You’d know, I guess! See, I don’t WANT to be an ugly American. I hear the joke all the time: a person who speaks three languages is trilingual, two languages is bilingual, and one is American. 
So most people would not take it amiss if I don’t know much Polish, say, or German in Germany, Italian in Italy? I was even nervous to visit Quebec for fear that people would be annoyed with the ignorant Anglo.
I’m pretty sure that the majority of Poles only speak one language. I’ve been all over Eastern Europe (barring Poland, strangely enough) and it’s only the younger generations that speak English. Tourists in Latvia were enough of a novelty when we went that we could hear passers-by saying “tourist!” and staring, as we walked past.
The idea that everybody in Europe is multilingual is ridiculous. The French, as a rule, certainly don’t speak English very well, so I don’t lose much sleep over their opinions of my schoolboy French.
Trust me, it really wouldn’t be a problem. Not that many people there speak English well (older people are more likely to have learnt Russian and/or German at school), which is a slight disadvantage if you got outside the tourist areas, but you definitely wouldn’t be thought poorly of for not speaking Polish. In Germany and Italy you wouldn’t even have the problem of them lacking English.
IME *les Québécois et Québécoise *are much more accepting of Americans not speaking French than they are of other Canadians.
Yeah, my fear of that was pretty well wiped away when I started taking phone calls from Montreal. Of all the people I talk to every day who have shaky English, they are almost universally the most polite, cheerful, easygoing, good-natured people. They understand they’re calling an American company based in the US and while they don’t expect me to know French and are unfailingly patient, they’d be delighted if we employed someone who did.
How dare you, all Europeans are extremely worldly and cosmopolitan. I learned it from living in the rural Balkans.
A conversation I had in Bulgaria when I had only been there for a couple months and my Bulgarian was VERY weak:
Dude in my village: Do you speak Bulgarian?
Me: A little.
DIMV: Do you speak Russian?
Me: No.
DIMV: Do you speak French?
Me: No.
DIMV: You only speak English???
So now you know. There are only four languages in the world, according to Dude In My Village. Fortunately, my Bulgarian is quite good now, so I’m set!
Reminds me of the time the pathology department at a Quebec hospital reviewed a case of mine (a common practice when patients transfer to another facility) and, as is customary, sent me a copy of their pathology report - entirely in French. Apparently their pathologist was monolingual or else they had a policy against putting out a report in English (I suspect the latter).
Surprisingly it was pretty easy for me to translate their report with the aid of my less than optimal high school French. They agreed with my diagnosis (I think).
Той е магаре.
Sorry, missed this.
YEs, she is currently my wife in taht we are married.
The quotation marks are my way of dealing with the fact that she no longer wishes to be, despite my best efforts.
Maybe it’s silly, but I know where Little Plastic Ninja is coming from. I don’t really like being in a place where I don’t speak the language. I feel that I’m being rude.
This said, I do travel relatively often, for my studies. I’m writing this from Münster, Germany (and no, I don’t speak German other than a few useful words). But everytime I want to buy something, or go to a restaurant, I have this dilemma: do I try to communicate using the few words of German I know (and fail to understand a word of the response) or do I try speaking English (and feel like a complete dork for being totally out of touch with the local culture)? I remember matt_mcl pointing out that Germans do not “switch”: if you try speaking German with them, they’ll keep speaking with you in German even if it’s obvious you don’t understand a thing. You have to ask for English. He’s right, I’ve noticed the same thing.
Before I went to Italy last Winter, I took an introductory Italian class in order to help me with the language. It was immensely useful. But I still felt like a dork from time to time, because while I can usually communicate what I want, I have trouble understanding what people say. I’m really only truly bilingual (French and English) and I feel it’s some sort of moral fault on my part. There are so many languages I should be able to speak.
I see that you’ve been to Quebec, but for those who wonder, Quebecers are kind of like the anti-Germans. If we speak English (which is quite common, especially in Montreal, but elsewhere as well) we’ll switch to English as soon as the person we’re speaking with shows trouble with French. We’ll even switch to English with a fluent French speaker with a English accent. (I have to resist the urge to do it.) Heck, if you don’t mind an anecdote: when I was a little kid, my father once switched to English with a fluently French-speaking (but anglophone) salesperson in Gatineau when we were there to buy something and I didn’t even understand English yet! He basically excluded me from a conversation just to “accommodate” someone who didn’t need it and who was there to offer us a service. My father’s kind of weird and not representative of everyone in Quebec, but that’s the sort of thing you’ll see in a society that’s not completely recovered from a severe inferiority complex.
And we’re more accepting of non-Quebec Canadians not speaking French than of other Quebecers not speaking French. I don’t expect Albertans or even Ontarians to speak French; why should they? But if someone lives in Quebec, we expect them to eventually be able to communicate in French, and it pisses us off if they don’t.
Of course, part of the blame is on us for making it possible to live in Quebec without speaking or even understanding French. But that’s getting into politics.
I think my mother’s got the “speak English when I’m here, how am I supposed to know you’re not talking behind my back?” at work too. But that’s kind of an older way of thinking, I think they’d dare less say it today.
Now as for the significance of her being Albertan, either she was just an “ugly Canadian” as you say and there’s no significance at all, or there may be an explanation in terms of Canadian regional rivalries and political conflicts. Once again we’d be getting into politics here, though, and I don’t especially want to hijack this thread too much.
