Re: [Somewhat OT] RE: German reputation

On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:06:42 +0000, Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

> [snip]
> > (especially Americans, though the Brits aren't entirely free of this
> > attitude) presume, quite arrogantly, that they needn't learn any foreign
> > languages.
>
> The monoglot Brits are most certainly not free from this. "If you speak
> English loudly and slowly, everyone can understand..."
>
I remember discussing this issue with a person from the UK (Leeds) who
said that he's seen this attitude even among those who've decided to
move to Spain - they form Ghettoes, and refuse to learn the language,
complain about the language, and then complain about the weird
Spaniards (not _every_ expat though, just this specific type). The
same happens with Americans. Although I will admit, where I'm from, we
have a huge tourist industry and we have a large immigrant population
(Mexican, Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese are the top four), so we're
used to people not speaking English well and most will never patronize
someone for not speaking it well either (but more than likely someone
will know the language so it's not usually an issue).


> Unfortunately this is not helped in that so often if one tries to speak
> the native language of whatever country, the reply is returned in *English*
> , because the person wants to practice his/her English - the curse of
> speaking the de_facto IAL!
Well, fortunately for me in Mexico, this didn't happen because either
people didn't speak it, didn't want to "help" me out, or thought I
spoke it well enough they didn't need to. I think I didn't stand out
so much that people automatically thought AMERICAN!


--
You can turn away from me
but there's nothing that'll keep me here you know
And you'll never be the city guy
Any more than I'll be hosting The Scooby Show

Scooby Show - Belle and Sebastian