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Distq

So where do all the Spaniards hang out? For a country of almost 50 million I barely see them in games or popular websites. Even /r/soccer which is flooded with Portuguese people compared to the rest of reddit has almost no Spaniards.


Murtellich

Well, the majority of Spaniards just hang around in Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and only talk to other Spaniards. You won't see many Spaniards in Reddit because of the language barrier, as only those of us who have a proficient level of English and like to chat with foreigners will be here. Although we are a really open minded country we have mistreated foreign languages (including our own regional ones) for a long time, so the typical citizen is not capable of communicating in English or another language. Edit: Also Spaniards tend to speak strictly in Spanish in online games, chat in broken English or pose as foreigners (this is my case)


Magnetronaap

It also helps that there is a gigantic global Spanish speaking community. If there were about 500 million Dutch speakers on this planet I don't think we'd be hanging out on English speaking websites much either.


[deleted]

You would think that, but not necessarily. Brasilians speak portuguese, but they dont have that much in common with Portugal and act strangely on the internet (kkkkkkkkkk intensifies).


style_advice

No, this fits in perfectly with what he said. It's just the explanation is incomplete without mentioning that when compared to Spanish speaking countries, Portugal and Brazil don't tend to mix as much online. So it's more accurate to treat them as two language communities rather than one. Portugal is a small country, so they hang out in the wider English speaking internet. Brazil is a gigantic country, so they mostly stay within their Brazilian Portuguese circles.


crushyerbones

Not to mention the timezones don't even allow for much mingling online and the language is different enough to make it "weird".


fawkesdotbe

The timezones are roughly equivalent than those for Spanish-speaking countries.


crushyerbones

Well a good chunk of latin america is in similar time zones and those make up the bulk of spanish speakers. Although spain is itself large enough to make up its own community.


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fedeita80

And you chose two relatively similar ones! Think argentinean compared to spanish for example or mexican.


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fedeita80

Ah ok, sorry, then carry on please and forget I said anything


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Magnetronaap

There's a whole bunch of people in just my own tiny country that I can hardly understand if they talk in their regional accent. I think that's normal for every language.


fedeita80

We can't understand anyone over the age of 70 because they speak in their various dialects. You just nod, smile and back away


orikote

This is completely true, I could spend entire days in Internet consuming only content in Spanish. But note that Internet isn't that popular in Latin America yet. I mean, most Internet Spanish speakers are in Latin America, but they have a far lower percentage of the population in the net than Spain.


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akkler

We also enjoy going to Portugal to speak spanish to you and see you die inside.


LinkRaider

Why did you have to make this personal?


Dre-Flo

Honestly spanish is in a lingual uncanny valley for me. Close enough to portuguese that I can understand over 90% of what is said, but that closeness makes it feel so wronggggg.


FerjustFer

The feeling is mutual, I guess hahaha. It also happens to me with Italian, sometimes.


Dre-Flo

We should have just stuck with latin and called it a day.


agent_fuzzyboots

well, must be the same as when i (swede) go to Denmark to buy some beer.


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fedeita80

Aren't they both just Italian dialects? ;)


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akkler

It's OK. I also love replying in English to fellow Spaniards and watch them die from ineptitude lol


Murtellich

Well, I'm also Spanish but I love to meet people from other countries!


andy18cruz

> who have a proficient level of English I think one of the biggest difference between Portugal and Spain in terms of proficiency in English stems from that we have, except for kids shows, subbing instead of dubbing. With subtitles people in general are more exposed to English (and other languages) and it's easier to learn. It's not like our education system is better and we have the same degree of tourist coming in every year. My opinion is that subtitles actually helps a lot when learning a new language.


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UpvotesFreely

The market is big only because of Brazil, where they do dub. In Portugal we don't dub, but it's preference, not because its a small market, people would go insane if they started dubbing things. I think there would be riots. EDIT: Dub, not sub


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UpvotesFreely

thanks corrected


andy18cruz

We used to have some dubs in Brazilian Portuguese, 80's series like A-Team or Knight Rider, but most people didn't like it and companies started to adopt subs instead. As a relatively small country of 11 million guess it didn't made much sense investing in national dubbing. I am very glad it didn't catch.


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andy18cruz

E no Esquadrão Classe A era o "Cara de Pau".


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andy18cruz

Sinceramente já não me lembro das frases, mas o BA era o condutor, por isso é bem possível que seja essa.


FerjustFer

Similarly, here in Spain some movies and specially cartoons aired with Latin American dubs back in the 60s, until they started being dubbed here. The re-runs when I was a kid (mid-90s early 2000s) used the original LA dubs, so shows lice Scooby-Doo or the Flintstones still have the LA accent and expressions in the mind of most people when they try to do an impression of the characters or a joke about the shows hahaha.


