The thing you need to realise, Ian, is that everyone who learns English as a second language is automatically bilingual. The fact that millions of people speak at least two languages might be surprising for US americans but for us non-native English speakers is kind of the minimum requirement. 🙂
Yeah, so if we don't speak english, people usually look at us like at uneducated Neanderthals. While burgermericans don't even know about the existence of other languages
Except for a lot of French people. They don't WANT to learn English, they refuse to, and think everyone that visits France should speak THEIR language. And perfectly, otherwise they despise you and make fun of you trying, while not even trying to speak English when they go to other countries themselves.
@@Keyboardje I really think it is not true anymore. As French I did not find Germans more helpfull than French in this perspective. My wife who is from none of them find that French people are trying much more to speak in english even if they are really bad.
@@Keyboardje The younger generation of French does speak English now. It is not a matter of not wanting to speak French not being to learn English in the past, but not being able to learn it. I met English language school teachers in France and frankly their English was not very good at all. But let’s turn it around. Find English native speakers who speak good French. I guarantee you, you will find hardly any. Ever spoken to French teachers in the UK? Again, their French isn’t that good. It is not my experience that nations do not want to speak another language. It is because people never had the chance to learn the other language so why struggle? As a Dutch national I worked for Anglo-Saxon companies as their sales rep in Belgium, Germany and Austria. French was the language I spoke at home, Dutch is my native tongue. Studied German and French. Luxembourg was my base. When I now travel to France or Germany for instance, those up to age 40 address me in English. The older ones in their own language. They do not speak another language.
I think most of us outside The USA are baffled that US citizens aren’t taught Spanish and French in school when you only have Mexico and Canada as your neighbors…? 🤷🏻♀️
I think it is sad that the Natives don't teach the 'whites' the indian languages. Like in Gemany you can learn Frisian in the north and Sorbian in Brandenburg and Saxony. In Sweden you can sign lessons in Sámi or Meänkieli.
@@101steel4 Yeah, it's called "United States of America" meaning it's *in* America, *not all* America. USA is the country, American is the continent. Even if you consider only North America there's still 2 other countries in there.
I dont think it’s strange that people here in Europe speaks 3-4 languages and understand a handful more. We have to. It’s often our neighbors and countries we visit often, and then we have English for the rest. But what I do think is strange is that people in the US just don’t bother to learn the neighbors language, Spanish and French, that Americans just take it for granted that everyone in the world speaks “American”. For me it’s just another sign on that typical American ignorance against everything outside USA.
IMO learning a new language opens up a whole new world to you. You get to experience and understand a new culture, by watching their movies, comedians, Wikipedia pages or any online content in that language, which really broadens your horizon. I would recommend learning a neighboring countries language because you be most likely the most exposed to that language.
Seen a american who wrote and obviusly read Swedish that he learnt from working at SAAB so basically learnt it from handbooks and service manuals so he replied in Swedish in a Swedish SAAB forum! So choose from your interests and learn basic words until you can guesstimate the rest of a sentence. (Learnt english from third or fourth grade to 9th and then tv and car magazines)
That works better from English to Swedish, since they are both Germanic (not German!) languages and have some word and grammar overlap. It doesn't work as well for, let's say, English and Polish who are not related to each other.
_"you can guesstimate"_ oh, wow ! I love that liberty to create new words like that. This one is halfway between estimating... and just guessing 😅. Wunderbar !!
@@equolizer oh you're absolutely correct. As A Dutch person guessing German is quite easy. But i tried the Polish language with a friend and the words change so much to even recognize anything to be honest haha :)
Guesstimate as a portmanteau has been around for quite a while. It’s a nice concept. I guesstimate you could fit 2 million people*on* the Great Wall of China
3:34 That Dutch girl is right about the undubbed movies there. They do have Dutch subtitles, but you basically learn English from your childhood just by watching TV. Germany, on the other hand, dubs everything, so I had to learn English in school and from rock music. I once was pretty fluent in French, too. My grammar is still fine, but I forgot too many words. Three weeks in France would sure help; I just don't have a reason to go there. Italian and Spanish, well: "tourist level".
Most english I've learned came from reading book and watching movies/series in english way after I've finished school, just cause I was sick of waiting for a translation or ger dub.
It's the same in Sweden. I've definitely learned more English from TV/movies/music than at school. The rule is quite clear that the European countries that don't dub movies are better in English than those that do, if you generalize.
yeah, in finland we mostly dub children's shows, the rest are subtitled. i definitely wouldn't be as fluent in english if i had only learned what was taught in school, so consuming english media definitely helped me develop my skill further.
The Dutch speak better English than the Danes do, but in Denmark films and series are also only shown in the original language, so that's not the whole explanation.
