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in singapore, it is the opposite. the working class tend to be multilingual - nurses, deliverymen, (food) hawkers, construction workers, odd-job labourers. whe

in singapore, it is the opposite. the working class tend to be multilingual - nurses, deliverymen, (food) hawkers, construction workers, odd-job labourers. when you think of someone who has to juggle multiple languages - mandarin, cantonese, malay, tamil, a smattering of english - often as a necessity, it's someone who's had to hustle at the lower rungs of society. the educated class tend to be monolingual - researchers, policy makers, lawyers, bankers - they've only ever had to operate in environments where the only language used is english.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
I’m pretty sure the only places where being monolingual is common, are the countries where English is the dominant language. If you look at the whole population of the world, it’s more common to know more than one language than it is to know only one. If you’re born in a place that speaks a language other than English, then learning English is very common, and a lot of places (like Singapore) have multiple common languages, where people often speak more than one. Singaporeans will tend to speak English, and the language of their ethnic heritage. Plenty of Malaysians speak Malaysian and Chinese or English. Most people in Indonesia speak Indonesian and their local regional language. A lot of people in India speak their regional language and English or Hindi... I’m not sure it’s a sign of social status in English speaking countries. The wealthier you are, the more you can just expect everybody around you to speak English. Where I live, the most common language I’d expect somebody to know besides English is Spanish, and the local Spanish speaking population isn’t known for their excessive wealth.
- b0rsuk 6y ago
  No. In backwater countries like Poland English is caught at school, but people don't speak or write in it. Many still prefer polish-language media because LACK CONFIDENCE in their english. It typically goes like "Oh, I had English 4 years ago at school, I'm not that good". You use English skills to read a label on a shampoo or an instruction manual. English is not spoken or even written regularly. Before the pandemic I even played board games with lots of people younger than me, largely university students, and there's visible hesitation to use an untranslated game. There is some evidence that Poland was spared from XIII black plague, and - so far - relatively unaffected - by the covid19 pandemic - because it lies off the main transport and travel routes. In Poland, most movies have a Polish voice-over. If you see someone using subtitles, you can be pretty sure he's a cinema fan. Back in the transitional period after 1989 it was common to find english labels on imported goods, but not anymore. Everything except radio music is translated.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    I’m not sure what you think you’re going to prove by point out one example (which you yourself describe as being a comparatively isolated country). The total population of multilingual people is obviously quite hard to measure. But every study I’ve seen has put it above 50% of the worlds population, with English being the most common second language choice. EU stats on Poland say 1/4 of its population speak a second language well enough to hold a conversation, with the most popular languages being English, German and Russian, in that order. https://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf#page14 https://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/...
  - WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
    > relatively unaffected - by the covid19 pandemic With 2k daily new cases, unaffected my ass.
    - b0rsuk 6y ago
      I used the weasel words "so far". It's more like 2400 at the moment. The fact that the epidemic develops later supports my statement that Poland is a backwater country. Which doesn't mean it will go around us. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/poland/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/poland/ The R (effective reproduction rate) coefficient is between 1.3 and 1.5 depending on the interval chosen, which is a very worrying trend. But remember Italy was 4.5 in February. Of course, if they cook books to hide financial deficit they sure can fake infection stats. http://trackingr-env.eba-9muars8y.us-east-2.elasticbeanstalk.com/ http://trackingr-env.eba-9muars8y.us-east-2.elasticbeanstalk...

AmericanChopper 6y ago

I’m pretty sure the only places where being monolingual is common, are the countries where English is the dominant language. If you look at the whole population of the world, it’s more common to know more than one language than it is to know only one. If you’re born in a place that speaks a language other than English, then learning English is very common, and a lot of places (like Singapore) have multiple common languages, where people often speak more than one. Singaporeans will tend to speak English, and the language of their ethnic heritage. Plenty of Malaysians speak Malaysian and Chinese or English. Most people in Indonesia speak Indonesian and their local regional language. A lot of people in India speak their regional language and English or Hindi... I’m not sure it’s a sign of social status in English speaking countries. The wealthier you are, the more you can just expect everybody around you to speak English. Where I live, the most common language I’d expect somebody to know besides English is Spanish, and the local Spanish speaking population isn’t known for their excessive wealth.

b0rsuk 6y ago
No. In backwater countries like Poland English is caught at school, but people don't speak or write in it. Many still prefer polish-language media because LACK CONFIDENCE in their english. It typically goes like "Oh, I had English 4 years ago at school, I'm not that good". You use English skills to read a label on a shampoo or an instruction manual. English is not spoken or even written regularly. Before the pandemic I even played board games with lots of people younger than me, largely university students, and there's visible hesitation to use an untranslated game. There is some evidence that Poland was spared from XIII black plague, and - so far - relatively unaffected - by the covid19 pandemic - because it lies off the main transport and travel routes. In Poland, most movies have a Polish voice-over. If you see someone using subtitles, you can be pretty sure he's a cinema fan. Back in the transitional period after 1989 it was common to find english labels on imported goods, but not anymore. Everything except radio music is translated.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  I’m not sure what you think you’re going to prove by point out one example (which you yourself describe as being a comparatively isolated country). The total population of multilingual people is obviously quite hard to measure. But every study I’ve seen has put it above 50% of the worlds population, with English being the most common second language choice. EU stats on Poland say 1/4 of its population speak a second language well enough to hold a conversation, with the most popular languages being English, German and Russian, in that order. https://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf#page14 https://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/...
- WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  > relatively unaffected - by the covid19 pandemic With 2k daily new cases, unaffected my ass.
  - b0rsuk 6y ago
    I used the weasel words "so far". It's more like 2400 at the moment. The fact that the epidemic develops later supports my statement that Poland is a backwater country. Which doesn't mean it will go around us. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/poland/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/poland/ The R (effective reproduction rate) coefficient is between 1.3 and 1.5 depending on the interval chosen, which is a very worrying trend. But remember Italy was 4.5 in February. Of course, if they cook books to hide financial deficit they sure can fake infection stats. http://trackingr-env.eba-9muars8y.us-east-2.elasticbeanstalk.com/ http://trackingr-env.eba-9muars8y.us-east-2.elasticbeanstalk...