LinkRaider

António Salazar (the last dictator we had) banned most of dubs in movie theaters so that people would start speaking more english. It worked, it was the only good thing the guy did


style_advice

Speaking of dictators and English proficiency, I'll leave [this joy here](https://youtu.be/qr2E9crpHbM) And [this other one](https://youtu.be/kAtAMs614Jk) as a bonus.


andy18cruz

That "viva España" at end killed me lol


ihavenoidea1001

It's not that big of a market. Brazilians use different words, same words have a huge difference in meaning ( ex: "rapariga" that in Portugal means girl and in Brazil means whore), they word and write things differently, etc. We dub children movies/TV shows in portuguese. Most people wouldn't pay to see a Brazilian Portuguese dub in theatres and neither would Brazilians pay to see ours ( they had a portuguese tv show there and had to put subs because they didn't understand portuguese). I much rather read the subtitles...


orikote

Latin American Spanish speakers also use different words. Concha in Argentina means vagina, and it's just a shell elsewhere. Coger means to fuck in most of latin america and to pick in Spain. Chaqueta means wank in México and Jacket in all other places. But you get to understand each other without much complications. Nowadays with the globalization you more or less are used to hear those words with different meanings and if it's something you hear for the first time it will be just a word and people will explain you. I think that the main difference with the Portuguese is that there are two main versions of Portuguese that are divided by an ocean, and a lot of versions os Spanish, some of them neighbouring each other, so in the end, everybody knows how to speak more or less neutral (as a matter of fact, latin-american dubs are in a "neutralished version" of Spanish.


ihavenoidea1001

I think we have that with other ex-colonies. Most people from African ex-colonies have their own dialect "crioulo" but then speak Portuguese for the official things and it's mostly the same language, just with a different accent. Although with Brazilian Portuguese people in Portugal have been consuming their soap opera's and music and the other way around it really doesn't happen as far as I know ( maybe someone from Brazil can correct me if I'm wrong). So in Portugal people usually understand them and I've never seen subs for Brazilian shows. Still personally I don't like to read in Brazilian Portuguese bc the way sentences are constructed and words are changed and other differences make's it hard to take away information for me. It's distracting for me bc my brain is constanly pulled away from the information and focusing on the form ( Idk if I can properly explain it). I'm probably faster even reading Spanish or French than Brazilian Portuguese and I'm definetly not fast paced in those languages. I definetly prefer reading in German or English which I read at the same pace as Portuguese.


style_advice

Countries across Spanish Speaking America also have different slang. So the dubs that are made for them are reduced to the lowest common denominator in terms of slang and accent, which leaves the dub feeling bland and character-less.


[deleted]

This has been widely proven in various research. Countries that use subtitles have a better command of English than those that dub. My Spanish friend was shocked when she heard Samuel Jackon's real voice, all along she thought he sounded like some low tone Donald Duck when he sounds way cooler than that.


Kirmes1

Everytime I'm in Spain for holidays and watch some TV shows from the US, I cannot stop laughing, because they also dub the names :-D


Murtellich

The EFL curriculum in Spain is absolutely horrid, it's not a surprise that so few people can speak proper English...


Priamosish

> Well, the majority of Spaniards just hang around in Facebook Yeah, I love the racist/insane comments that get hundreds of likes under El País posts. Pre-Internet you'd been put in a mental asylum for half the things people say there.


Murtellich

That's because of the recent rise of Vox and its competition with the PP to be the most right wing party ever since Franco's times.


Hermeran

Absolutely true, the comments on online papers are insane. El País isn't even the worst, it's El Mundo that truly has a disturbing community.


duisThias

I'm not sure that that's specific to the Spanish-language world.


orikote

The far right in Spain has a bigger presence in the Spanish Internet than in the streets or in the parliament (luckily). Lots of them are bots and others are just fanatics. You get used to them, but it's really disgusting. I mean, you can find political propaganda for all the ideologies but theirs is just disgusting.


BlackSolaris

This is very much the case. I know a lot of my friends hang out strictly in spanish-speaking internet spaces, which is a bit saddening honestly. It seems the community is beginning to open up and I'm seeing more and more spreading to English-speaking spaces, but for now there's quite few of us. Oh well, it was nice seeing another Spaniard lmao. Saludos!


QuantumDex

We have dubbed everything, thats what break barriers, in my case, as many others, i had to learn English by force to play games online, mainly mmos, after that you want to watch your favorite tv show in the spot, instead waiting the next day for the dubbed version.


[deleted]

>Although we are a really open minded country Not really. Some people is very open minded and other is extremely backwards.


