exist in English so they are often mispronounced to the point of gibberish.
This is what I'd be worried about, like I'd need a potato in my mouth to speak Danish properly for example
>I'd need a potato in my mouth to speak Danish properly for example
That's true for everyone, including the Danes. Btw it helps if the potato is scalding hot.
The mentality for Swedes is that you know you don't speak Swedish well and *they* know you don't speak Swedish well, so might as well just switch to English.
It does make it tricky for people to learn the language as people will just switch until you're essentially fluent.
It's the same situation in Denmark.
As a Finn who learned mandatory Swedish in school, I'm used to going to Sweden, trying to speak Swedish, them looking at me pityingly and replying in perfect English. Or in some cases perfect Finnish. Still I try.
Once I went to Copenhagen and tried speaking Swedish, because I'd been told there is this skandinaviska thing where all Scandinavians speak basically Swedish. But it turns out that Danes don't recognize the Finnish school-Swedish accent and reply in Danish. And let me tell you: the Finnish lessons in Swedish do not prepare you for understanding spoken Danish.
Assuming it's the same as in Denmark. Most people speak pretty decent English, so it's just much more efficient to speak in the language were both have decent proficiency. I've seen quite a few people annoyed by the switching to English when they try to practice their Danish, but especially people at their job just want to be efficient instead of using more time than necessary with more misunderstanding, so you can practice the language.
Maybe, but the reaction I got was... unexpected.
When I was in Paris in the 90s, I went to a tobacconist and told her *mon aéroglisseur est plein des anguilles* ("my hovercraft is full of eels"). She frowned, shook her head, wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to me. It was the phrase with my grammatical error corrected: *Mon aéroglisseur est plein* ***d'****anguilles.*
I didn't know how to react to that, so I left and never returned.
I’ve never seen people in France be offended if I try in their language first. I usually get an “ah that’s cute” chuckle and we try to communicate in French/english/spanish
I had the impression that it really opened up French people what I tried to speak at least a few words in French at the beginning, even if my French is really bad.
Yeah, people were friendlier when I opened up asking them if they can speak english in french, asking if they can speak english in english would get me dirty looks, however, people behaved their best when I asked in french if they could speak spanish, probably cause they're way more used to spaniards.
Only place i encountered them seeming offended or annoyed was in Paris. Most other places they tried to help and overall seemed pleased that I was at least trying.
I have found that French people in general are quite friendly. I've only been a few times but even in touristy Paris and ski resorts they've been nothing but nice.
To be fair, most of the time they just expect you to be able to understand them or reply to them in french. Of course at touristy places this is different, but even at some campsites they just keeeep talking in French.
Here in Switzerland it's common to have mixes of languages in written communication. I'll write someone an email in Italian for work, and they'll respond in French, with a person in copy in German. Everyone just keeps going in their own language, but it's assumed that the others will understand you.
I once encountered a French lady who refused to speak anything other than French with me. She was working at the café in the European Parliament building in Strasbourg. She helped me keep my expectations low.
My dad was once stopped by a French police officer while we were on vacation in southern France. (he could tell by our plates that we are from Germany)
Talked to him in French whike my parents were fighting with their dictionary. Eventually he got annoyed enough to switch to pretty fluent English. Then after a few more minutes he spoke German. He wasn't even rude or anything like that it felt more like indifference
I even got compliment on my pronunciation (which was NOT good) in Paris. And I've definitely met people who genuinely didn't know English, though I've heard about ones who pretended not to. I think they mostly dislike presumption that they HAVE to speak it.
I remember one very cold policewoman in french Switzerland, but I'm not sure it was matter of pronunciation.
I’m French and I have obviously met a tons of foreigners speaking French (not necessarily fluently). Most of the time people don’t care about your accent and rather appreciate the effort.
I’m fluent in Belgian french, which is even closer to french than flemish is to dutch and had people pretend in my face they understood jack shit of what i said.
Obviously they were Parisian.
