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I once accidentally spoke french to a waitress in Greece then apologised and said I wasn't actually french. She went on a ten minute diatribe about how french people are the bane of her life because they refuse to speak English with her and just get louder and louder in french 😂
As a Belgian, I noticed that people usually get warmer when they learn I'm not French.
Hopefully the cliche will change over time.
It's like the Canadians when they don't want people to think they're Americans. Some Americans even pretend they're Canadian for the same reason. I'm French and I knew about these for a long time but never thought of the parallel with France/Belgium. Damn I might start using this and just say I'm Belgian haha.
Ca marche aussi avec les Suisses, mais alors ils vont penser que tu es riche ha ha
This would happen in Austria as well.
Seems strange to have Italy and Spain here, the English proficiency is usually at the same levels than France.
It's not that they can't speak English, the cliché (at least in the past) is that they refuse to speak it. Spanish people are probably worse when it comes to English proficiency these days.
Spanish people are probably worse when it comes to English proficiency these days.
Probably, people are always surprised that they have to speak Spanish even in some touristy areas.
same levels ~than~as France.
FTFY
(Sorry, can't help it when it's about language proficiency)
But Spanish and Italians will try if you approach them in English
I live in Montreal, my experience is that French people speak great English while most Quebecers can't ask for the bathroom in English. Of course, the French people coming here are generally open minded compared to Jean-Guy from Brossard who not only shoots you a "yes-no-toaster" when you ask him if he speaks English but also thinks it's the funniest thing he's ever said.
My experience with the French is that they're happy to speak English if you say something like "Excusez-moi, perlez vous anglais?" but may pretent to not understand you if you just start in English.
Which is actually pretty fair when I think about it.
Very true. English speakers are sometimes taken aback, but it's usually a way to show respect to the local language, and acknowledge that you are asking them a favor to speak a second language.
Montreal is an exceptionally nice place.
I couldn't stop in the street to look at a map without someone coming to see if I needed help. I didn't I just needed to look at it, but in 10 seconds it took me someone would offer help.
I actually considered trying to movie there but I realised I need to also be fluent in French.
That's up there as among the greatest cities I've ever been to. Sydney is my number 1 but Montreal can't compare to the surf in Sydney so it's not a fair comparison.
Idk about the rest but Spanish people suck at English.
Italians have more or less the same level.
It is probably due to the fact that Romance languages are further from English than Germanic languages like Dutch and German.
Portuguese can speak english just fine.( I'm clearly biased since I am portuguese.)
I think a major difference is that Portugal has the original audio on every movie/show except kid shows, which improves our english accent.
Portuguese is also a Latin laguange and Portuguese are much more proficient in English than Spanish, French and Italians. The main reason, imo, is that these countries dub all movies, series, etc, so they basically never listen to English nor are they interested to. In Portugal we rarely dub anything and just use subtitles. So it's much easier for us to understand and speak english because we're much more used to listen to it. It's probably the same thing for the eastern countries as mentioned above. Now, why do these countries dub everything I don't know but if they didn't we'd probably be on the same level
Finnish and Estonian are basically completely unrelated to English yet the native speakers of those languages are pretty good at English for the most part.
Yet for some reason, in Hungary, it's either Hungarian or bust (guess what, it's related to the two languages I mentioned at the beginning). So... honestly I have no idea what's happening here.
Also, Germany and Austria speak the same native language; German, yet there are more L2 English speakers in Austria than in Germany. It's the same as comparing France with francophone Belgium.
English has French in it eh 1066
Italians outside of Italy maybe, or young people. Older Italians won't talk in English even with a gun pointed to their head. Had a bus driver tell me to talk to him in English and he would answer in Italian, wth
What's funnier is when the american cousins come to visit and all sound like old people because they learned the local language as it was before national standardization
Kun kiom bela estas Esperanto kaj ni uzas la anglan kiel barbaroj
Ne ĉiuj de ni! Estas ribeluloj ĉie.
Mince alors!
Can’t agree on Spanish people here. Even the younger ones refuses or just really suck at speaking English. I talked to elderly people in Portugal in English and was not a problem. The younger people in Portugal are at least at a basic level. I am learning Spanish at the moment and I would say both languages share a lot of words. So knowing English helps me a lot understanding Spanish words.