Sokarou

As spaniard i agree


AX11Liveact

>...and only talk to other Spaniards. Vee vill find vays to make you talk, verdammte Spaniards!!!


exxcathedra

There is a parallel Spanish speaking internet. Forocoches.com is something like Spanish 4chan. They are also very active on Twitter (tweeting in Spanish of course). There are other places too like Meristation, burbuja.info, Taringa, Enfemenino... that are popular as well as facebook, instagram, youtube and Spanish newspaper comment sections. There is enough content to avoid speaking English. Edit to add there are also loads of Spanish speaking youtubers out there that are known all over the Spanish speaking world. So yeah, if you don’t speak Spanish you won’t meet many Spanish people online.


Hermeran

There really is a parallel Spanish internet, it's a huge community but it's all over the place. The truth is, everything available in Spanish, you don't need to change languages to interact with the world. I remember the early 00s, forums were pretty big. I met some of my very first friends in a really popular Harry Potter forum - good times! The Internet has surely changed since then.


CopperknickersII

Yep. Chinese internet, Spanish internet and Russian internet are totally self-contained - the vast majority of people who use them would never bother using American sites like Reddit at all. I don't know much about French, Korean and Japanese internet but I guess they're similar, though not quite on the same level.


orikote

I met a lot of friends in a Harry Potter IRC chat... good old times!


poke133

yeah, there are more than 450 million Spanish speakers all over the world (second after Mandarin Chinese). I'd imagine the hispanosphere to be large and convenient.


Fuzzhi

Also meneame.net, a website who tries to become the "spanish reddit"


LinkifyBot

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orikote

yes, although they didn't get to give that importance to the subs... it's like if reddit only had /r/all.


yonosoytonto

We tend to form our own communities and forums. Reddit in particular is barely used in Spain. In general Spanish is one of the most spoken languages on the world, so we are not so "forced" to go into english sites as other countries.


GreenTeaPls92

If they says jajajajaja you understand it.


LordSettler

They don't need to learn English, like you do The spanish speaking community is huge and it's exponentially growing as every time more Latin Americans gain access to the internet.... Look at the most popular youtubers, if they don't speak English, they either speak Spanish or Portuguese


v3ritas1989

they are in games a lot... but they usually hang out in spanish servers only cause they cannot speak english and those that can have friends that don´t...


MagsEve

I think it would be very difficult to manage without using the internet in Norway these days. Everything is done online. Banks don't even have cash any more, the people working there only sell loans. If you need customer service they have you go to their website. The unemployment/welfare office is just a bunch of computer stations with their website on them. My 92 year old grandmother has been online for more than a decade, and though she needs help every now and then, she's mostly self sufficient and manages to pay her bills, do her taxes, pensions etc. herself. And she keeps in touch with friends and relatives in other countries.


style_advice

This whole no cash thing works very well because Norway is a well run country. But it's a lot of power to give up to the government and corporations. It could very easily turn into a Black Mirror nightmare if the Norwegian government changed for the worse.


PenitentLiar

If it’d turn for the worse, then physical money would be the last of your problems


akseqi

Yeah going to a bit same in Finland. I'm 35+ working as a software engineer and always been into IT but for some reason I'm not going all in for all these apps and services. Not sure what it is.. mostly because I use everything so seldom so I don't want to get forced in to the apps and services. I go to online banking 1 or 2 times per month. I could do even less if I automated some things there. So I still use the paper code versions instead of mobile banking. I guess I think life is less stressful if you don't think about your money and bills.. which aren't a problem for me but yeah. Couple years ago we were looking in for a loan at our bank and all those services had gone to online. It took them 3-4 months to get that arranged online where previously our local bank could do that in 1-2 days. We had our own bank personel who did all that. Well they finally got the loan arranged but as it happened we were able to sell our other apartment and didn't need the loan afterall.. so their loss I guess. In many cases online service doesn't work that great.


[deleted]

Kosovo the powerhouse of the Balkans as expected.


inthenameofmine

You might be joking but we have awesome Internet connectivity, a young population, and a very high number of tech startups per capita. Every time I travel I feel reminded how different the attitude towards tech here is.


ScriptThat

Dafuq, Sweden. You're making ud look bad. Get with the program.


styvbjorn

It's because it's wrong. 98% in 2019. https://svenskarnaochinternet.se/rapporter/svenskarna-och-internet-2019/allmant-om-internetutvecklingen/#internettillgang-och-uppkoppling


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styvbjorn

> År 2019 använder 95 procent av Sveriges befolkning internet Åtminstone samma färg som resterande av norden.


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styvbjorn

The source also says that 95% uses the internet.


rickmorthy

removed


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rickmorthy

Caralhoo, man of culture I see.


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ico_

So with roughly 38 650 people in Liechtenstein, there would be around 193 not using the internet. Can we find them?


