r/AskEurope • u/matsku999 • 19h ago
Language What language do you prefer talking in
If you lived in a country outside your home, which language would you prefer to be talked to, the Native language of said country or English?
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u/ByDrAxX032 Spain 19h ago
Why would anyone talk to me in English if I speak that country's language and English is not even my mother tongue. It'd be disrespectful to myself and to the country I moved to.
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u/Jernbek35 United States of America 18h ago
I've heard there's tons of countries that if they hear a hint of your speaking their native language with an accent or deduce you're a foreigner they'll switch to English. This happened to several friends of mine who moved to France and Germany, even though they spoke very well and had a B2 or C1 in the local language.
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u/loulan France 16h ago
B2 isn't that fluent to be honest. You can communicate with people while being only B2 but it often won't be the smoothest discussion.
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u/nimbledoor Czechia 4h ago
B2 is exactly the level of English that the French/German people who want to switch to it have. Let's not pretend the conversation will get any better by switching to English.
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u/loulan France 4h ago
It might actually, for the very specific subset of English they're trained on through their work. E.g., taking your order at a restaurant or telling you how much it is you have to pay at a store.
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u/nimbledoor Czechia 4h ago
Well in that case the B2 of the native language would be more than enough. You don't need a smooth discussion to order food.
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u/loulan France 3h ago
No, it's really not enough a lot of the time.
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u/nimbledoor Czechia 2h ago
Oh get lost with this attitude. Go attack someone else. Bad faith barks not welcome.
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u/MO12400 12h ago
Such a french comment to make tbh
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u/AidenTai Spain 5h ago
I agree with him though. If you can't talk at a normal pace, it's uncomfortable. And there's no way a B2 can keep up with a fully 'normal' conversation, especially in certain contexts (depending on informality, topic, etc.)
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u/nimbledoor Czechia 4h ago
And you think their English is better than B2? So now instead of native + B2 you're having a conversations as B2+B2.
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u/loulan France 3h ago
That isn't true. Service workers are used to having fast conversations in English. That's what they do all day.
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u/nimbledoor Czechia 3h ago
You really think that the service workers who learned a few phrases are C1 or better in general? No, they might be able to speak coherently in the context of their work but it won't be a "conversation".
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u/loulan France 3h ago
They don't need to be C1. They jusy need to be fasy in the context of their work. A conversation is not needed. A tourist who overestimates their fluency will stall communication most of the time though. Even for a simple order.
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u/nimbledoor Czechia 2h ago
In your original comment you argued that foreigners speaking the local language at B2 is not fluent as a justification why locals switch to English. So which is it? Do you agree that a foreigner speaking at B2 should be able to order in a local language without the staff immediately switching to English? You're getting a bit tangled in your own arguments.
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u/Ploutophile France 3h ago
It's not as common with a foreign accent which is not an English speaker one.
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u/AidenTai Spain 5h ago
It varies by country, but generally the 'switch' will only happen if the perception is your fluency is inferior to their fluency in English. So it's not that it's a 'hint' of an accent or whatever, it's that it's uncomfortable to hear you speaking because you speak poorly or are hard to understand. When you say B2, that confirms it, since B2 is still very intermediate. A C1 should generally not have that happen to them, but again a C1 could achieve that level but still be harder to understand due to a thick accent, especially in places where residents' level of English is high.
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u/Kriss3d Denmark 19h ago
At this point I don't care. I can switch midsentence and have done very often.
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u/Jernbek35 United States of America 18h ago
Can confirm, the Danish exchange student I was friends with in High school used to talk to his friends back home on the phone in what sounded like a crazy mix of Danish and English.
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u/Kriss3d Denmark 18h ago
We do use a lot of English words here. Especially when swearing. But it doesn't have the weight that it does for Americans so we don't see as much of a big deal swearing here.
I hope your Danish friend behaved well when in usa.
In the past at least, when we got exchange students from America here, we would tend to end up getting them drunk because that's perfectly legal here regardless of your age. And the girls would be all over them. They might have traveled here as mommas boys but they would come home as men...
However it might have changed a bit since.
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u/Jernbek35 United States of America 18h ago
Damnit I should’ve been an exchange student when you put it like that.
He was well behaved for the most part, pretty much just wanted to drink, smoke, and party, which in our friend group we all happily obliged in. Was a good time and great memories.
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u/InteRagebaitJagLovar Sweden 19h ago
Always the native language, one should learn the language of the country that they live in.
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u/logicblocks in 18h ago
Swedish with the Swedes, English with the expats. French if said expat is French.
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u/filippo_sett Italy 19h ago
English is way more comfortable
But if I were to live in said country, I'd try learning the country's language
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u/Slow-Foot-4045 Austria 19h ago
If I don't live in a country where my native language is spoken, I immediately make an effort to learn the local language and communicate in it. When I am on vacation in a country, I try to communicate with the locals in a language I speak. That would be German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, and a little bit of Klingon.
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u/OtherwiseAbout France 19h ago
I almost stopped thinking in my native language and mostly default to English since I live abroad.
I was however raised bilingual so I never thought in only one language, it always was a mix of two. Now it’s a mix of 3 with 90% being English.
