Went to a pub in Reykjavik.

English Brother-in-law had finally decided to learn the language after like 15 years of living there. Had just about learned enough to order the drinks and have a basic conversation.

He orders slowly. The barman looks increasingly perplexed. He finishes and looks up, proud of his first real test of Icelandic.

“Sorry mate, I dunno what you’re saying” says the barman in a thick Australian accent.

Honestly, just try English. Most small European countries speak it better than we do.

Nah… Germans won’t switch to English unless the German used is so bad that they can’t understand lt

Think you miscolored Iceland, pretty sure most natives fall under the “Wait you learned a single word of Icelandic? You’re pretty cool for a tourist…”

I once tried to order some drinks in a noisy bar in France. I thought I was explaining it ok but was not being understood by the girl behind the bar. It got really awkward and was making me seriously question my French (I’m English). Eventually it turned out that she was Irish and had equal but opposite holes in her own French. We had a good laugh about it and spoke in English thereafter.

Had she been Scottish tho we probably would have still been better off speaking in French.

The biggest problem I’ve had learning basic language skills is people talk back to you and they don’t typically say what’s in the learning material. I’ve kind of made it seem like I understand if I speak the language and I kind of feel like an idiot looking back at them with a blank face when they speak it back to me. But I sucked in school with languages and chose to learn a dead one to get the language credit to graduate.

I was confused for a moment why the purple regions don’t appear in the legend then I realised those are mostly populated by fish

Why Brits are grey?

Well crap, I’ve spent 4 months doing Norwegian on Duolingo. At least I might be able to read signs and stuff.

Any attempt by a foreigner to speak “cúpla focail” (a few words) of Irish to me has been incredibly well received. It’s usually Americans actually and their pronunciation is terrible, because Irish sounds nothing like it’s spelled when compared to the usual latin alphabet sounds, but fair fucks to them. I appreciate it very much.

French is too generalised, in my experience.

Paris, they’ll pretend they don’t understand neither your English nor your 100 words of French.

Towns in the country, you meet indifferent professionalism and you kinda get by in English.

Rural areas, you encounter the greatest of enthusiasm for your knowledge of the local language, and just as well, because those 100 words are all you can rely on for the entire duration of your stay.

The Spaniards like that?

I remember one time I was at a resort in Mexico and I asked reddit how service workers feel when foreign guests start speaking their language. Don’t remember what the hive mind said.

All I know is I asked for my drinks muy fuerte and I didn’t feel anything until I switched to cerveza. I watched them pour, I’m pretty sure the booze was watered down.

Dutch people’s reaction is probably more of a combination of blue and pink (“Congrats, that’s cute, but why’d you put yourself through this? We can just speak English”), but most people will actually appreciate the effort and go through with speaking in Dutch if you insist.

Ive traveled to all those areas to one extent or another and I’ve never seen a more accurate joke meme in my life.

Someone’s never been to Germany. The only people I met who spoke English were a guy working in burger king who sounded like the terminator, and a baked teenager.

The 10 phrases I remembered from highschool did a lot of heavy lifting.

With night mode active those colors all look the same. I wish there were more colors than blue and a bunch of shades or red.