Norway might not be accurately described in this map. While walking through the airport, every airport worker kept trying to speak to me in Norwegian. I don’t know any words in their language. It would be cool if I did, but I don’t. Anyway, they always looked confused, repeated themselves more slowly, and waited for a response from me. Eventually, I realized one of them was asking me about my backpack.
Also I feel like the French really appreciate it if you try. Or at least hate you a little less. In my experience, after showing off my best (still bad) bonjours and mercis all of the people I talked to turned a lot friendlier and were even willing to speak a little English.
Not all Germany is like that. I was in Freiburg last winter and the can't/don't want to speak English. Only the most tourist places would speak English, I guess.
This doesn't reflect my housemate's experience in Italy at all. Evidently if they detect an American accent in your "buongiorno" they'll just spend the rest of the day mocking you in Italian and occasionally just yelling "DONALD TRUMP HAMBURGER TRANSGENDER" at you.
I can say "I don't speak [language], sorry." in about 10 languages, just so if someone tries to speak to me I can say that to them.
So far only one person has said any follow up things in that language. I like to think it was "but you're speaking it now!" but probably just about work stuff.
Is it weird that I get a very tiny kick out of the slight confusion I can see on some people's faces?
"I do not speak French" versus "I do not know how to speak French". Both are correct, though only the latter clarifies not speaking the language because they do not understand it, rather than purely out of spite. So in this specific case, the former could be used as a subtle FU.
Imagine if French people learned English and chose to speak it online/in-game instead of assuming everyone speaks French as if it is still the lingua franca.
This is what one of Edmond Dantes alter egos did in the Count of Monte Cristo. “Lord Wilmore” was an eccentric Englishman who understood French perfectly well, but refused to speak it:
… Lord Wilmore appeared….His first remark on entering was, "You know, sir, I do not speak French?"
"I know you do not like to converse in our language," replied the envoy.
"But you may use it," replied Lord Wilmore; "I understand it."
Tu détestes le français spécifiquement, ou juste le fait d'avoir eu à apprendre une autre langue?
Le français, je peux comprendre un peu, il y a quant même plusieurs spécificités étranges à cette langue. Ce n'est pas pour rien qu'on passe plusieurs années à l'apprendre avant d'éventuellement passer à la littérature. Je crois que les cours d'anglais langue première font cette transition beaucoup plus tôt.
Détester le fait d'avoir eu à apprendre une autre langue, là je ne comprends pas du tout!
Friend of mine went to a school which fashioned itself as "the old school" (as in historically old school). They learned latin and old greek instead of anything useful. He was furious when he came back from vacation in Greece and he only found one person, an old professor in Greek history, who he could talk to.
I always had better grades in French than in English. Which bothered me, because I hated French almost from the start and thought English was/is much more important.
I feared someone answering me in French and I'll be like "yeah I understand 40% of what you're saying"... never expected someone to answer me in my native tongue and slang.
The weird thing about knowing a foreign language is sometimes u might offend people for trying to speak their mother tongue when they're working on their English, so like unless you are in a country where that's the spoken language, it's super awkward any time you want to actually use that language that you learned.