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Foreign is relative. I'd count any language that isn't an official language of your country of birth or residence.
by klyrs 5y ago
Foreign is relative. I'd count any language that isn't an official language of your country of birth or residence.
- Cpoll 5y agoI suspect that most multilingual Americans are immigrants or a child of immigrants. By your definition, they would not be considered to speak a foreign language. I for one don't know the intent of the question. Is there a reason the poster phrased it as "foreign languages" instead of "multilingual," or is that a language difference?
- klyrs 5y agoI said birth or residence. A precise reading would determine that an immigrant speaks two foreign languages: one foreign to their birth country and one foreign to their country of residence. My definition is not authoritative, of course, merely exemplary.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ALittleLight 5y agoSo, a Canadian who knows French and English, both of which are official languages of Canada, can speak zero foreign languages?
- klyrs 5y agoI'd say so, yes. I know American Sign Language and don't consider that to be foreign either. Perhaps 'official' isn't the right cut: indigenous languages aren't official in Canada nor the US and I certainly wouldn't call those foreign either (unless somebody lives in Portugal and speaks Lakota, of course. From a different perspective, English and French are both foreign languages, brought to the land by colonizers.