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Fascinating. Native English speaker, here. Can speak “emergency” Spanish and German, but that’s about it (asking for directions, ordering food, making limited

Fascinating. Native English speaker, here. Can speak “emergency” Spanish and German, but that’s about it (asking for directions, ordering food, making limited small talk in a hideous accent I’ve been told, etc). Tried French for a while but stopped because it’s way too hard to learn without immersion. In a way it’s not really surprising to me that Germany is the country retaining English proficiency - English is a Germanic language after all. That the Romance language countries are drifting away from English is not surprising in that regard. Still, as economies continue to globalize it is curious that there’s a regression at all. English has been the language of business for probably a generation or more at this point. Is this a leading indicator of an economic decoupling we’ll see in the coming decades?

nkrisc 7y ago
I learned a little bit of Norwegian before traveling there. Sure most people we met spoke English but it did help when the trams in Oslo were being rerouted and I was able to read the sign at the otherwise empty tram stop telling us the stop was closed and where to go instead! Or read the Norwegian menu and order appetizers (in English), at which point the waitress realized we weren't Norwegian and gave us the English menus (I didn't realize most restaurants had English menus as well, good for us). I wouldn't have fared well with the main courses. I've found lay food terminology is one the least universal things. My point is, however, that I found learning Norwegian easier than learning Spanish, which I was fluent in at one point, years ago. There weren't 14 tenses to learn like in Spanish, sentence structure felt more familiar and closer to English, and there were many more cognates than I expected. Sure there were some new things like putting articles before or appended to nouns to denote indefinite or definite. Or even the gendered articles (my favorite thing about English is nearly all nouns are neuter).

nkrisc 7y ago

I learned a little bit of Norwegian before traveling there. Sure most people we met spoke English but it did help when the trams in Oslo were being rerouted and I was able to read the sign at the otherwise empty tram stop telling us the stop was closed and where to go instead! Or read the Norwegian menu and order appetizers (in English), at which point the waitress realized we weren't Norwegian and gave us the English menus (I didn't realize most restaurants had English menus as well, good for us). I wouldn't have fared well with the main courses. I've found lay food terminology is one the least universal things. My point is, however, that I found learning Norwegian easier than learning Spanish, which I was fluent in at one point, years ago. There weren't 14 tenses to learn like in Spanish, sentence structure felt more familiar and closer to English, and there were many more cognates than I expected. Sure there were some new things like putting articles before or appended to nouns to denote indefinite or definite. Or even the gendered articles (my favorite thing about English is nearly all nouns are neuter).