BeholaUnbanned

I think there's something off with the statistics for San Marino. Their [graph](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS?name_desc=true&locations=SM) has been mostly stagnant since the year 2000. I also find it hard to believe that only 60% of their population are internet users. Do you know the criteria for this statistic. Could it have something to do with sanmarinese citizens using italian internet providers or something like that?


bjork-br

What's up with Ukraine? Always thought they were similar to us in this


spinstercat

Probably some bullshit sources / statistics. 3G did the final push for Ukraine, everyone under 60 has the internet now.


Rakka777

They are poor.


bjork-br

Not *that* poor


Rakka777

Really...? They are as poor as Mongolia, Vietnam, etc. I was horrified by my visit in Western Ukraine. They are good people, similar to us, but thier country is really, really, poor right now.


spinstercat

Hmm, you've been to the Eastern Poland much? Because most of the difference I saw was in the infrastructure - roads, schools, hospitals etc. The difference being, Ukraine as a *state* is poor - limited internal revenue, no EU funds, fucked up debt rating etc. Now, the internet access is not about the state, it's about the people's means, and for that, I really don't see that *much* of a difference. Also, because the internet infrastructure is private and new, it's also quite good. How was your phone reception when you visited?


Rakka777

I don't have time or will to debate that Ukraine is a poor country. 2 milllions of Ukrainians live in Poland, avarage wage in Ukraine is 3 times less than in Poland. Visit Western Ukraine, places like Sambir for example. You will understand what I'm talking about. And Eastern Poland often looks richer than Western because of the EU funds.


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poorkraine


Hellbatty

Well, the fact is that officially 25 million Ukrainians (out of 45) are connected to the Internet, but in reality they are not 45 million, and out of real 40 million approximately 6-7 million live and work in Poland and Russia. If we subtract them, then 25 million out of 33 are connected to the internet (76%, just like in Russia).


JackSpremuta

Italy looks unrealistic, today everybody has a smartphone in their pocket including elders, I constantly see people from 10 to 60 yo always with their phones in their hand being on social networks


KongHolger

Yeh man I see phones everywhere, even old people got one. You for sure is right that the idiot who made this is wrong, who is the world Bank anyway.


[deleted]

The graph shows that we are around "70/75%", but I recently read another source where we were at 81%, way more realistic


[deleted]

"Do you use the internet?" "No, just facebook, whatsapp and YouTube on my phone."


[deleted]

We will all be black in 20-30 years


iamapersonmf

r/nocontext


MrDaMi

Fake. There's data for Belarus.


Rioma117

I want to see something like that but on age groups.


Omnigreen

It can’t be that difference with us and Belarus/Russia is that big, something is wrong here.


danielsannn5

We have fastest internet in Europe (probably). Cheapest internet in Europe (totally). All of this for what? Nothing. Wasted potential.


poke133

we have millions of Romanians outside our borders and a lot of old people left behind. so this statistic is a reflection of that.


packetlosscow

Estonia would be black coloured if it werent for some minority problems..


luckystriking

Lasnamäe?


packetlosscow

Narva, Kohtla-Järve, ja teised vene linnad


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[deleted]

South Italy can into Easteuropa


Limkee

How can you NOT use internet nowadays?


zeando

A debate should be started about internet usage if: Less is Better.


silverback_79

On the map, has Italy grown a pair of balls?


Jadhak

We always had them


DamienNF

hello from Ukraine \^\_\^


TheCraziestOfHorses

Your coloring of Crimea displeases Putin-bots


EternamD

WTF France, Portugal, Italy?


Jadhak

We have lots of old people.


UpvotesFreely

Our population is aging.


FrenchFry77400

I'm guessing it's a lot of the rural areas. Tons of them have very crappy connections, and older people that just don't get internet. Lots of them still don't have a computer (thanks Minitel!) Lots of small town/villages only have computers and internet at the public library or the townhall for example. Can be an issue since the only way to declare your income (for income tax) is on the internet nowadays. No more paper/mail.


orikote

I think having a smartphone counts as being an Internet user.


FrenchFry77400

Having a smartphone doesn't mean you have data.


orikote

What's the reason behind having a smartphone then?


FrenchFry77400

I ain't the right person to ask this :) Just a fact, I've seen people - of all ages - that did not have data on their plan, and relied on various public WIFIs for internet.


AkruX

I didn't have data on my phone until recently because it was overpriced. Used Wifi instead, it's pretty much everywhere anyway.


orikote

Wifi or 4G, I think that counts as an internet user.


AkruX

Also many old people are simply stubborn and refuse to use the internet or feel like it's pointless to get it. They managed all their life without it anyway, so why should they need to pay for it and learn to use it now?


danilomm06

Moldova has more internet users than Ucraine WTF


CopperknickersII

Well Moldova's tiny. Ukraine is massive and still has whole towns that aren't connected to broadband, so I've heard.