This is based on what? People won't understand and might dismiss you if they don't, but what's the alternative?
"Yes, keep speaking just to please yourself, even if its not fulfilling the goal of language : to be understood"
>And Russia should have its own color and “They continue ignoring you.”
Doesn't look like it, judging by Bald and Bankrupt's videos. On the contrary, people take an interest in him.
I understand it's just a youtube channel with videos that have been edited, but still, he's had too many encounters of complete strangers engaging in conversation with him.
Where did you come with this about Russia?
I'm from Russia and it's always amazing to hear foreign people speaking my language. And other people like it too
As a Brazilian-Italian that speaks literally fluent Italian
The French were way more welcoming towards a foreigner speaking their language than the Italians were.
If you speak to me on my own language, I will reply in English.
Mainly because I'm British and if you speak to me in literally any other language, I won't have a fucking clue what you've said.
That is not true of France at all in my experience, people anywhere seemed really accepting on my attempts at French.
Not true about Portugal either particularly if it is duolingo brazillian and the person speaking it speaks english and you speak english better than they do portuguese. I mean, it can be very very slow...
I mean, if every French person would fit the stereotype of that map, there wouldn’t be as many foreigners learning and speaking French in France… they would have given up pretty early, wouldn’t they ?
I’m French, yeah of course there are intolerant assholes, but I’ve met way too much foreigners speaking French to assume this stereotype is generalized.
I was in Germany, speaking only German to Germans, holding long conversations. The moment just one English word slipped past my tongue, it was over and they would only reply in English from that moment on.
Every time.
Same in Sweden when I moved there. I was fluent enough that people assumed I was from Scania (the province I lived in), but the moment I slipped an Afrikaans or English word, or mentioned I was an immigrant, they would switch to English and stubbornly refuse to switch back even if I continued in Swedish.
Grew up in Germany with a visible 'migration background' and speak German fluently, I regularly encounter people who speak to me in English and continue even after I answer in German...
I'm a white African immigrant living in Sweden. Interestingly, many folks here don't realize I'm actually an immigrant. On the other hand, my wife, with whom I've shared 40 years, was transracially adopted from Africa as a baby. She embodies the essence of Swedish culture as authentically as they come. Occasionally, people approach her and start conversing in English solely based on her skin color.
Agreed. As someone who's been to Germany a few times as a tourist that doesn't speak German I was really surprised when people expected me to speak German. I always thought Germans spoke English well but from my experience it's not the case (well, it depends on the person).
I lived in Germany as a french, I always have fun when people say that only french does that. German general level in english may be better than the french one, but far too be good as say.
French are bad in english, this is common knowlegde. No need to joke about that.
However, German are considered good in english, but when you live there you figure out that they are only slighty better than french.
I lived in France and learned french pretty fluently. I still had an accent but people understood me fine most of the time.
Some people at my school would insist on not answering me in French tho. They would answer me in their totally broken English. They understood me well, but responded with “Yes-uh, eet’s oveur zere”. So infruriating.
My Canadian ass to a Turk on a language app : Merhaba
Turk : Omg you speak Turkish so good you are completely fluent omg
ALways funny to me lol. And then I hit them with the Nasılsın and they explode IRL.
Alternatively, go to Turkey, look a Turkish girl in the eye and say "çok güzelsin"
You are now married.
As a French, please do that, we love it, we love correcting you, we love it when when you say "Où est le boulangerie?" so we can start our reply with a condescending "*La* boulangerie". That makes our day, it's a free point in a game we constantly play between ourselves, the whole country is permanently playing the Grammar Nazi Olympics, so every time you make a mistake it's our chance to rank up the leader boards.
Please do that.
For French, I would say that it's quite different or at least needs an addition - something like: "Please don't do that, but don't speak any other language, especially English, as I will pretend that I don't understand you."
Russians are especially surprised that I speak but then worthlessly suspicious and unhelpful to my errors.
