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.
Lol I have a similar problem, I’m from Iceland but I don’t live there anymore, so whenever I go back I try to enjoy the novelty of speaking my native language as much as possible. Trouble is, almost every service worker downtown doesn’t even speak Icelandic lol
I remember this one. I love this story.
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.
I, an American, once asked a person what language they were speaking… They said they were Scottish and was speaking English.
I backed into someone in a crowded bar in Sapporo and said excuse me in Japanese and heard the same thing behind me. We both turned around at the same time and saw we were both foreigners.
Sumi masen
Don’t know if this is the right spelling
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.
Ive heard from a few different tourists who went to places like Italy and South and Centeral American countries, and aparently often times people there want to practice their english which can cause quite the funny scene where you’re both speaking each others language poorly at one another.
I never understood the “ugh you’re trying to speak my language, I don’t feel like listening to you butcher it” that some countries get.
Like every time a coworker bitches about how they can’t understand a warehouse worker because of their heavy accent, the fuck do you expect them to do, not try to talk at all? (the real answer is usually “hurrrr go back tuh where dey came frum”) but you’re gonna sit there, butchering the language you use every single day by the way you speak and how you spell, while they’re in a country they likely did not grow up in, and are learning the language still. If they don’t converse, they have a harder time improving. If you truly cared about understanding them, you would talk to them more.
Anecdote time: one of the forklift drivers was fairly new when I started last year. She’s a social butterfly. Comes over to ask how we’re all doing, asks how my wife is, how coworkers kids are, how our weeks are going. She moved here from Puerto Rico, and barely has an accent anymore. It’s definitely there and you can place it, but 0 problem understanding every word.
A couple guys started just after I did, and they stand around the compactor all day where it’s too noisy to talk, and nobody voluntarily goes near. They still have very broken speech and heavy accents. They’ve been going out to clean things recently so I try to strike up conversations but they don’t seem too social when they’re working.
I have no way of knowing what these people do outside of work, but if inside is any indicator, being social and talking goes a long way to improving speech in any given language.
So maybe don’t go “that’s cute. Stop trying.” instead go “hey cool, but if you’re up for some constructive criticism…” and be helpful. Or shut the fuck up.
The top one might even be called an “expat” rather than “immigrant”.
“Expat” is just British term used in Britain about British “people” living abroad, innit?
I’ve heard it for Americans also.
Also in my experience, when living abroad most Brits will describe themselves whilst there to others there as expats, rather than say they’re immigrants there.
So it’s not just used in Britain - as people living abroad whilst abroad say they’re expats - though it’s mostly Brits doing it.
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.
There’s a joke about how Finnish tourists deal with this.
They simply speak Finnish. If the local doesn’t understand, then just repeat louder
If you go to Normandy, they’ll practically give you a BJ just for showing up!
their still excited over that beach party we threw in the 40s
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.
True, kinda. But every foreigner I met who is not Russian learns at least some conversational Lithuanian really quickly.
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.
Nee, Nederlands alstublieft. Ik probeer te integreren.
If you are from Germany on the other hand it is mandatory to greet in Dutch. They will answer you in German then.
Este atat de tare cand gasesc o persoana ce vorbeste romana pe internet.
Multumesc mult!
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…”
Ive traveled to all those areas to one extent or another and I’ve never seen a more accurate joke meme in my life.
Why Brits are grey?
Because nobody notices
As in everyone understand every language or they don’t understand even native language?
They don’t realise if English isn’t your first 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.
You get beaten up on a bus for “speaking foreign” in the UK
As an American who learned German, this is very accurate for the krautistanis.
Until you get to a certain point, and then every German turns into your 10th grade German teacher .
I hadn’t spoken German in 9 years, and the help desk lady at the airport told me if I don’t practice I won’t get better. At the airport.
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)
Sounds like Berlin! Bit yes, most people in Berlin will speak english with you, even sometimes when you speak german.
In Berlin in particular they might not even speak German themselves…
My experience is this: In Austria they want to speak English. In Germany they want to speak German. On a Lufthansa flight it’s 50/50 whether they ask me questions in English or German.
We used to joke that most Germans don’t speak English until you get them drunk, and then they are more fluent than native speakers.
Do you speak english?
A bit
How much is a bit?
You see, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I have internalized the complex syntactic fabrics of the english languaje but I can make myself understood and even, under good conditions take syntactic liberties to stress my points, furthermore, although my vocabulary is not as extensive as my heart deasires, I have been making great strives to make it richer and fuller.
…
…
Dude…
Was denn?
Germany has a very big immigrant population, so plenty of people who don’t look German at all but speak fluently or even natively.
About English, they are very self-concious and they often say that they speak “a little bit” when they are for all intents and purposes fluent.
Exactly!
It probably depends on where in Germany you are. One time in Berlin I started on my broken German and they reacted with a big question mark, and then back to English.
And 20-30 years ago you had to use German most places.
Yeah, Berlin is a diferent breed. They will speak english to you there, is quite common.
when my dad was stationed in germany all he ever learned to say was “which way to the train station?”
So he literally “only understands train station”.
“Verstehe nur Bahnhof” is a common German expression to say that you have no idea what someone just said (because of jargon, or whatever), which supposedly comes from people that came to Germany and only new/understood “train station”.
