Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
If Americans in general (including me) could speak another language half as well as the Dutch speak English, we'd get along far better in the world.
|
There's an old joke about that:
Q What do you call someone who speaks several languages?
A Multi-lingual
Q What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A Bi-lingual
Q What do you call someone who speaks one language?
A An American
I took Latin, French, and Spanish back when. I've had no call to use them, and remember next to none beyond a few random curses. It's use that's the key, and I had no call to actually speak, read, or write them, so they left in a huff.
My SO has a facility for language. At one point, she could overhear people speaking, and if she listened long enough, get a feel for what they were talking about, whether or not she knew the language. (And at one point, she was at least somewhat fluent in eleven languages. These days, she's more or less bi-lingual in English and Spanish, and fluent in French if it involves cuisine. The rest have atrophied.)
There is far more reason for Europeans to know more than one language because they will have far more cause to use them. No surprise more of them speak more than one.
And curses are the things likely to be learned first. I was tickled years back to find myself walking behind a Hispanic and an Indian, and hearing the Hispanic ask the Indian "How you say, in Tamil, asshole?"
My SO reported passing a pair of Indian shopkeepers while out shopping, and they were chattering away. "Hindi hindi hindi
schmuck! hindi hindi..." I assumed they were discussing their landlord.
______
Dennis