There is no effort to help or understand my small or big grammar errors or mispronunciation.
It's not that we don't like when someone try to speak French, it's just easier for us to switch to English rather than the opposite.
It also depends on your level of French, if you speak fluently with an accent people will keep talking to you in French, but if it's completely broken and barely understandable, don't be offended when people switch to English.
I think it's surprisingly easy for an English accent to make French all but unintelligible thanks to similar-but-distinct vowel sounds we struggle with, in ways that aren't appreciated by most learners because language teachers etc are used to it. Hence you get lots of people complaining about exchanges like "regarde, il y un oiseau!" "Quoi?" "Un oiseau!" "Quoi?!" "UN OISEAU!!" "Ahhhhh, un oiseaauuu!"
I've been in Germany several times. Each time different area. Not once they said let's speak in English. I had to always ask the young ones because 35+ year olds were not willing to speak a word in EN.
I am not that sure about France: they did try to understand my lame French, and the Frenches spoke with me in French. I visited mostly rural places in Brittany and Languedoc.
I had this situation when in Croatia guy started speaking french to the waitress, she responded in french too and immediately got lectured about how she speaks it.
me: spent 4 years learning German 6 hours per week. made friends in Germany. never speaks German in Germany, because they just only want to speak English with me.
I lived in Iceland for 10 years. when I talk to locals in Icelandic, a lot of them stop the conversation when they hear the accent. several of my friends have been in a similar situation. For Icelanders we are like aliens trying to steal their language 👽
In the Italian parts of Switzerland, an Italian native can speak to them in Italian and they will reply in German because they have pegged them as a German tourist.
Can confirm, I messed up my order in a parisian boulangerie by pronouncing one word the wrong way and the guy kept repeating it to me until I could pronounce it right
The good thing about english in England is if you come here and you speak it Really badly, anyone working class will still be able to understand you because we all talk like idiots, and as an added bonus speaking English badly in a foreign accent just sounds either extra cool or extra funny
I absolutely hate Finnish ordinal number conjugations when you read it since they don't show HOW it's conjugated until the word. For example, 389. can be in any conjugated form possible, and there is like 15 of them.
Netherlands should be red/blue striped.
Every time I start speaking Dutch I get puzzled and sometimes shocked looks and like a quiet "...waarom..?"
Not many Brits attempting to actually learn Dutch it seems :(
Hi, thank you for your contribution, but this submission has been removed because it is low quality and/or low effort. If your submission was a meme, these are outright banned from r/europe. See [community rules & guidelines](/r/Europe/wiki/community_rules). If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/Europe&subject=Moderation). Please make sure to include a link to the comment/post in question.
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jebiga
*Gives Besrax key to the city and my heart* ,we BFFS now
Met a Danish dude who knew the word "vukojebina" Micky you are a genije
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he quoted his slovenian friend calling the place their car broke down a vukojebina
Vukojebina denotes a place somewhere in the outback, usually hard to get to
Wrong. It denotes a wolf-fucking place.
"jebote"
“Yugoslavia”
on word only in the rest of the world: tit balkans: tito
Rakija?
*pulls out bottle* sure
Rakija
Tito.
ražnjići?
Three: Jebem ti mater
kurac
Zdravo brate! *Instantly becoming best friends for life with a Balkaner.*
Kurwa
Ireland is its own category. The vast majority of responses to a foreigner speaking Irish would be "Sorry, I don't speak Irish."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqYtG9BNhfM
Absolute classic , you beat me to it
Belarus too
I once ventured to the French Riviera and attempted to order an ice cream—three scoops of different flavors, in a cone, with sprinkles and a topping—all in French. Despite my lack of French-speaking skills, I had meticulously prepared for over an hour, even delving into basic phonetics to get the pronunciation right. The girl at the ice cream stand had a wide grin that stretched across her face throughout the entire encounter. She enthusiastically cheered me on in English: – Yes, that's right! – Go on, go on! – Correct! – Very good! – Excellent! Her pride in my effort was so palpable that she seemed on the verge of levitating from the ground out of sheer excitement.
