windblownsand:caballero-del-sur:hooleydooleyfuckaroonie:invisiblefoxfire:iguessweallcrazyithinktho:I
windblownsand:caballero-del-sur:hooleydooleyfuckaroonie:invisiblefoxfire:iguessweallcrazyithinktho:Its The colonization The first time I left the US was on a trip with my grandmother to Germany. My grandmother was always traveling. Always! Always off on some holiday somewhere, always bringing back tacky souvenirs. I spoke a bit of German but was far from fluent. I’d been a little worried about communication but my grandmother assured me we’d be fine. She did this all the time, after all.My grandmother left me in the hotel room one morning to sleep in while she went to the nearby bakery to get some pastries for breakfast. When she returned, she looked very flustered. She got me up because she had to get this off her chest. The woman in the bakery… didn’t speak ANY English. In her words, “Not a lick of English! Not one word!” I replied, heavy with sarcasm, “Really? In GERMANY?” She didn’t pick up on my sarcasm at all and just thought I was equally as astonished as her.Turns out every trip she’d ever taken was with some pre-planned tour group for obnoxious white Americans. Never in all her years of traveling had she just gone into a small local shop and had to interact with a local whose entire business didn’t revolve around serving people like her. It was a genuine surprise to her that a person - especially a white person! - would actually not understand English.I later went down to the bakery to apologize as well as I could in German. Fortunately the woman found it very amusing that the American woman just kept talking louder and slower instead of trying to communicate in some other way, and wasn’t bothered at all. But from that day forward I understood something about my grandmother (and a whole hell of a lot of other Americans) that I could never unlearn. That she literally saw everywhere in the world that wasn’t America like some kind of giant fucking Disney World and everyone who didn’t speak English as some kind of bumbling savage. I was embarrassed to be seen with her, ashamed to be there with her. This is very much A Thing and it’s fucking awful. When I was young and traveling in the late 90s and to about 2007 I want to say? Every time we left the United states we were sat down and would go through some vocabulary that kids should know. Mainly thank yous, hellos and arbitrary pleasantries.I learned why this was so important the first time we went to France, we entered a port town after leaving England via boat. My Mother barely speaking French, it was nearing 9pm and we had missed the train because of a docking issue to get to our booked hotel.The ticket master of the ferry pointed us towards an old inn run by the sweetest woman I had ever met. She met us outside of it, waving us over and through my Mom’s poor French and the Innkeepers broken english the two worked so much out. And after signing us in before she went to prep the room herself. She brought each of my siblings a tea pot filled with some of the best hot chocolate I ever had. Because it was so chilly. The next morning she did the same.Every time I said Merci in french she’d just light up, she even help me learn a few extra things in the short time of breakfast. Apple, orange, tea cup.It’s one of my favourite memories as a kid and something I try to show to people who can’t speak English visiting America as I work retail. Because, expecting fluent English is rude.Appreciate people that can speak your language, no matter how small, because they’re doing their best. Remember. You only need to learn ONE sentence in the language of thr country you are about to visit:“I AM TERRIBLY SORRY, I DO NOT SPEAK YOUR LANGUAGE. DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?”. Followed by “THANK YOU VERY MUCH. PLEASE I BEG YOU TO EXCUSE ME” Humility goes a looooooong way.If I get a costumer that speaks to me in English right off the bat I will probably just ignore or fool them. My country is not a colony of yours. Show some respect! Just take the time to learn how to excuse yourself in my language and I will answer in proper English. Otherwise fuck off. Tbf, from what my German teacher in school taught us, English is a required second language course in the schools. So, yes, that would be surprising. On the flip side, though, no matter where I sailed in the Navy, no matter where I was stationed or deployed to in the Army, I at least tried to learn some of the language. Terps (interpreters) are nice, but you don’t always get one, and in Korea, I would have never gotten by only using English when I went to…ah, *places*. (Some places were off-limits due to very poor Korean/American relations in the area, but it’s amazing what can happen when you aren’t a complete jerk, when you try to speak the language, when you learn the customs, when you start dancing to a country’s music and eating the local food the same way the locals do.) Yes, English is required in Germany BUT it only became the mandatory second language in Germany in 1964/1965. Before that, French was the most important language besides German (along with Latin and Greek) or secondary languages were reserved for those who got higher education. Learning English in basic school didn’t start until 2004. I started in 5th grade.So people who got to school before 1964 probably didn’t even learn English. And there’s something else to keep in mind: Learning a language in school doesn’t equal being able to hold a conversation in it. For several reasons:1) A foreign language works a lot like muscles - if you don’t use it, it deflates. I notice that about myself already - I learned French til 2013, when I finished school. I didn’t need it afterwards, so by now, I have forgotten a lot of what I learned besides some basics. And it’s not getting better the more time passes.And the thing in Germany is you don’t need English in your every day life very often, unless you happen to work in an international company or you like to spend your time on the English-speaking internet (and trust me, you can find enough in German on the internet to get around on the internet without knowing English. Knowing English makes things easier and gives you a wider access, but it’s not necessary.)2) You have no idea how good the English lessons are. My main English teacher (who was not that young) spoke lots of German during the course, no matter how advanced we were. What we got as listening practices (which have been quite rare by the way) sounds unlike any native English accent, be it American, British or Australian. On top of that, my English lessons were focused on reading/writing, we did little speaking/listening. We’d analyze texts basically 24/7, there was little to no preparation to hold a conversation. Us students would often mock how we were able to analyze poems like no tomorrow but had no idea what to call the items in our own kitchens.So no, you can’t expect Germans to understand English perfectly.Also to take France/French people as example since they were mentioned above: They’re VERY difficult about speaking other languages besides French, even if they have learned it. -- source link
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