I think it’s more related to the language importance than it’s size. We have continental countries (Russia, Brazil, etc) that you can also drive for a week without leaving and learning English is important there.

If the world had chosen another language for communication probably US citizens would need to learn another language still.

A low enough priority that the further I get in my efforts, the more it sinks in with me that I’m mostly wasting my time. It’s a hobby more than a skill.

My attempts to learn my family’s native language have hit a roadblock: now that I have a handle on the grammar, there is no one for me to speak to. It’s frankly pretty upsetting and I’m very discouraged about it.

You’re required to know at least a workable amount of English in order to live and work here, so no matter where they were born, there is absolutely no one in what feels like this entire NW hemisphere that I do not already share a language with. And only one time have I ever known before they said. All other times, they’ve just happened to mention they’re from there after I say something about learning it.

Most immigrants I’ve met are perfectly incognito, and they speak more than well enough for us to understand each other casually. The point of language is to communicate. Goal achieved.

Trying to find a language partner in this situation is proving not only impossible, it’s nigh-pointless to even do unless you’re bored. It’s the same online — nearly everyone already shares a language with me, you’d never guess most of the time, and even country-specific subs sometimes post things in english.

There’s literally no one for me to practice on and zero need to practice unless I feel like going halfway around the globe pretty often in order to make the effort worthwhile. At which point they will still speak to me in english unless I’m lost in the super rural areas, and I will simply cry.

I’ve come to accept that going overseas even once in my life is never going to happen. Europeans seem to vastly overestimate Americans ability to afford to do that. Even if we could, we still have an entire hemisphere to get through first. Which costs significantly less, is almost just as fun, and doesn’t take multiple years of work for a skill you’ll only ever use once.

Tabarnac.

Also when you genocided the indigenous people so hard you never needed to adopt any loan words from the native language.

In the US we take like four to six years of Spanish and walk away with “donde estas la biblioteca” and “donde esta el baño.”

Jay parlay France-says trey bee-in! Jaytude quart annes in laycool.

That’s all I need to know as an American. Any French speakers will immediately switch into English and forbid me from speaking in French, lol.

Hey speak for yourself, I was forced into French immersion school by my parents with promises of good government jobs. Now I can understand French but Quebecois is a whole different beast 😂

The foundations of my French were built on puzzling out the backs of shampooing bottles while sitting on the crapper, pre-internet.

its because of how culturally relevant english is as a language to make others pick it up as a second language. Take for example coding, programming languages were mainly built around english monikers, so a very basic level of english understanding is helpful when doing that. Then you get to the large wall that is western, primarily American media and how its more or less it’s largest export.

Chur

Sgoin on cunt?

Also, Australians don’t speak English. They speak Cunt :)

It’s not like americans speak english either.

“It isn’t like everyone everywhere speaks english on top of their first language” while it can never be everyone, every person I have interacted with from europe, brazil, india, etc has said English was pushed in school. so they are fluent in native tongue and english. And then you have Indians who often speak 4-5 languages besides english. Westerners just don’t need to learn anything besides english, since everyone accomodates for english. Especially Air traffic control.

Even the English royalty would speak in French in official ceremonies

Yeah the closer you get to Mexico the more bilingual we get. With the exception of Louisiana where it’s common to know some French

Some Americans (upstate NY, VT) close to Québec speak some French too.

deleted by creator

Problem 1: livin’ in 'straya

Problem 2: giant foockin spiders

Problem 3: whatever animal declares war on them

Being from East Germany I had Russian in school, can’t speak, but I retained the ability to read kyrillian letters, come in handy sometimes, especially if there are phonetically similiar words.

In Australia I had the option to learn Japanese and then when I went over to Europe my school specifically had a Chinese option, both for “facilitating trade and future relations”

Ngl years later I kinda only use my Chinese skills when I’m at the Chinese market and I’m trying to find the right ingredients for something, and I reckon out of my entire class I probably benefited the most out of taking the language. It isn’t the cultural trade exchange they were hoping for…but hey, it’s pretty useful being able to correctly identify stuff when the English stickers they plaster on the label are vague at best and incorrect at worst

Learning a language is good for your perspicacity in general. Like doing sudokus except it lets you read the news or poetry or something from another culture in its original form.

One reason is that it helps you to understand your native language better.

Watched New Zealand bake show and I loved how many Maori words they incorporated.

And if anyone reading this wants to get a better understanding of pronouncing Māori words, it’s got some similarity with Japanese. Here’s a tip:

a = ah
e = eh
i = ee
o = aw (as in hawk, but not USA’s ‘hock’)
u = oo (as in ew but less of the ‘e’)
wh = f
The r consonant rolls a bit, so it’s like a very soft d sound.

And when vowels are close together they tend to kind of mesh into one, like ‘ai’ into ‘eye.’

So the word whanau (family) is pronounced fah-know, and kaimoana (seafood) is k’eye’-maw-ah-nah. And the Māori word itself is maah-aw-ree, but we’d let you off if you said mow-ree (as in mowing the lawn) because you’re at least making an attempt.

I always thought it was a bit harder in Australia, given that the language changes so much across such small distances.

Kia ora! Tena koutou Tena koutou Tena koutou katoa.

With the 3rd official language being NZSL ( New Zealand Sign Language )

There’s a computer game called Umurangi Generation, which is like Tony Hawk’s but you take photos instead of skateboard, and you can set the language to Maori.

Right? People are forgetting that we’ve got essentially three languages in the entire hemisphere.

You speak three languages in Europe? Congrats you speak 12% of the commonly spoken / national languages.

Speak one language in the Americas? Congrats, you speak 1/3 of them!

Well it depends, in my city in Colombia they pushed english a lot. Was also mandatory in my university in case your school was not bilingual. May be an oddity but you are certainly expected to learn it at some point to not fall behind in this globalized world. Also USA companies hire people cheaply across all industries and have common time zones, so it can be actually worth.

Sorry, but you have a lot of places where different languages melt and mix, especially near Brazil. They don’t speak Spanish there

There are more Spanish speakers in America than Spain.

It’s not a problem, though? Many people learn other languages in the US/Aus/etc. They just don’t get a chance to use them, and those skills fade very quickly.

I’m sure more people would be fluent in another language if daily life motivated retention.

I’ve studied 3 but only used French for the first time this year in my 40s. I just could never afford to travel until work sent me.

It was inevitable that some language would become the most “global.” It’s not anyone’s fault if it also happens to be their native tongue.

Yup, same thing in anglo Canada.