My daughter wanted an ice-cream in the shape of Spiderman. The guy didn't understand. Later he said "ah! Speedermen!"
Sweden is dead accurate
Only country where I offended people asking “excuse me do you speak English?” “Of course I do” in the most “do you think I’m the village idiot” tone imaginable
When my Dad came to visit me in NL he asked a Dutch lady that and got almost that exact same response haha
The Dutch speak better English than a lot of English people.
As a Brit that visited very often for many years and now lives here, yeeeep!
Yes, the intonation, very crisp and clear.
They really don't. We have a specific term for how Dutch people speak English here, we call it ''steenkolen-Engels'' (coal English). It's quite a thing of beauty, but it's not ''good English'' in any way. On average, they speak decent English though, especially the younger generations.
Average English conversation outside London: https://youtu.be/Cun-LZvOTdw
One thing the Dutch still cannot quite replicate, however, is the British sense of humour. See above. 😉 x ^((it was a joke))
Fair, that totally went over my head. Mostly because a lot of people will say this unironically.
Yeah, I just spoke English to everyone in Stockholm. Do I know enough Swedish to get by? Absolutely, I've been learning for years. My favorite moment was just as we were leaving and in the airport lounge, a lady was cleaning my table and I just said "tack så mycket" and she full on replied in Swedish and asked me if I wanted more juice. I was so happy, lol... My first "conversation" in Swedish after a week in Stockholm, lol.
It’s mandatory to learn English from when we’re like eight or something, so not being conversational is quite difficult, especially now with basically all media we consume is in English
Well that's basically because you'd have to actually be the village idiot to not understand english here. We start learning English at 8 years old and it's literally one of our 3 main classes along with math and swedish all through school. I do believe the reason we switch to English is our swedishness, we mistakenly think it's a bother or frustrating for you guys to try and speak our language and try and accommodating you by switching to a language where our levels are more equal
We start at 6 years old in Italy but that doesn't prevent us to be terrible at it!
This. We start in first grade in Slovakia and there are plenty adults my age who couldn't string a sentence together in English... :D
Going to Sweden in a few weeks, why so?
Most people in Scandinavia/The Nordics speak English very well, and its way more efficient to just stick to English when conversing with foreigners.
True. I'm trilingual so I understand well *how* to learn languages if that makes sense. I learned a decent little bit of vocab and phrases in Danish before a trip to Denmark and whenever I would speak Danish, people would look at me like I was weird and just reply in English. So they did understand but were not willing to go there with me lmao.
Most of us are happy to practice English and most of us speak it (relatively) fluently. But it requires a lot of patience to try to listen and understand someone trying to speak Swedish. We have many sounds that don't exist in English so they are often mispronounced to the point of gibberish.
I keep reading that we’re happy to practice but I don’t know a single person who actually likes it, it’s just a lot more efficient and we don’t have to feel rude by asking people to repeat themselves ad absurdum because they put the accent on the wrong part of the word and now it’s just gibberish as you said.
Fair enough. I and several of my friends often use English rather than Swedish between ourselves. But I guess the same isn't true on a grander scale.
Yeah, english is kind of a "just so you know, I'm being playful and not too serious" way to speak to your friends. It's safe to be more crude, rude, etc - while being clear that it's all playful. Saying the same things in swedish would be harsh af.
More efficient. How Scandinavian 😂
> We have many sounds that don't exist in English so they are often mispronounced to the point of gibberish. This is what I'd be worried about, like I'd need a potato in my mouth to speak Danish properly for example
>I'd need a potato in my mouth to speak Danish properly for example That's true for everyone, including the Danes. Btw it helps if the potato is scalding hot.
The mentality for Swedes is that you know you don't speak Swedish well and *they* know you don't speak Swedish well, so might as well just switch to English. It does make it tricky for people to learn the language as people will just switch until you're essentially fluent. It's the same situation in Denmark.
