• Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 years ago

    My 3 favorite experiences with language as an American:

    (1) My Jamaican coworker who I couldn’t understand for the life of me and my Ukrainian coworker who my Jamaican couldn’t understand at all, the Ukrainian coworker understood the Jamaican coworker just fine though and I understood my Ukrainian coworker just fine. Basically it turns into a fun game of telephone whenever we need to talk.

    (2) My former coworker from Haiti who no one but the hiring manager and I could understand, the best part about this is that I didn’t know he had an accent. I just didn’t hear it somehow. He was a great guy, he went back home a few years ago when his mother passed. Got stuck due to the pandemic and never came back to the company. I hope he’s doing well.

    (3) My former coworker from Guatemala insisting English wasn’t my first language as to him it sounded like English was my second language at best. I’ve been working on it since then. I still suck at it.

    • nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip
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      2 years ago

      So, exactly how it works in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesian.

      They speak native local language from their city, other two from other islands, English for international language, sometimes Chinese, Malay, Arabic, Korean, or Japanese. Not to forget the national language, Indonesian.

  • HurlingDurling@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Excuse me, but as an American I take offense to this meme. I speak 4 languages, English, Southern, Bostonian, and Spanish /s

  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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    2 years ago

    Include anglo Canadians in there too!

    Complaining about bilingual (english + french) positions in the public service is a favorite hobby of anglo public servants, as if the french ones didn’t need to learn a second language to get the job… Heck, it’s not rare to see/hear one argue that french Canadians should just start speaking english and stop bothering them about their “unique culture”…

    But hey, it’s not racism… Or so they say 🤷

  • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    Fun fact: Some places in Europe “bilingual” is used as an euphemism for students with middle eastern backgrounds. When used like this it carries lots of negative connotations and authorities try to limit the concentration of “bilingual” students at schools as they’re seen as the source of all kinds of trouble.

  • ElPussyKangaroo@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Well, as an Indian with a love for anime, I speak 3 languages and am learning a 4th (Japanese).

    मुळात माझी मातृभाषा मराठी आहे. आणि मी बरीच वर्ष महाराष्ट्रातच राहिलीय…

    लेकिन school और दोस्तों के वजह से हिंदी भी बोल लेता है. और तो और, इन दोनो की लिपी एक जैसी ही होने के कारण पढणे मे भी दिक्कत नही आति.

    わたしはあにめがすきですから、にほんごをべんきょうおします。今は、にほんごのうりょうくしけんのN5できました。今年の12月にN4できますよ。

    And I plan on learning more soon 🙃.

      • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        2 years ago

        Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013). In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks (figure 1). This translates into 43.0 million U.S. adults who possess low literacy skills

        Source: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp

          • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            2 years ago

            If you didn’t look at this list and ask “Why did they pick these countries and leave out others?” you’re not doing critical thinking. The countries with the highest literacy in the world are almost all either socialist or formerly socialist countries.

              • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                2 years ago

                Hexbear blocks externally hosted images so I can’t see that. Can you edit it and put it in the instance properly with copy paste?

                because it only uses oecd member countries

                Ahh yes, the “international community”.

    • el_bhm@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      Oh look, it’s the same old reposted garbage comment that I have seen on Reddit hundreds of times.

  • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    damn, bro. It’s almost like America is bigger than all of Europe and shares one language, and it’s hard to become fluent in a language when there’s no one to speak it with. If you are asian or european you can hop in the car or on a train to practice your french or vietnamese, but unless you’re practicing Spanish or some specific language kept in your area(Polish in Chicago, Pennsylvania Dutch, German in some parts of Wisconsin) you have no way to practice.

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 years ago

      Not only this, but I’ve met one German speaker irl since german class about 15yr ago. Many times “bilingual” in europe means “X and English,” do German people oft go 15 years without meeting another English speaker? Seems like there’d be one on every corner.

  • andresil@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Americans have trouble with any accent that isn’t the blandest, nails on chalkboard accent.

    Once had one ask me if I was speaking English when I spoke to him (for context I am Irish, the north bit)

    • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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      2 years ago

      Bland and nails on chalkboard? That’s like the opposite of bland. Not great, but definitely not bland. Bland is blunt and flat. Nails on chalkboard is shrill, sharp, and grating. I just don’t understand how you can believe both at the same time.

      • andresil@lemm.ee
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        2 years ago

        Here, I mean more the reaction to it, I sometimes cringe at the pronunciation or intonation in the way one would to nails on a chalkboard (the idiom can have more than one meaning or reaction attached to it)

        • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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          2 years ago

          That doesn’t change the argument. Bland and cringe are also not like each other. I’m all for you criticizing something because it’s different than you, but at least use your language consistently and properly. How would anyone interpret a secondary analogy without knowing how you personally react? It already has a clear meaning on its surface. Occam’s razor would indicate that’s enough. Why would anyone invent a second possible scenario that’s only knowable if you have access to information that isn’t well known, and in this case, near certainty of being unknown? Just say hearing the accent from some other country makes you cringe. Communication doesn’t have to be difficult unless you make it so.

    • notfutomes [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      2 years ago

      I mean if you never leave the US (easy to do, it’s gigantic and travel is expensive/people are poor), it’s kinda understandable that you’d struggle with accents because you rarely hear any, let alone other languages. I know americans that have trouble with english accents lmao

    • Melllvar@startrek.website
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      2 years ago

      You’ll probably hear more and more varied accents in an average US city than in all of Ireland.

  • BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works
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    2 years ago

    The only good thing that the Americanization brought is, that, except the French, the world can communicate with each other in English.

    • ForbiddenRoot@lemmy.ml
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      2 years ago

      I know you are joking but based on my purely anecdotal personal experience, the French (at least in Paris) can now speak and are willing to speak in English much more than a few decades back.

      The first time I went to France, almost 25 years back, I had a rough time communicating at restaurants or even buying tickets at the Paris metro stations. Not sure if the latter was an ability or willingness issue because even holding up two fingers and saying “two tickets” was apparently indecipherable. Had to muster my school days French and say “deux billets” to produce instant results.

      Edit: And no, the two fingers I was holding up were not the middle finger of each hand :P

      • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        it’s like the one upside(ish) of capitalism they had to start communicating in English, because tourism.

          • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            well because it’s kind of a forced adoption in an ideal world we would have developed a common tongue by slowly merging the languages, or at least would have taken one that’s pretty good and then improve on it. For example Hungarian is much better in the sense that what you write is what you pronounce, not the mess that is English, so in an ideal common tongue I feel like that aspect would be adopted.

            Of course Hungarian also has stupid parts, ly (<- that’s supposed to be indeed one letter) and j is the same thing. x is just ks, y is pronounced the same as i and w is just v so there is some extra fat on it, but other than that the 44 letters cover all the sounds you make while pronouncing words.