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Locals that do not know English? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| blackverve Senior Member Canada Joined 4532 days ago 40 posts - 46 votes Studies: German | Message 1 of 36 13 December 2011 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Aloha fellow language-lovers!
Right now I need help with choosing a language. I'm interested in choosing a language with practicality as a base. I've read a lot of threads about people going to countries and being unable to get away from English. For me I want to learn a language which will lead me to a city where I'll be forced to speak the foreign language because maybe only 10% of the locals know English--yay! Anyone else sick of not being able to get away from all things Western when away?...oops, rambling... Here are the places I 'll be going to before I croak: Istanbul, Venice, Rome, Paris, Bangkok, Brussels, Marrakesh, Berlin, Madrid, Bled, Carcassonne, Copenhagen, Venice, Lisbon, Athens, Prague, Stockholm, Lisbon, Belgrade and Reykyavik. In which of these cities is it not compulsory to study English in school? I see in some threads that a high percentage of people speak English in Berlin and Stockholm. Are any of the cities I listed above free from too many locals knowing English and always attempting to speak English to you? Thank you for responding. Edited by blackverve on 13 December 2011 at 9:35pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| GRagazzo Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4761 days ago 115 posts - 168 votes  Speaks: Italian, English* Studies: Spanish, Swedish, French | Message 2 of 36 13 December 2011 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Rome and Venice will have a high percentage of English speakers since they are major
tourist attractions, but if you can get away to the smaller villages and towns then you won't find many English speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4930 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 3 of 36 13 December 2011 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm pretty sure you can find plenty of people in any of these cities that either don't speak English or don't want to practice English with you. It's probably really tempting to stay in the touristy areas of these towns, because that's where you're going to see all the sights, but get out of the touristy areas and you'll be speaking something other than English. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5399 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 4 of 36 13 December 2011 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think in small towns like Bled there will be less English than in all those other metropolies you mentioned. Go for the hicks, not the city dwellers, if you are looking for monolingual comunities.
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| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4973 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 36 13 December 2011 at 9:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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How do you expect to get away from all things Western when almost all the places you want
to go to are in Europe, the exceptions being Bangkok, Marrakesh and Istanbul (arguable). Based on that, I would say Thai, Arabic or Turkish. Arabic will be the most useful if you plan on traveling to Northern Africa and the Middle East as well. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6503 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 36 13 December 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It will take some time before you know enough Thai, Arabic or Turkish to understand the local people, and then they will switch to English (or fetch somebody who knows that language).
So from a practical point of view I would say French. It should be reasonably easy to learn in Canada, being an official language with TV stations and all that, several stations on your destination list are Francophone and when you get to other places in Europe you have the option to parade as a Québecqois who understands nothing but French (though you may yourself choose to speak English after a few completely silent days).You'll need a lot of languages to cover all of Europe without resorting to something like English, but your German will be useful in some places in Eastern Europe. Edited by Iversen on 13 December 2011 at 11:30pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4930 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 7 of 36 13 December 2011 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
True. I was in Marrakesh for 10 days a couple years ago and French was WIDELY spoken. I don't speak it, but often had to resort to it as best I could to make myself understood. I got to use Spanish and even Italian a couple times, but I only ran into one person that tried to speak any English with me. Even after people asked me where I was from. English may now be taught in schools in Morocco, but it's currently not widely used by the people. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6239 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 8 of 36 13 December 2011 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
French is more widely spoken than English there, but I ran into lots of both, some years back. And there were a huge number of vendors who spoke at least a smattering of quite a lot of languages; Spanish was common, but basic trade words in even Japanese weren't rare. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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