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
It’s been 20 years since I was there, but people would see me, an obvious foreigner, and approach me to speak English. It happened pretty much everywhere I went. Before I even said a word, I’d be addressed in English. If I responded in German, they’d respond right back in English.
Not that I’m complaining. I only knew like 100 words in German. Just thought it was an interesting trend.
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.
Well crap, I’ve spent 4 months doing Norwegian on Duolingo. At least I might be able to read signs and stuff.
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?
You get beaten up on a bus for “speaking foreign” in the UK
Because nobody notices
As in everyone understand every language or they don’t understand even native language?
As in to English speakers, English is a default language that everyone should speak so it never occurs to them that it is anything special.
My experience in Germany is quite the oposit, they don’t wanna talk in english and will entretain your broken german unless they literally can’t unterstand you.
Even in the street I am approached in german and “I do not look german” at all.
Granted I was only in Berlin for two weeks, but all but two people I interacted with didn’t immediately switch to English if they had something to say beyond the transaction. (A bus driver and a currywurst seller, who seemed genuinely annoyed that I was a tourist)
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.
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.