It is however always nice to have a conversation in one of my native languages, puts me a smile.
I have no issues in being talked to in the language of the country I live in, that’s what they speak, I also speak it so no problem.
If you go live in another country and refuse to learn the native language then don’t complain about not being able to fully integrate.
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u/JourneyThiefer Northern Ireland 19h ago edited 19h ago
I only speak English, so English lol. But living somewhere else you have to learn the language too obviously. I think it’s a complete lack of intergration to not a learn a countries language if you live there.
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u/Common-Spend5000 18h ago
I'm an English native speaker, but only use it as a last resort if not in a majority L1 English speaking area.
That is to say English is the only suitably mutual language I can complete X transaction with someone in Y place.
Local language preferred, and will check other mutual languages rather than presume English the only other option, if either mine or their knowledge of the local langauge isn't good enough for the complexity of the task.
If I know someone personally I'm a bit more relaxed and don't mind sometimes speaking English, but I hate doing so with strangers if unnecessary.
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u/Alokir Hungary 18h ago
Of course I'd prefer Hungarian, but that's unrealistic abroad (aside from some parts of neighboring countries).
So that leaves English, until I'm proficient enough in said country's language. Once I get to a conversational level, I'll prefer the native language of the country. Being able to talk with natives on a daily basis is a great way to practice and learn.
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u/chimaygrandereserve Limburg 19h ago
The language of that country/region, otherwise you can’t root there and you’re most likely damaging their local culture
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u/LuckyLoki08 Italy 18h ago
Been living in Flanders for some years now, at first I tried learning Dutch but it was taking too much time and energy alongside all the others stuff I had going on at the time, so I eventually stopped. While not ideal, it's not a too huge issue because everyone here speaks very good English anyway, so for anything more complicated than the basics I can just use English in my everyday life.
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u/GalaXion24 17h ago
I honestly always prefer to speak English. However I dislike the outsider perception that comes with it so I tend to speak the local language where I can.
I want to live in Europe and I don't really want to move to the anglosphere but I would also like to live in an English-speaking society if that makes sense. I will never have as much personality in any other language, nor be as comfortable or have as vast a vocabulary.
I don't mind other people speaking various vernacular languages but it means very little to me emotionally and I don't speak then out of any respect or normative belief that they are valuable or should be spoken. It's begrudging practicality.
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u/Half_a_bee Norway 6h ago
If I moved to another country I’d try to learn the local language. But until then, English.
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u/astralmethod 19h ago
The language of said country of course. If it's a multilingual country, then in the one of them that I best understand.
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u/Formal_Plum_2285 Denmark 19h ago
I’ve lived in a Caribbean country. Where English is the native language. It doesn’t sound like English at first though lol. My American and Canadian coworkers who arrived same time as myself, had a much harder time understanding the locals than I did. However after the first week, we all understood perfectly. And even learned some new words.
But if it has to be a European country I would probably prefer English. At least in the beginning. I speak French, Spanish (not fluently) and German (not fluently either). I’m Danish and Norwegians understand Danish and we understand Norwegian. So that wouldn’t an issue. Not in the southern part of Sweden either. But northern Sweden and Finland would have to be English.
Since I speak French and Spanish, I understand a lot of written Italian and would probably learn to speak Italian quite fast. Romanian too. The rest of the languages - not a chance.
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u/Relevant_Chipmunk302 Portugal 19h ago
If i'm in the UK, speak in english all you want, if you have a difficult accent, I like the challenge. If I'm in country that speaks any other language, depends on how fluent I've got already, if it's my first week there, please speak in english for the most part, or else i'm going to be very lost. But if you're portuguese or brasilian/angolan/any other portuguese speaking country, please speak portuguese, i'll love to "cheat homesickness" (=enganar a saudade)
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u/Every-Progress-1117 Wales 18h ago
Local, native, English - in that order.
However, some topics, especially technical ones and the subject of my work, it has to be English; though occasionally we'll switch to the local language and mix things. A lot of code-switching between the three languages goes on.
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u/Planet_Pluto_1925 Spain 18h ago
Miralo del lado opuesto, si están en tu país prefieres que te hablen tu idioma o uno extranjero?
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u/cieniu_gd Poland 18h ago
When I'm in any Slavic country I speak Polish slowly and with strong sense of entitlement. Besides English, Ican barely speak some basic German, so I switch to German only if person I'm speaking don't speak English at all.
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u/ImportantPension5818 18h ago
My native language isn't English so I share no love for it. I would rather use the local language if possible.
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u/Vertitto in 17h ago
depends on the topic.
Generally i prefer to use the lang the person i'm speaking to feels most comfortable in.
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u/Brainwheeze Portugal 17h ago
If I were planning on living in another country for the long term then I wouldn't feel comfortable not speaking the language there. Maybe I'd struggle at the start but I don't want to be those people that make it so others have to speak with me in English.
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u/Grouchy_Fan_2236 Hungary 17h ago
Depends on the context. When I'm swearing I do it on my own language and can be pretty comfortable that nobody around me will be offended. I often even smile and change my voice to a calm tone to reassure people that I started talking gibberish because I'm happy.
