# Do you think it's disrespectful to speak English in other countries? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 6, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159 "2012-12-06T05:28:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/81 "2012-12-07T14:38:00Z")
**amanset** , I have English friends who have lived here for ages and still speak the most dreadful Swedish. I’d say being able to learn a new language is a very personal thing. ---
**Author:** ![solosam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@solosam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solosam)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/82 "2012-12-07T14:40:03Z")
> [@](#): > > and for gaijin to speak it shattered that psychological refuge. That’s the best incentive for learning a foreign language I’ve ever heard. ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/83 "2012-12-07T14:41:04Z")
> [@Glazer](#): > > Sometimes it is the only common language between two people. If you both speak another language you should use whichever you can communicate in the best. Be it theirs, yours or a forth language all together. Years ago when I was taking Computer Science classes in college, I learned a little bit of FORTH. It would not be a good choice for trying to communicate with other people. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/84 "2012-12-07T15:23:46Z")
> [@Floater](#): > > **amanset** , I have English friends who have lived here for ages and still speak the most dreadful Swedish. I’d say being able to learn a new language is a very personal thing. Which is what I was saying. The idea that “Everyone here speaks perfect English” is ridiculous and quite clearly untrue. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/85 "2012-12-07T22:00:19Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Not me. I always try to speak Spanish in Starbucks to reflect the South American origins of the coffee beans. In Starbucks I always speak in garbled Italian combined with completely made-up sort of Italian-sounding words. Oh, for the OP. If you’re in a country for a week or more, you should at least know the 7-ish basics (hello, thank you, excuse me, etc.). Much longer and you should probably add “I don’t speak \” (You’ll say “Excuse me” first of course). How much more depends a lot on circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/86 "2012-12-07T22:09:24Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Oh, for the OP. If you’re in a country for a week or more, you should at least know the 7-ish basics (hello, thank you, excuse me, etc.). Much longer and you should probably add “I don’t speak \” (You’ll say “Excuse me” first of course). > > How much more depends a lot on circumstances. After a week of being bothered by pushy Italian bums, panhandlers and street peddlers, I found the term “vaffanculo” (fuck off, or litterally “go take it in the ass”) to be helpful. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/87 "2012-12-07T22:27:31Z")
I actually have a fear of traveling to other countries because I am embarrassed that I only speak English. If I ever do any traveling, I’m going to limit myself to the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the like. I would feel comfortable traveling with a good friend who knew the native language well, though. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/88 "2012-12-07T23:09:41Z")
> [@dataguy](#): > > I’ve noticed that in most places I’ve traveled, natives speak more than one language. Americans seem to be allergic to learning any language other than English. You don’t need to learn that many words in another language to get by: How much? What is..? Which way..? Please. Thank you. > [@Johanna](#): > > This. This! _Three hundred million times_ this! I’m forever embarrassed and exasperated by my compatriots on this issue. It’s OK if you don’t learn it fluently. It’s OK if you only learn a little. It’s just this downright allergy toward making _any_ effort at all that exasperates me. Funny thing I’ve noticed, though…other people _also_ seem allergic to learning any language other than English. Here’s what I mean: for the past week I’ve been traveling in Turkey and Germany. Time after time I’ve noticed other travelers who are _not_ native English speakers go up to restaurant, hotel, or museum staff or strangers on the street and _just start speaking English_. No polite prelude in the local language, just straight into English. I noticed Italians, Spaniards, French, Germans, Scandinavians (Swedes, I think?), Chinese, and Koreans doing this - that’s just among the ones I could identify beforehand. Granted, all those people had at least learned a foreign language (English). But it makes it no less rude to the local Turk or German they start speaking to! This is hardly the first time I noticed this; it’s just that I’m always impressed by the frequency of it. Of course, it goes both ways: in Turkey particularly if you don’t look Turkish locals will immediately start speaking English to you. I thought I’d hear some German, considering how many Turks live in that country, but the only German I heard in Istanbul was from a beggar. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/89 "2012-12-08T02:26:30Z")
In Turkey today, lots of people have learned English. When I went to İstanbul in 1989, though, English hadn’t become popular yet. I found very few Turks who knew any English at all. The main foreign language learned by Turks, traditionally, was French, and for centuries they’d been in the habit of interfacing with western Europe via French. The tour guide at Topkapı assigned to my group of assorted foreigners was French-speaking. Fortunately, I was one person there who could speak French. German was second in popularity, and English third, I think. Once on the street I saw an English language institute (_İngilizce Dil Enstitüsü_). Thinking I’d get the chance to speak English in that city for a change, I climbed up the stairs and spoke to the receptionist, but ironically, of course, she knew no English, she just worked there. No matter; I had a Turkish dictionary and phrasebook with me, which I studied on the flight over, and within a day or so after arriving and just walking around town talking to ordinary Turks, I was able to converse in Turkish with reasonable fluency. Turkish grammar is extremely logical, systematic, and almost entirely free from irregular forms, which gives a leg up to the foreign learner. