Locals that do not know English? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Locals that do not know English?
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36 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 Next >>

blackverve
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4532 days ago
40 posts - 46 votes
Studies: German

Message 17 of 36

14 December 2011 at 6:09pm | IP Logged

GRagazzo wrote:

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.

Yeah, but I don't like venturing into smaller towns due to safety concerns and my love affair has always been with cities. Do students in Rome and Venice learn English in school?
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blackverve
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4532 days ago
40 posts - 46 votes
Studies: German

Message 18 of 36

14 December 2011 at 6:17pm | IP Logged

strikingstar wrote:

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.

Hee. When I say "Western" I really mean "North American" things: American TV, McDonalds...

I've been curious about Arabic. How can one learn spoken Arabic? I read in some threads that courses always teach written Arabic only. Arabic is the main language of Marrakesh, yes?
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hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 4930 days ago
1871 posts - 3642 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish^C2, Italian^C2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

Message 19 of 36

14 December 2011 at 6:28pm | IP Logged

blackverve wrote:

Hee. When I say "Western" I really mean "North American" things: American TV, McDonalds...

Like it or not, "American" things are now western things, franchised out to locals.

If it's any consolation, if have you trouble finding a Starbucks in Italy, there's always Lavazza :-/

R.
==
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blackverve
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4532 days ago
40 posts - 46 votes
Studies: German

Message 20 of 36

14 December 2011 at 6:31pm | IP Logged

Iversen wrote:

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.

Are Thai, Arabic and Turkish sort of like tonal languages?
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blackverve
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4532 days ago
40 posts - 46 votes
Studies: German

Message 21 of 36

14 December 2011 at 6:36pm | IP Logged

hrhenry wrote:

Iversen wrote:

... several stations on your destination list are Francophone

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.
==

Is French one of the official languages in Marrakesh? Why is so widely spoken? So, Morocco has a lot of native Spanish and Italian speakers?
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blackverve
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4532 days ago
40 posts - 46 votes
Studies: German

Message 22 of 36

14 December 2011 at 6:39pm | IP Logged

ilcommunication wrote:

Volte wrote:

Istanbul, Belgrade and Bangkok seemed to be the least Anglophone cities you mentioned. Of course, you can certainly find English speakers, but I found that those three cities have many people who don't speak much (plus, if you learn Turkish, BCS/Serbian or Thai to a reasonable extent, I imagine most people there would be extremely happy to help you out with those languages, since foreigners rarely learn them).

What's BCS?
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blackverve
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4532 days ago
40 posts - 46 votes
Studies: German

Message 23 of 36

14 December 2011 at 6:41pm | IP Logged

July wrote:

If you're going to learn Spanish and speak it in Madrid, go in the next ten years. At the
moment, outside of hotels and tourist hospitality, most people will do anything to avoid
having to speak English in public and will be happy to speak Spanish with you. But the
language education policy has changed, and the little kids are getting more and more
bilingual.

Was it just this year that learning English became compulsory for kids?
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blackverve
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4532 days ago
40 posts - 46 votes
Studies: German

Message 24 of 36

14 December 2011 at 6:44pm | IP Logged

Delodephius wrote:

In Belgrade you'll find loads of English speakers. As well as in most northern cities in
Serbia. In my town which is near Novi Sad almost all teenagers and young adults speak
English to varying degrees, but very few adults do. I had the same observation about
people from Belgrade and Novi Sad. I'd say about two thirds of people between 15 and 25
speak English.

I'm always fascinated by how English finds it's way into every crevice of the universe. Do they know English because of listening to English music and TV or is it from school?

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