That Beasley topic reminded me of one that came to my mind ages ago that I never made. I realized that as native English speakers most of you probably have completely different view on the whole foreign languages thing. I don't know how many of you have learnt/studied other languages, but you don't necessarily have to, and unless you move to live somewhere else the situations where you use that language are probably short encounters and often artificial (lessons). That's a very weird thought for me. I've been studying foreign languages in school since I was 9 and now spend several hours a day in an environment online which is in a foreign language. I hadn't really realized before that there are people who don't necessarily ever go through the process of learning a language, which is a very different learning process from say other school subjects, or the experience of trying to communicate in a language that's not natural to you. I'm so used to having to concentrate on expressing myself that it's a weird idea that for you writing on SW is as natural as chatting with a friend


I don't want to sound like I'm trying to make a martyr of myself on how "you get it so easy", I just realized that you probably have a very different view on language in general and even expressing yourself verbally, when the world tries to speak a tongue you know by nature.


Do people in the US/UK/NZ/down under usually take languages at school, or colleges? Is the whole thing present in the society, or is it a special interest like a hobby some people have?

In the US everyone has to take at least two years of  foreign language in high school, and in college there is the option of taking a foreign language class but I think any communications class fulfills that requirement as well.
Speaking from my experience most people do not continue with language study after that.
I took an interest to the Japanese language and stuck with it, by chance. I have never been interested in anime like 99.9% of people that want to learn Japanese. Unless you live in a bigger city Japanese language classes aren't offered at most public schools. I was lucky because I went to a college prep school and they had it there, but I transferred to a public school my sophomore year so I resorted to taking classes at community college.
I was also lucky because I had a good teacher who pushed me to study, and because she also taught at community college I took her classes over a period of five or six years, so I guess it helped that we knew each other well.

Most Americans don't have to learn a foreign language because they don't travel. Most people don't ever leave the country, many don't leave their state, and some don't even leave their city (for financial reasons)
But even people that do travel assume people speak English everywhere, which is true to an extend but it pisses me off.

These are generalizations but I think most people would agree, even Americans.
Of course there are lots of people that get interested in a language or culture but it really comes down to having an interest or actually needing to know the language.

Since I've lived in Japan for a year it was necessary to know the language to survive and make friends. I mean you can get by in Tokyo to some degree if you know basic Japanese but it's really advantageous to know the respective language of that country. The people in my program that didn't know that much Japanese couldn't make many Japanese friends

It's pretty much impossible to become fluent in a language if you don't get to speak it in anykind of natural environment, you basically have to move abroad or be forced to speak the language at work/school/have native friends. Every Finn has to study Swedish for 3 years, most for 6, (we've got a Swedish speaking minority so it's an official language) but most can't speak it to any practical extent because A) everybody hates it a school by principle B) you don't hear it outside the classroom ever. I've also studied German for five years aged 11-16 and can barely say hi/thanks/my-name-is. I've got a feeling it would come back to me very quickly if I started using it now though and I might really learn it because I'm way more motivated now. And it probably made learning Swedish a lot easier for me.

I'm a bit surprised that almost every country (excluding some states in the US?) seem to have mandatory languages in high school/secondary school. Like said a couple of years a lessons probably doesn't teach much useful stuff but I would suppose just studying a foreign language should be good to help realize that not everybody speaks your language, what's it like to communicate in another language, what kind of differences ther are etc. To realize the whole plurality of the thing, even if you don't learn to actually speak any language. I don't blame anyone for not learning another language besides English when it really is, and increasingly so, a pretty universal lingua franca. That just shouldn't be taken for granted.

It's actually really really helpful to get to hear the language in your normal life even just for a little bit. My aunt's husband is Swedish and although I speak English with him I get to hear him speak Swedish with my other relatives from time to time and just being around and hearing that, not necessarily even trying to listen, has helped with my Swedish a lot. I can't speak much of it, but the little I know comes pretty naturally to me. It's the difference Dada talked about in the other thread between learning and memorizing.

People have all sorts of languages in Auckland, and although English is the most commonly spoken, I don't think people who have English as their first language are a majority group. I don't understand most of the conversations I hear on a daily basis and I don't think anybody else does either. Sometimes when speaking I translate what I want to say into a simpler version if the person I'm talking to is clearly having trouble understanding me (hopefully not in a patronising way!) I end up speaking the same kind of intermediate English that two people who share it as a second language speak, but with more fluid pronunciation, intonation and syntax. The way that that kind of tips the power relationship in conversations in my direction in conversations makes me feel uncomfortable.

I always feel somewhat embarrassed when I talk English to a native. It's really stupid but I can't seem to get over it. Kinda sets the whole power balance of the situation like you said, feels like I'm always talking to my superior, especially when I realize my ideas sound a lot dumber when I explain them clumsily.

Language barriers can feel quite alienating. Especially when everyone around you feels alienated in the same way by you. Sometimes people use a shared native tongue to have encrypted conversations while people who speak only English are stuck in cleartext. As cities become increasingly multicultural and multilingual, I think that it's going to be more and more necessary for people to speak more than one language. From what I've read, second language speakers typically don't gain as much proficiency as native speakers ever. Their speech typically remains laborious throughout life. Taking this into account along with the huge number of possible languages, it seems like a lot needs to be done to enable as many people as possible to be able to communicate with one another on common ground. I'm not really sure what's being done about it. It seems to me that people should at least be able to speak a few different languages, and that's genuinely pretty hard.

Yeah, you can never learn to speak like a native. I find that somewhat scary. I'm think about about moving abroad, most probably an English speaking country, in a few years, and although I'm absolutely confident I can get along fine, make friends do my studies and in that way integrate, it's a scary thought that I'll never be able to speak Finnish there to anyone. I don't know how fluent I'll become with English, but I'm afraid that even with the people that become really close to me there I'll never be able to freely express myself, just let things flow out of my mouth. Maybe it won't be problem, but it sounds like it may be very alienating from the whole society and very stressful.

This is something that's been bothering me for a while now.  I'm NOT well-traveled at all (Eastern US all my life) and I plan on breaking out of my shell here in several months with a trip to Europe.  I have a feeling that it's going to be overwhelming, especially if I find myself unable to communicate in certain locations.  I really don't want this to limit my experience.  I'm also interested in living out of country after my Navy contract is up, Brazil and Argentina being high on my list right now.

I've heard some encouraging things from travelers, though.  My friend spent time as an exchange student in Europe, and he had little problem getting around/ordering things even in areas that spoke none of his languages.

Question for everyone:  in your region (please specify) is there a stigma about "outsiders" showing up only knowing an unknown language?  I imagine the Southern US is absolute worst about this, and I can only hope to find more accepting places out there.

Question for everyone:  in your region (please specify) is there a stigma about "outsiders" showing up only knowing an unknown language?  I imagine the Southern US is absolute worst about this, and I can only hope to find more accepting places out there.

Not in Finland, I think people are mostly just surprised and flattered when somebody comes here. We're really introvert otherwise and can be hard to approach, but that's just Finns being Finns and not a stigma against anyone. And we talk pretty good English.


Have to also somewhat disagree with Dada on France. They don't talk English very well, but in my experience they are way more helpful and less arrogant than the stereotype. Never been to Paris or Normandy/northern France though.