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This statistic is complete bullshit because it relies on self-reporting. When you ask average person "do you speak English?" they understand "can you ask in Eng

This statistic is complete bullshit because it relies on self-reporting. When you ask average person "do you speak English?" they understand "can you ask in English where toilet is?", not "can you consume content in English comfortably?". Ignoring this, sure, there are some countries where true bilingualism is common, but even there, most people are effectively monolingual consumers because what happens is that they just pick one favorite language and consume most content in that language.

tavavex 1y ago
> This statistic is complete bullshit because it relies on self-reporting. Do you have a source for this? I couldn't find the primary source for those numbers (everyone says 43%, quoting each other), but my assumption for anything that quantifies people across the entire planet is that it's probably not based on polling, but making statistical inferences and relying on other data from individual countries, so a mix of different things. Regardless, even if you disagree with that number, true fluency in multiple languages is still extremely common. And it's not just countries that have multiple official languages. People from one country who live close to another country with a similar language will commonly be fluent in both. Depending on your culture, you may be exposed to English to an extent where you'll have a good understanding of it. Try talking to a Dutch person in their language without being fluent in it. And sure, if what you're watching is news or knitting videos, you'll watch them in your first language. The reason why I watch content in another language is because there's often stuff that doesn't even exist in my own. Lots of people with bad formal English education became proficient in English because of the internet, they want to consume English-speaking content because the English internet is far larger and more international than, say, the Norwegian, Polish or Korean internet. It's very, very common.
- MandieD 1y ago
  After watching several well-produced videos from my fellow Americans to try to learn how to hand spin, the one that made it click was a barely-edited one done by an older Chilean/Peruvian woman in Spanish. I have an American high school language course (granted, I did all four years) level of Spanish understanding - maybe because of the language gap, I paid more attention to her motions. Either way, I think having the video in the original language made it work better for me. Google Maps has been doing the most counterproductive thing for quite awhile now: it translates German business names. Instead of seeing "Stoff Bauer," which is the sign I need to look for while driving, I saw "Fabric Farmer," and ironically, only because I actually speak German, I was able to figure out that they had translated that rather common German family name, and what it really should be. Excessive, compulsory auto-translation is awful.

tavavex 1y ago

> This statistic is complete bullshit because it relies on self-reporting. Do you have a source for this? I couldn't find the primary source for those numbers (everyone says 43%, quoting each other), but my assumption for anything that quantifies people across the entire planet is that it's probably not based on polling, but making statistical inferences and relying on other data from individual countries, so a mix of different things. Regardless, even if you disagree with that number, true fluency in multiple languages is still extremely common. And it's not just countries that have multiple official languages. People from one country who live close to another country with a similar language will commonly be fluent in both. Depending on your culture, you may be exposed to English to an extent where you'll have a good understanding of it. Try talking to a Dutch person in their language without being fluent in it. And sure, if what you're watching is news or knitting videos, you'll watch them in your first language. The reason why I watch content in another language is because there's often stuff that doesn't even exist in my own. Lots of people with bad formal English education became proficient in English because of the internet, they want to consume English-speaking content because the English internet is far larger and more international than, say, the Norwegian, Polish or Korean internet. It's very, very common.

MandieD 1y ago
After watching several well-produced videos from my fellow Americans to try to learn how to hand spin, the one that made it click was a barely-edited one done by an older Chilean/Peruvian woman in Spanish. I have an American high school language course (granted, I did all four years) level of Spanish understanding - maybe because of the language gap, I paid more attention to her motions. Either way, I think having the video in the original language made it work better for me. Google Maps has been doing the most counterproductive thing for quite awhile now: it translates German business names. Instead of seeing "Stoff Bauer," which is the sign I need to look for while driving, I saw "Fabric Farmer," and ironically, only because I actually speak German, I was able to figure out that they had translated that rather common German family name, and what it really should be. Excessive, compulsory auto-translation is awful.