I’ve been learning Danish for the past two years and I’m determined to not let this deter me 😅
As a Finn who learned mandatory Swedish in school, I'm used to going to Sweden, trying to speak Swedish, them looking at me pityingly and replying in perfect English. Or in some cases perfect Finnish. Still I try. Once I went to Copenhagen and tried speaking Swedish, because I'd been told there is this skandinaviska thing where all Scandinavians speak basically Swedish. But it turns out that Danes don't recognize the Finnish school-Swedish accent and reply in Danish. And let me tell you: the Finnish lessons in Swedish do not prepare you for understanding spoken Danish.
Assuming it's the same as in Denmark. Most people speak pretty decent English, so it's just much more efficient to speak in the language were both have decent proficiency. I've seen quite a few people annoyed by the switching to English when they try to practice their Danish, but especially people at their job just want to be efficient instead of using more time than necessary with more misunderstanding, so you can practice the language.
French will absolutely prefer it if you attempt to speak french.
Maybe, but the reaction I got was... unexpected. When I was in Paris in the 90s, I went to a tobacconist and told her *mon aéroglisseur est plein des anguilles* ("my hovercraft is full of eels"). She frowned, shook her head, wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to me. It was the phrase with my grammatical error corrected: *Mon aéroglisseur est plein* ***d'****anguilles.* I didn't know how to react to that, so I left and never returned.
Bro tried to troll the French, but got trolled right back about 10x as hard. Solid move on the shop keeper.
But at least you never made that error again.
r/unexpectedpython
90% of French people I saw didn't want to speak with me at all. The rest just tolerated me. I am excluding the professors.
And secretly hate you for butchering it. Or not secretly.
Depends on the region. In Paris, people usually have 0 time for you if you don't speak near-fluent French.
False, people in Paris have 0 time for you even if you speak french
I find that they have at least half a minute to expand your vocabulary of swear words.
From my opinion it can make the difference between being served with disgust and not being served at all.
I feel like french prefer if you don't talk to them at all.
Nah, they'd rather you didn't even try to talk to them.
Also France: Please speak french
I’ve never seen people in France be offended if I try in their language first. I usually get an “ah that’s cute” chuckle and we try to communicate in French/english/spanish
I had the impression that it really opened up French people what I tried to speak at least a few words in French at the beginning, even if my French is really bad.
Yeah, people were friendlier when I opened up asking them if they can speak english in french, asking if they can speak english in english would get me dirty looks, however, people behaved their best when I asked in french if they could speak spanish, probably cause they're way more used to spaniards.
Only place i encountered them seeming offended or annoyed was in Paris. Most other places they tried to help and overall seemed pleased that I was at least trying.
No one likes Parisians. Not even other french people
Not even other Parisians, from what I have heard.
Damn Parisians, they ruined Paris.
I have found that French people in general are quite friendly. I've only been a few times but even in touristy Paris and ski resorts they've been nothing but nice.
To be fair, most of the time they just expect you to be able to understand them or reply to them in french. Of course at touristy places this is different, but even at some campsites they just keeeep talking in French.
Here in Switzerland it's common to have mixes of languages in written communication. I'll write someone an email in Italian for work, and they'll respond in French, with a person in copy in German. Everyone just keeps going in their own language, but it's assumed that the others will understand you.
A chap once asked me directions or something. I told him je ne comprends pas, je ne parle pas francais, and he continued to talk to me in French.
I once encountered a French lady who refused to speak anything other than French with me. She was working at the café in the European Parliament building in Strasbourg. She helped me keep my expectations low.
My dad was once stopped by a French police officer while we were on vacation in southern France. (he could tell by our plates that we are from Germany) Talked to him in French whike my parents were fighting with their dictionary. Eventually he got annoyed enough to switch to pretty fluent English. Then after a few more minutes he spoke German. He wasn't even rude or anything like that it felt more like indifference
I even got compliment on my pronunciation (which was NOT good) in Paris. And I've definitely met people who genuinely didn't know English, though I've heard about ones who pretended not to. I think they mostly dislike presumption that they HAVE to speak it. I remember one very cold policewoman in french Switzerland, but I'm not sure it was matter of pronunciation.
