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International Cities. Best languages. | ||
Tags: Surroundings | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Thor1987 Groupie Canada Joined 4735 days ago 65 posts - 84 votes  Studies: German | Message 1 of 25 04 April 2013 at 9:33pm | IP Logged |
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Alright by international cities, I mean metropolitan areas, where there are atleast 10
languages spoken by atleast 1 full percentage point each. Where no single language has a direct benefit over another(i.e. official status). Anyhow I nominate toronto. But here goes the real question which language would you pick for city with so many languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| leroc Senior Member United States Joined 4312 days ago 114 posts - 167 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 2 of 25 04 April 2013 at 9:59pm | IP Logged |
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Jerusalem hands down. Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Yiddish, English.. the list goes on.
7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 3 of 25 04 April 2013 at 10:13pm | IP Logged |
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You can find foreigners in any big town, just know where to look. Even tiny Delft has
plenty, it's a student town. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 25 04 April 2013 at 10:17pm | IP Logged |
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New York or London. Maybe even Moscow (if we think of the recent migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia).
Toronto is a backwater compared to those two (or three) when it comes to being multilingual (and don't give me the related bit about "Toronto being the most multicultural city in the world according to UNESCO" since it's been found to be an urban legend). As to the city that I would pick for so many languages? Vienna. Hungary and Slovakia are about an hour's drive away, Czech Republic about 2 hours, Slovenia about 4 hours, Croatia about 5. Flying within Europe is a steal compared to what you get here, to say nothing about the time needed to reach a place where the native culture and language(s) are different. From Vienna, going to Helsinki, Reykjavik or Cairo could be feasible for a trip on a long weekend. I couldn't realistically do the same starting from JFK, O'Hare or Pearson. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 5 of 25 05 April 2013 at 12:31am | IP Logged |
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Melbourne or Sydney would have large populations speaking English, Italian, Greek, Yugoslav, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic etc as first languages. Edited by patrickwilken on 05 April 2013 at 12:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4716 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 6 of 25 05 April 2013 at 1:29am | IP Logged |
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I never knew São Paulo had so many Russians until my wife moved here. It was quite surprising for me.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4778 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 7 of 25 05 April 2013 at 7:32am | IP Logged |
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Where no single language has a direct benefit over another? That's putting the bar kind
of high, don't you think? In Toronto, though many languages are spoken, English clearly dominates and I would say has a direct benefit over all other languages. It's the official language of Ontario and is the mother tongue of over half of Toronto residents. It's the language of business, education, the media, publicity, transport and of city government. I'm not sure there is a city on Earth where one language doesn't have some kind of direct advantage over another. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6904 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 8 of 25 05 April 2013 at 8:34am | IP Logged |
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Brussels, maybe?
The 'direct benefit over all other languages' thing is tricky, though. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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