maybe You should be learning a second language!

[Amethyst Wind]

I live in a completely mono-lingual country. It's called England (no, I'm not talking about the full island of Great Britain).

I can speak a little of a few other languages, well no, I can listen a little in a few other languages and can speak a little in ONE other language.

That other language is Mandarin Chinese, though I suspect I'll forget most of what I've learned because I'm focusing on learning Spanish and don't intend to return to China in the foreseeable future.

My brother can speak French so I suspect I'll pick some up from him.

 

[Henkie36]

Well, I can call myself multilingual, since I speak Dutch as my native language, English almost as a second language, West Frisian since I have lived there for some considerable time (yeah, it's a shame only 600.000 people are left who speak it) and my French is... well, not great, but I could have a decent conversation with someone in French.

 

[Izael]

1. English is used here mostly, but Spanish is a close second.
2. Used to know some Spanish, but neglect of the language has left me forgetting what is there.
3. I am currently trying to relearn my Spanish since I now have a job in Customer Service and know it would make thing easier for the very problem you mentioned in the OP. As a personal want, I have been trying to learn German for a trip I hope to make to Germany at some point in my life.

 

[Jonluw]

I speak English and can write some rudimentary French.
Norwegian being my native language also means that I understand Swedish and Danish.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

Do you live in France if you do then the whole fail pass thing kinda matches to my o'd high school, we had to pass both spanish classes to graduate but we could fail english.

OT: 1. Mostly english in my state.

2. Yes

3. I know three, english cause I'm american, spanish from my stepmother, and japanese from my grandmother. Working on belgian from my other grandma makes my brain hurt.

 

[Cybele]

1. Yes. I live in Estonia so there are quite a lot of Russians here. Despite that I haven't learned any Russian, the language simply doesn't interest me. What pisses me off though is when some Russians who have lived here their whole life can't speak a single word of Estonian or just don't want to try and get angry because I can't speak Russian.
2. I can speak Estonian, English and German. I've thought about learning French but I have no use for it here. I'd just forget it after a while.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

I guess it's german then, she's from Belgium so I kinda just assumed y'know.

 

[LiberalSquirrel]

1) Nah, the area I'm in speaks English pretty exclusively, save for our international students.

2) Sí, hablo español.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Only English here, and the only language I ever learned was Latin, so no help there.

 

[DanielBrown]

1. Do you live in an area where more then one language is commonly used?
Nope. Pretty much everyone knows how to speak English however. Only the senior citizens that might have some problems with it. They are often better at speaking German as far as I know.

2. Do you know more then one language?
Aye.

3. If yes, what other language do you speak
English and Swedish fluently. Also know a little bit of Spanish(extremely little).

 

[opeth1989]

1. Somewhat, If you consider white trash hillbilly a different language, which IS a valid thing to do as it is deviated from English more than the differences between English spoken in Europe and spoken in North America.

2. Jes

3. I am fluent in Geek. However I am in the process of learning German, French, Spanish and Chinese none of which have I earned a great deal of proficiency with. With the exception of German I am barely beyond the picking up on words and phrases phase of the language.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Other thought: It really bothers me. Why is it that certain people from a certain geographical location equate multilingualism as a sign of intelligence when they originate in a place where it is infinitely easier to be multilingual due to having more natural exposure to other languages from a much younger age?

For example, Go to certain parts of Florida, Texas, California with higher populations of Latinos and it will be infinitely more common to see non Latinos with at least a rudimentary understanding of Spanish than it would be in many parts of rural heartland America. If you simply are not exposed to other languages directly, then its not exactly as relevant skill for you to learn. It is no gauge on ones intellect. But for some reason it doesnt stop those who are nestled in a land where they are surrounded by dozens of other languages from viewing it as a sign of intellectual superiority.

I have no idea why someone would feel superior from someone else simply for knowing a 2nd language. This is most certainly not the case with me and I apologize if this is what you got from my post. I know how hard it is to learn an other language, I have tried to learn spanish in my free time, and trust me I am no where near ready to have a conversation in spanish. If someone ONLY knows english, hey, that's ok with me, my only problem is the way the cashier insulted this lady after she left simply for not being able to speak english properly since he was not even able to speak a word of french.

Also, I do believe in a bilingual area, yes, you should be able to at least speak basic french and english (if those are the languages of your area) but I don't view anyone as *inferior* for not being able too.

I certainly do not view my self to be more intelligent than anyone else simply because I can speak two languages, however I will not stand for the kind of disrespect that this cashier was showing after she left.

If he had simply gotten a french employee to help her, I would have never had any problem with this guy.

 

[cathou]

1-It depend. i work in montreal wich is 60% or so french and 30% or so english. But the area where i live is like 95% french

2,3- yes i speak english (french is my first language), not that well, but i understand it very well.

and i see very often situation like the one the OP saw here. sometimes it's an english person who rant about someone who cant speak english, sometimes it's from someone who speak french and rant about english people.

 

[Marter]

1. Not really. I don't hear many French speakers in this part of the country.
2. Somewhat. I'm in the process of learning it.
3. French.

 

[farscythe]

1 nope just english here
2 yes
3 dutch and english fluently , german well enough to get by and very broken french (long as you try to speak someones language they seem more willing to speak yours out of sympathy for the effort heh)

 

[opeth1989]

Do you live in France if you do then the whole fail pass thing kinda matches to my o'd high school, we had to pass both spanish classes to graduate but we could fail english.

No, I live in Canada, New-Brunswick to be precise, in a mainly english and french community.

 

[Smokej]

I acquired most of the languages which helped me to get sh*t done at the academic level (arts).

Those include: German (native), English + French (at School), Latin and some classical Greek (at Uni). The old languages are obligatory in most examination regulations for studying languages and liberal arts. So you either have to had them for 5+ years at school or make an exam at uni (which is alot harder and if you fail 2 times you're out...) Outside of the academic level the old languages have little use other than to show off and be a wise-ass

In my country German is the most important language, of course... but you have large crowds of turkic or arabic speaking immigrants as well(who are often only fluent in their native language)

 

[JustiHentze]

1. Nope, mostly one language used where i live, however we are taught several from an early age.
2. Yes.
3. My native language, is Faroese. But i speak fluently English, Danish and Norwegan. Pretty above decent German. and can understand most Icelandic, and Swedish. Am currently fiddeling around with Japanese.