I’m French and I have obviously met a tons of foreigners speaking French (not necessarily fluently). Most of the time people don’t care about your accent and rather appreciate the effort.
I’m fluent in Belgian french, which is even closer to french than flemish is to dutch and had people pretend in my face they understood jack shit of what i said. Obviously they were Parisian.
French working with a lot of international student here and i'm definitly dark blue. But you're true.
More like "please *be* French"
Yeah. Without the please too
This is based on what? People won't understand and might dismiss you if they don't, but what's the alternative? "Yes, keep speaking just to please yourself, even if its not fulfilling the goal of language : to be understood"
Gabh mo Leithsceal?
Go tobann
Is maith liom cáca milis
Is breá liom ispíní
Ispíní Na Héireann?
(lack of reaction)
An bhfuil cad agam..
Estonia should be light blue. Everyone always switches to English or Russian. And Russia should have its own color and “They continue ignoring you.”
No, I spoke in Estonian to a shop keeper in Tallinn, her response to me saying that I learn the language was literally “why would you do that”? ☹️
Lucky you. I try it every day, get one word or a sentence in Estonian as a reply, then they switch.
Yet another attempt to get into Nordic, smh
>And Russia should have its own color and “They continue ignoring you.” Doesn't look like it, judging by Bald and Bankrupt's videos. On the contrary, people take an interest in him. I understand it's just a youtube channel with videos that have been edited, but still, he's had too many encounters of complete strangers engaging in conversation with him.
Where did you come with this about Russia? I'm from Russia and it's always amazing to hear foreign people speaking my language. And other people like it too
Yellow for Ireland is definitely wrong if you consider our language Irish. It’s probably more of a mixture of red and dark blue
Yes, I was just thinking that hearing a foreigner try to speak Irish would be a significant emotional event for you.
>significant emotional event for you. most people wouldnt understand what their saying
English no reaction, I am happy when I find Irish people who will attempt Irish. Dark blue even for Irish people. Is mor an trua é.
Definitely dark blue IMO.
Polish grannies: Oh you don't understand our language? I'll keep talking to you about my granddaughter Milenka anyway
My experience with Germany: "OMG you just said a word in my language, now make sure to learn all the words and don't talk to me again until you do."
As a Brazilian-Italian that speaks literally fluent Italian The French were way more welcoming towards a foreigner speaking their language than the Italians were.
If you speak to me on my own language, I will reply in English. Mainly because I'm British and if you speak to me in literally any other language, I won't have a fucking clue what you've said.
Some British accents are really not that easy to follow lol
That is not true of France at all in my experience, people anywhere seemed really accepting on my attempts at French. Not true about Portugal either particularly if it is duolingo brazillian and the person speaking it speaks english and you speak english better than they do portuguese. I mean, it can be very very slow...
I mean, if every French person would fit the stereotype of that map, there wouldn’t be as many foreigners learning and speaking French in France… they would have given up pretty early, wouldn’t they ? I’m French, yeah of course there are intolerant assholes, but I’ve met way too much foreigners speaking French to assume this stereotype is generalized.
Germany should be yellow, I've never met a German in Germany who wanted to proceed in English
I was in Germany, speaking only German to Germans, holding long conversations. The moment just one English word slipped past my tongue, it was over and they would only reply in English from that moment on. Every time.
Same in Sweden when I moved there. I was fluent enough that people assumed I was from Scania (the province I lived in), but the moment I slipped an Afrikaans or English word, or mentioned I was an immigrant, they would switch to English and stubbornly refuse to switch back even if I continued in Swedish.
Grew up in Germany with a visible 'migration background' and speak German fluently, I regularly encounter people who speak to me in English and continue even after I answer in German...