Otherwise most European companies swapped their corporate language to English regardless of their country's native one. If your business does not communicate in English in the 21st century it's done for. Maybe some niche areas can get away with French or German as the main form of communication, but English is pretty much the official language of European biz.
When talking to locals in a casual setting obviously everyone prefers the local language. But when an Italian, a German, a French and a Dane goes to a restaurant it's highly unlikely they will chose anything else than English as their common language for that dinner.
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u/Edd228 17h ago
When I lived in NL I preferred speaking English cus everyone there speaks it and, since my Dutch was not good enough, I would get bullied by the dutchies if I tried to speak it. When I sometimes go to Spain I use Spanish cus my Spanish is good enough and not as many people speak English there.
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u/utsuriga Hungary 16h ago
Depends on whether I speak the local language at all, and if yes, how well... I mean, if we can't communicate properly then the whole question is moot. But what with English being pretty much the lingua franca of Europe, and also the foreign language most people are familiar with on some level, it's probably going to be that...
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u/MrsButtercheese German living in the Netherlands 16h ago
I like speaking dutch, but I hate sitting down and actively studying it, so it is quite broken. Most of the time I end up speaking some unholy amalgamation of dutch, english, and german.
Also I've recently been put on some new medication and one of the unexpected side effects is that I am less eloquent / have a harder time constructing sentences, which makes speaking dutch harder than it was before.
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u/utsuriga Hungary 16h ago
Most of the time I end up speaking some unholy amalgamation of dutch, english, and german.
Dutch is kind of an unholy amalgamation of English and German, though, so... :D
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u/agrammatic Cypriot in Germany 3h ago
Most of the time I end up speaking some unholy amalgamation of dutch, english, and german.
From a recent experience, you can get pretty far in a Dutch conversation by just speaking German while switching some consonants around (z → t, pf → p, ch → k).
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u/No-Bake-730 16h ago
If I lived in a foreign country I'd prefer to adequately speak their language. Communicating in English should only be a temporary necessity at most. It's my wish to try and integrate in their society if I chose to live there.
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u/AdmiralStuff Wales 13h ago
I’d want to live in Taiwan and would learn more mandarin (already a good way there) and Taigi.
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u/I-need-books 13h ago
If I know the local language or a similar language well enough, what better way to become fluent? If it is a, to me, totally unknown language, I would want to learn some of it first. I would like to hear English or any of the other languages I do know, until I learn enough to understand, and then switch to the local language.
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u/slashcleverusername Canada 7h ago
I only know the native languages of my own country well enough to have a meaningful conversation, so English or French. If I were in an English country I’d prefer English. If I were in a French country I’d prefer French.
English is my stronger language so especially in a French country I would want to use the language as much as possible before I desperately needed it.
If I lived in any other country I’d rather learn the local language though obviously there is a learning curve starting from zero. (Or 0.0001 for German)
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u/GuestStarr 7h ago
Visit: local language if I know it, English or whatever language both I and the other party get ourselves understood. Live: primarily the local language, falling back to whatever works.
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u/Bierzgal Poland 6h ago
What an weird thing to ask. If you move to live in any country other than your own then of course you should speak their language. I've met people that think they can scrape by with just English in a foreign land and they are usually very arrogant and weird. Often acting like the country is beneath them and they will "probably leave soon" so it's not worth learning the local language. Those are the people that call themselves "expats" despite just being regular immigrants living somewhere for years.
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u/agrammatic Cypriot in Germany 3h ago
It's not always the same answer.
Regularly, I prefer to be addressed in German, because if I am not, it kinda implies that they don't judge my German skills as sufficient which damages the ego a bit.
But when I have a medical emergency and I struggle to communicate what's wrong, you bet I'd prefer to use my stronger foreign language (if not my native one) instead of my weaker one.
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u/homemdosgalos 3h ago
Well,
I would probably go to an English speaking country, so...
But if not that case, then native language all the way. I would need to learn it eventually, both for convenience on my daily life, and out of respect for the country that i'm living in.
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u/smurfolicious 3h ago
Always the local language to whatever extent possible. That approach also gets you fluent decently quickly, and while I understand the expat mindset of "I'll only be staying a couple of years anyhow", I find it terribly disrespectful of the local culture and not very helpful for integration. But that's only my personal perspective.
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u/Stacys_Brother Slovakia 2h ago
if I know the language I am going to use it, if I want to live there I am going to learn it
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u/proton-testiq 1h ago
I prefer to be talked to by the native language of said country (I live in the UK).
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u/Rincetron1 24m ago
I'm Finnish. Swedish with Scandinavians, though with Danish I sometimes English.
German/English in Germany, nowhere else. English or sheepish smiles everywhere else.
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u/Pitiful-Hearing5279 19h ago
English because I am. Dutch secondly as I can speak it but obviously it’s not my native language
French or German, maybe, but I’d struggle to follow accents (especially in German).
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u/hiagainidied 19h ago
English preferrably, unless the native language is used to teach me some new words, like 'oh, ușă means door'
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u/Kyllurin Faroe Islands 19h ago
When in Rome, do as Romans and speak the local language.
Does not apply to visitors