I see your point, but on the other hand I think that in many cases young people can be less clueless than older ones. When I hear the New Hampshirites and Floridians here talk about “Canadians” who don’t tip, dress weird, speak loudly in French and think the world revolves around them, I can’t recognize myself in their description, but I kind of know who they’re talking about. Of course, we’re dealing with the kind of people who think tanning/burning their beer belly on beaches for hours on end is a nice vacation, so a particuliar kind of tourist, but even notwithstanding this, some traditions are changing. I, for one, always tip 15-20%, and I think people in my age group do as well, but for my parents tipping means (or used to mean, they may have figured otherwise) leaving a dollar or so in the table after the meal. It’s not because they’re jerks, it’s probably how it was done when they were younger.
ETA:
Probably it was just that since that hospital was a French-language hospital (I suppose), they produced documents in French. Did you ask them for a translation?
There’s a tonne of important papers in CS virtually unavailable to 99% of all computer scientists because they’re written entirely in French. It is only the French that do this. Everybody else writes in English.
Колко догър е твойят Български!
(Изполваше преводач по интернета, на ли?)
I understand, and I’ve been in that position myself, but the fleeting embarrassment over not speaking the language is, imho, outweighed by the enjoyment of traveling and visiting new places. Even in places where I did not speak the language and couldn’t find anyone who spoke English (ALBANIA, LOOKING AT YOU) it was worth the hassle.
My experience is that people in Eastern Europe who discover you can speak, maybe 20 or 30 words of the native language, will regard you as a fascinating and delightful curiosity. Not because “Americans are ignorant” but because they are well aware they speak an uncommon and quite difficult language that most people never have a chance to learn. Hungarians, who speak a linguistically unique non-Slavic group language, in particular are amazed at even the most elementary effort.
Hello, goodbye, please, thank you, the numbers 1-10, some food nouns, and the phrases “what’s the word for…[pointing at thing]?” and “how much is that?” have gotten me quite a long way in about 10 languages that I don’t speak at all – and I have yet to meet the person – even in France! who did not seem pleased at the effort. (I’ve never been to Paris but in the South of France the people were so sweet about my awkward 10th grade type French. I know a lot of words for things but only the most basic grammar. I sound like Frankenstein.)
I am sure you would not be “that jerk.” Stop being silly and book your trip!!!
Bring a couple phrasebooks and muddle your way through, and I think most decent people would be happy to help you out if you’re showing that you’re trying. My husband and I did that in our trips to Italy, always starting off in Italian and only resorting to English if the other person did first, and we always had good experiences.
We did run into an ugly - or idiot - American in Rome. Some American loudly, in English, criticized my husband’s fashion sense, mistaking him for an Italian and someone who didn’t speak English. (He’s of Italian descent but his grandfather emigrated to the US.) The latter assumption is not wise in Italy.
After a few days in Barcelona I made it a point to pick up a few words in Catalan and people (random strangers I would meet in cafes or bars) were so pleased that I had taken even the smallest effort that they went out of their way (in English) to make me feel like an honored guest…
It’s the same in E. Europe—the Czechs and Poles know that their languages are not widely spoken, so when a visitor makes an effort they are usually very well thought of, and sometimes even served copious amounts of excellent pivo and many shots of Becherovka on the house, or so I have been told.
Well, people write research papers to transmit knowledge among their research community. You haven’t said it explicitely, but I would assume that these papers are in a specific area or theory of computer science, and that all or almost all researchers who work on it are in France. So French became the common publication language of their research community, which may presumably limit its growth by limiting its exposure, but probably works fine for their purposes. Would you read their papers, or be interested in them, if they were written in English?
I also don’t really see what the link is between a research paper from France and a pathology report from Quebec (which was the post you responded to).
Oh, yes. If you actually do speak the language, people will look at you like you’re a talking horse, so 20 or 30 words might actually be preferable.
About a year ago there was one of those hidden camera shows, Dateline or 20/20 or something, all about this stereotype. Very amusing. They had some loudmouthed, poorly dressed American tourists hamming it up all over Paris. However, while the Parisians didn’t seem to mind, or were even amused (until I think one of the women started eating food off their plate), it was by and large other American tourists or expats who glared at them and hissed for them to shut up and stop making all Americans look bad.
Yep. When I went to Armenia simply saying “thank you” in their language was enough to evoke absolute fits of delight. They knew damn well I couldn’t really speak the language but that was enough. Nobody expected tourists to even learn that much Armenian.
Refusing to travel someplace because you can’t actually converse with the natives strikes me as simply making excuses.
As you will hear it from everybody else in the thread, don’t take that point of view. All you need is about 30 words and the desire to not be an ugly american, and you will do fine in Europe. Yes, people talk morequietly abroad, but they use the left had to wipe their ass…you eat with the right hand =)
I agree, I have traveled all over with nothing more than one of those travelers phrase books, a few maps and guide books and the desire to enjoy the trip and meet people.
Any of the polish guys I game with online are really nice, friendly. I am learning polish a word at a time =)
People are used to tourists not speaking the language. Really - just because they get a few years of some other language in schhool much like we do, they also tend to forget it if they don’t use it. My friend Vlad is currently living in Belgium and struggling with learning french - his english is fluent enough that he could be from the US.
Just get a guidebook, some maps and a few phrase books, and you will do fine. Learn the basics - hello, please, thank you, excuse me and do you speak english, and don’t be afraid to ask what soe food or drink is if it looks interesting!
See? One of them may have been afraid to all the US and sound dumb, but they coped =) Now you can do the same!
I love chatting with my online gaming buddies, I am learning words and phrases in polish, romanian, norwegian, swedish, danish, dutch and having a blast doing it. I have plans to meet up in Germany with one of my romanian gamer buddies, and might be having the dutch one make it to meet up with the both of us =)