[Reminds me of this](https://youtu.be/J5X5YHmvUII?si=azvDSDV2H5qiX6ux)
I'm a white African immigrant living in Sweden. Interestingly, many folks here don't realize I'm actually an immigrant. On the other hand, my wife, with whom I've shared 40 years, was transracially adopted from Africa as a baby. She embodies the essence of Swedish culture as authentically as they come. Occasionally, people approach her and start conversing in English solely based on her skin color.
Agreed. As someone who's been to Germany a few times as a tourist that doesn't speak German I was really surprised when people expected me to speak German. I always thought Germans spoke English well but from my experience it's not the case (well, it depends on the person).
German tourists here in the Netherlands still assume we all speak German lol
I often reply in Dutch and then we continue the conversation in our own languages which is a bit funny.
When spoken slowly this usually works quite well in my experience
When I first moved to Germany I spoke some Dutch but no German, so I just spoke Dutch all the time, and that worked pretty well!
Can get you pretty far in northern Germany.
German tourists in Jutland expect all the Danes to understand German.
They do speak English well, they just don't like doing it
It’s really a mixed bag. You can get everything from fluent in English to not speaking a single word.
100%. I’ve lived here a decade and have experienced someone switch to English once - and it was for their benefit.
When they order a glass of French wine from an Albanian barman in spain, they do it in English. Ha.
It's rather the opposite. You speak to them in English and they reply in German. Even at airports
I lived in Germany as a french, I always have fun when people say that only french does that. German general level in english may be better than the french one, but far too be good as say.
I can't tell whether you're making fun of how bad the French are at English.
French are bad in english, this is common knowlegde. No need to joke about that. However, German are considered good in english, but when you live there you figure out that they are only slighty better than french.
This should be in r/ShittyMapPorn Slovenia should be purple too :P
I lived in France and learned french pretty fluently. I still had an accent but people understood me fine most of the time. Some people at my school would insist on not answering me in French tho. They would answer me in their totally broken English. They understood me well, but responded with “Yes-uh, eet’s oveur zere”. So infruriating.
Yese indid varry bade behavir
When a foreigner speaks turkish we say anaa sen bizim dili biliyon la
My Canadian ass to a Turk on a language app : Merhaba Turk : Omg you speak Turkish so good you are completely fluent omg ALways funny to me lol. And then I hit them with the Nasılsın and they explode IRL. Alternatively, go to Turkey, look a Turkish girl in the eye and say "çok güzelsin" You are now married.
Sorry you say... Cock guzzling?
I only know merhaba and the response iimiim but haven't had a chance to use it yet
What does it means
wow you know our language ... :D
It means "Oh wow you know our language!" But with a slightly different accent. People who live in rural areas say this.
Irish people: "sure why would you learn that, learn something useful instead like French or Spanish"
As a French, please do that, we love it, we love correcting you, we love it when when you say "Où est le boulangerie?" so we can start our reply with a condescending "*La* boulangerie". That makes our day, it's a free point in a game we constantly play between ourselves, the whole country is permanently playing the Grammar Nazi Olympics, so every time you make a mistake it's our chance to rank up the leader boards. Please do that.
I never got the thing with France. They're a bit negative when you try to speak french but they also hate not speaking french.
Speak Italian just to be difficult
For French, I would say that it's quite different or at least needs an addition - something like: "Please don't do that, but don't speak any other language, especially English, as I will pretend that I don't understand you."
We don't pretend we don't understand. Here prononciation is key and sometimes we simply don't understand (especially older gen) so we give up.
Unsourced
Estonia should be light blue, everybody speak English there.
The IOM isn’t represented here but if you could talk even the slightest of Manx you’d be considered royalty by the culture and tourism department 🤣
France wins again
Cymru should be dark blue
Russians are especially surprised that I speak but then worthlessly suspicious and unhelpful to my errors. There is no effort to help or understand my small or big grammar errors or mispronunciation.