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/90 "2012-12-08T10:02:51Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > Of course, it goes both ways: in Turkey particularly if you don’t look Turkish locals will immediately start speaking English to you. I thought I’d hear some German, considering how many Turks live in that country, but the only German I heard in Istanbul was from a beggar. I get it in Sweden. I’ve lived here thirteen years and can speak the language (I work in Swedish and in my spare time do distance courses at University, in Swedish) but people hear my accent and just decide they want to go with English because they either want to practice their English or just show off. So I end up with the ridiculous situation of me speaking to a Swede in Sweden in Swedish and them insisting on talking to me in English. Talk to any native English speaker that can speak Swedish here and they’ll tell you the same. It isn’t just me and it really, really gets on my tits. It is also several orders of magnitude more disrespectful that what the OP is talking about. I have spent many hundreds of hours, hell thousands, in my spare time to learn this language (for a long period I was doing five hours of night school classes a week) and this is how they treat me? ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/91 "2012-12-08T10:25:35Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I actually have a fear of traveling to other countries because I am embarrassed that I only speak English. If I ever do any traveling, I’m going to limit myself to the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the like. > > I would feel comfortable traveling with a good friend who knew the native language well, though. I’m rather worried about this myself, actually. Although I like to think I’d put effort into learning the polite words and the important functional words, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/92 "2012-12-08T10:38:11Z")
**Rodgers01** People I met in Germany explained that if they go on holiday to Italy or France or Poland or wherever that typically English is the lingua franca they use. Plenty of Germans can speak French and vice versa etc but it seems like a fair compromise that has built up over the years of mass tourism. They said for that reason alone lots of Germans keep up their English skills long after they finished school, even if their life/work doesn’t otherwise require it. In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience, similar to Amanset’s comments above about Sweden, Germans aren’t as thoroughly fluent in English as their international reputation might lead an Anglophone tourist to believe. I can string a few sentences together in German, get by I suppose, and I’ve found it necessary in many situations to resort to my pidgin German. Younger Germans, for example, almost all learned English at school, but plenty of people in other countries study foreign languages at school without ever acquiring fluency or comfort in it. In fact, in Ireland we study what is meant to be our co-official language for 13 years and most aren’t fluent in it thereafter. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/93 "2012-12-08T19:53:34Z")
Well, everyone understands English if you talk loudly enough. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/94 "2012-12-08T20:19:11Z")
I spent about six weeks combined in France and Italy a few years ago. I adored the people in both countries. So many of them went out of their way to help us in English. On several occasions someone would greet us, find out we were Americans and ask if they could practice their English skills. My eldest daughter made friends with an adorable young French girl at a day on the beach. My daughter does not speak French and the little girl did not speak English. But they spoke the language of little girls so all was well. At one point the two of them jointly decided to pick on the little girl’s older brother. 😃 I tried to speak French but unfortunately I’ve also studied Spanish and it all gets mixed up in my brain with Hebrew. So I would create sentences like “Shalom, l’hitraot commo tallez vouz amigo mio.” And then they would like at me like I’m from Mars. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/95 "2012-12-08T21:51:22Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > **Rodgers01** People I met in Germany explained that if they go on holiday to Italy or France or Poland or wherever that typically English is the lingua franca they use. Plenty of Germans can speak French and vice versa etc but it seems like a fair compromise that has built up over the years of mass tourism. They said for that reason alone lots of Germans keep up their English skills long after they finished school, even if their life/work doesn’t otherwise require it. Well sure, I understand _why_ they do it, and the fact is they tend to be correct in their assumption: in every instance that I witnessed the Turk or German being spoken to understood English. But that doesn’t change the rudeness factor. If, as majority opinion in this thread holds, Americans and other English speakers should at least learn some phrases in the local language before launching into English, surely non-native English speakers should as well. I’ve wondered before how often a Turk (for example) have some jerk start speaking English to him, can’t detect the guy’s Swedish accent, and silently curses the presumption of what he assumes to be the American or British person he’s talking to! ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/96 "2012-12-09T01:49:31Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > **Rodgers01** People I met in Germany explained that if they go on holiday to Italy or France or Poland or wherever that typically English is the lingua franca they use. Plenty of Germans can speak French and vice versa etc but it seems like a fair compromise that has built up over the years of mass tourism. They said for that reason alone lots of Germans keep up their English skills long after they finished school, even if their life/work doesn’t otherwise require it. Probably not Poland actually- that was one of the countries I wound up in not speaking any of the language. It turns out that the older Polish generation generally learned German at school same as I did, so I had a few conversations where we were both speaking school level German. I was also given tourist maps in German (despite being able to see English language ones in the office), because due to the number of German tourists, that was the default ‘foreign’ language, and the lady working in the tourist offices didn’t know enough English to even know what language I was asking for. Incidently **DMark** , I also went on an exchange trip to Germany when I was studying it at school, which included two weeks at a German school; their English classes were at a pretty high level, several hours a week and almost entirely given in English, so I guess the standard varies quite a lot. ---
**Author:** ![the\_wandering\_pickle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@the\_wandering\_pickle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_wandering_pickle)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/97 "2012-12-09T12:35:45Z")
> [@DrumBum](#): > > Huh. Earliest mention of the word fascist I could find was 1920’s. Doesn’t surprise me, since it wasn’t a word in English until then. The word ‘fascist’ comes from Italian. Bleda would have likely spoken some form of proto-Slavic or some old form of a Turkic language. I dunno there; not much is known about the Hunnic language. Still, just because a word didn’t exist in English until the 1920’s doesn’t mean the concept didn’t exist in abstraction far before that. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/98 "2012-12-09T18:34:09Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > Incidently **DMark** , I also went on an exchange trip to Germany when I was studying it at school, which included two weeks at a German school; their English classes were at a pretty high level, several hours a week and almost entirely given in English, so I guess the standard varies quite a lot. Glad to hear this and about time. I lived in Berlin in the late 70’s and most of the 80’s, so I am sure they have changed the system quite a bit since then. My guess is that those students of mine back then are now parents/grandparents and have insisted their kids/grandkids learn English a bit better than they did. Also, with the Internet and music and films and software and video games, even younger kids probably now see the value in learning English and no longer consider it some useless exercise in school. One annoying thing I do see whenever German friends send me DVD’s with talk shows or special events, is the fashion to drop English words into practically every sentence. It just sounds weird to me. Bastardization of the German language…I mean, it is one thing to speak English, but when they are speaking German and there are perfectly good words in German to use, dropping in an English word for no particular reason just sounds pretentious to me. I will step off my soapbox now. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/99 "2012-12-09T20:58:14Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > If, as majority opinion in this thread holds, Americans and other English speakers should at least learn some phrases in the local language before launching into English, surely non-native English speakers should as well. Even if you’re right in principle, there’s a psychological difference: When I, as a non-native English speaker use English in, say Germany or Greece, I’m using a foreign language in the hope that the other part also has learned enough of the current _lingua franca_ that we can communicate. If you’re a native English speaker you, by speaking English, demand that the other part conforms to your native language. I’m meeting the guy on neutral ground, you’re demanding that the play takes part on your home turf. Thus, it’s less rude for me to speak English than it is for you. It’s not rational. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159/100 "2012-12-09T21:59:02Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > The Japanese gentleman twitched and stared at me with a shocked expression while I got my stuff. I had been primed to expect such a reaction when, shortly before that trip, I’d read a book about how hard it is for Japanese people to deal with _gaijin_ speaking Japanese. Something about how after losing the war and being occupied, they felt they’d lost everything but their language, because it was so special it was impossible for _gaijin_ to learn, so all their feelings of national identity got vested in the Japanese language, and for _gaijin_ to speak it shattered that psychological refuge. There may be some old people who feel that way, but I lived briefly in Japan a few years back and this is the first time I’ve heard this theory. What is true is that the Japanese in general tend to have basically zero expectation that anyone who looks like a foreigner will be able to speak Japanese…and they’re usually right. They also believe that Japanese is a very difficult language for Westerners to master, and again they’re usually right. As a result, one does sometimes run up against a bit of cognitive dissonance. “I wonder what that foreign woman is saying. Funny, it sounds almost like Japanese.” But in my experience it’s more common for the Japanese to be very pleased and impressed if a gaijin can say anything at all. The flip side of this is that the Japanese can be skeptical as to whether a gaijin can ever really speak Japanese particularly well. I worked with an American guy who was near-fluent in Japanese, and it used to drive him crazy that our Japanese coworkers would be telling me (who spoke very basic Japanese) “Oh, that’s so good! You pronounced that perfectly!” but would nitpick every little thing he said wrong. Some of this may have just been deliberately winding him up, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-its-disrespectful-to-speak-english-in-other-countries/643159.md?page=6)