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How people react when you try to speak their language (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz
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[–] 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

My partner has been learning Norwegian and some of the reactions from native speakers lean toward the red.

It's not about difficulty (it's one of the easier languages for English speakers), but moreso that they believe it's pretty useless outside of Norway lol

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    same here in sweden, at least me personally

    like, you know we speak english right? why would you try to badly speak fractions of our language when it would be so much easier to just start with english? it's not impressive or endearing to speak bad swedish, it's just awkward. Our language isn't some special magic we hold dear, it's just what we speak to each other, the same as anglophones speak english to each other.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    I was always taught that it's disrespectful to begin in English. The idea is I should be able to use basic phrases, to clearly apoloize for not speaking their language, and then hopefully we switch to my language.

    Launching straight into English in someone else's country seems arrogant.

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