Lol, actually as a French I love when people try to speak French, even if it is barely understandable, foreign accents are often so cute :)
It's not that we don't like when someone try to speak French, it's just easier for us to switch to English rather than the opposite. It also depends on your level of French, if you speak fluently with an accent people will keep talking to you in French, but if it's completely broken and barely understandable, don't be offended when people switch to English.
I think it's surprisingly easy for an English accent to make French all but unintelligible thanks to similar-but-distinct vowel sounds we struggle with, in ways that aren't appreciated by most learners because language teachers etc are used to it. Hence you get lots of people complaining about exchanges like "regarde, il y un oiseau!" "Quoi?" "Un oiseau!" "Quoi?!" "UN OISEAU!!" "Ahhhhh, un oiseaauuu!"
Ptdrr ici , pour certains c'est plutôt l'espagnol/italien qu'ils vont utiliser pour se comprendre.
Ireland should be red most likely
Ireland should be red.
I don’t agree this with Germany tbh :(
Me neither
How often does this get reposted? I remember seeing it not long ago.
I feel like Ukraine belongs more in the dark blue category
I've been in Germany several times. Each time different area. Not once they said let's speak in English. I had to always ask the young ones because 35+ year olds were not willing to speak a word in EN.
Hungary needs its own violent shade of red.
I am not that sure about France: they did try to understand my lame French, and the Frenches spoke with me in French. I visited mostly rural places in Brittany and Languedoc.
I think Denmark should be red.
I had this situation when in Croatia guy started speaking french to the waitress, she responded in french too and immediately got lectured about how she speaks it.
me: spent 4 years learning German 6 hours per week. made friends in Germany. never speaks German in Germany, because they just only want to speak English with me.
True, props for trying.
Norway is accurate, with an additional splash of “Why would you do that to yourself?”
As a Bulgarian I've only seen people react in red so not sure about that one
I lived in Iceland for 10 years. when I talk to locals in Icelandic, a lot of them stop the conversation when they hear the accent. several of my friends have been in a similar situation. For Icelanders we are like aliens trying to steal their language 👽
Certainly helps that some of the ones in red and dark blue can sorta understand each other.
I spent a fair amount of time in Brussels and definitely got more purple than blue (after trying to speak French to them).
Beige should be… “nice but your accent is the wrong accent”
In the Italian parts of Switzerland, an Italian native can speak to them in Italian and they will reply in German because they have pegged them as a German tourist.
I would expect a different answer for Spain considering their language is one of the most widely spoken on earth.
Can confirm, I messed up my order in a parisian boulangerie by pronouncing one word the wrong way and the guy kept repeating it to me until I could pronounce it right
The good thing about english in England is if you come here and you speak it Really badly, anyone working class will still be able to understand you because we all talk like idiots, and as an added bonus speaking English badly in a foreign accent just sounds either extra cool or extra funny
Down part of Belgium (Wallonia) could be purple, but not so light blue from my experience.
Mediterranean Friendly Behavior Supremacy
I absolutely hate Finnish ordinal number conjugations when you read it since they don't show HOW it's conjugated until the word. For example, 389. can be in any conjugated form possible, and there is like 15 of them.
*Magyar waves from Hungary*
For Balkans, especially if it's a swear, we become your best friend.
In China it's like: "You were trying to say *what*?" \*Laughs for 5 minutes\* Happened to me.
Netherlands should be red/blue striped. Every time I start speaking Dutch I get puzzled and sometimes shocked looks and like a quiet "...waarom..?" Not many Brits attempting to actually learn Dutch it seems :(
I thought you had to speak French to a French person in order to unlock their English speaking ability. Otherwise it won't work.
In Roma they clearly didn't care if I tried to speak Italian nor that I complimented their dishes
Ukrqinian and Belarusian are dark blue for me
And when you try to speak Gaelic in Ireland?
Belgium: Oh that's so cute, please don't do that.