When I was working in Austria my boss was Finnish, and his wife was Swedish. They had a little boy Josef who was going to a German speaking Kindergarten. Our workplace was English speaking, so at the age of 5 this little guy was fluent in all four languages. When a Dutch speaking family with a 5yo son joined our team, we wondered what language the boys would communicate in. Turns out Josef quickly learned Dutch solely to play with his new friend. 😮
Josef?❤ that's actually adorable that the old people's names are returning after a few generations😊 I guess it's a cycle. My great-grandfather was called Luka and that is now again one of the most popular names in Germany/Austria to give babies😆
I know a similar case, a friend of mine was from Peru, her husband was Finnish, they lived in Sweden so their adorable little girl spoke all 3 languages, which are completely unrelated, by the way, as a native since she was a toddler. A true trilingual child. At the age of 7 she joined a British school, so by age 12 she spoke 4 languages, all learnt naturally.
@@NoctLightCloud Luka has been a popular child name in Croatia for probably last 50 years. I know 60+ year old guy called Luka, 40 y.o. Luka, three 25 y.o. guys named Luka and my cousin who is 6 is also called Luka
A very short but fun video is "When people speak English but with German grammar". This gives you an idea what brain acrobatics Germans have to do to speak English and how important grammar is.
@@BabzV True for most, but I learned to speak Dutch, English and German all at the same time as a young child. My mother thought the television was a handy nanny, so she put me in front of the TV all the time. To me they became as one. I don't have to translate them, ever, and sometimes I don't even really am aware of which language I'm speaking or reading in or listening in or write in, or even THINK in. O.o It sometimes gets a bit strange because at times I tend to use words of all three in one sentence, not realizing until people look at me very strange. LOL
@@BabzV...omg, yes, Dunglish. The funniest for me is when people put a "he" after every sentence and every sentence sounds like a question. I'm Dutch too. Typing in English is easier than trying to pronounce it. I'm from Limburg. We have no R to speak of and words like "rearviewmirror" sound, at least when I make an attempt, like "wiawviewmiwwah". And the harder I try, the worst it gets 😂😂
@@BabzV As a Dutchie i have to say the English language makes much more sense, nearing 40 im obviously pretty flawless in Dutch these days, but i honestly couldn't explain the Dutch grammar rules to somebody even if i had a week, meanwhile English just comes way more natural, it seems to be closer to how my brain forms sentences or something, wonder if others experience this too? or am i just that bad at Dutch? 😂
In Denmark we learn English from 1st grade, German from 6th grade. And from 5th-7th grade we can choose either French or German I sprek danish, english, german, norwegien And can survive in Swedish, Dutch and French
How good can you speak each language? I have two native languages and then English but if i dont speak one much i start to forget a bit but it returns if i speak it for a week .
The trifecta of Norwegian, Danish and Swedish is a weird one. I'm Norwegian and can read Danish perfectly well, but having Swedish family I speak Swedish a lot easier than Danish because of the pronounciation. Up here Norwegian and English is mandatory, but you can choose a 3rd language as an elective around grade 7, and it's up to the school what that language is. For the most part it's German, but it can also be French or Spanish.
I live in Sweden and I don't think I know anybody that knows only one language. Also the reason why most of us speak so many languages is because of several reasons, English is the dominant language, so we have to learn it, Europe is madeup from many small countries relative to america, so it is common for people to move to different countries and so their children often learn their mother tounge as well as the language of the country they moved to, as well as English, since in the EU, you can move and work in different countries very easily due to the EU laws. Also, in Swedish schools, it is mandatory to learn one of the major European languages.
At the age of 11-12 we in the Netherlands get English, German, French and Dutch in school. I got 5 languages at school (including my native language). Before the age of 11-12 we get English and Dutch and in Friesland also Frysian (so 3 languages).
Woaw 😮, how many hours a week did you have at school ? I had 6h of maths and 6h of sciences, hence not enough time to pick a third langage, so I only learnt english and spanish, but I wanted to learn also german. I'm in Belgium.
@Senda688 The languages were about 1,5 hours a week for each language. Schooldays were about 8 hours a day, sometimes less sometimes more (I can remember some days were long, from 07:15 to 16:30). Each class was 45 minutes. English was proper English, so not what you hear on TV. The teacher would bust out balls about the way we talked English (that we learned from the TV cause "that wasn't right English" lol).
As a Swede, I speak Swedish, English, French and Dutch! Basically every person I know knows at least two languages and a bit of French, Spanish or German since were taught those in school
I grew up speaking 3 different languages (Slovak, Czech and Hungarian). Then I started learning German in middle school and English in High school, now I'm learning Italian and Spanish. The more languages you know, the easier it is for you to learn another.
@@annaf3915 They're mostly mutually intelligible but there are plenty of differences. Slovaks know better Czech than vice versa though, especially the younger generations.
@@annaf3915 They have fundamental linguistic features in common, including similar word structures, grammatical rules, and some lexical elements. Some words are similar with the same meaning but there are also words e.g. horký which is written the same way but have different meanings in each language. In Slovak it means bitter and in Czech it means hot. Slovaks also tend to speak more softer than Czechs. The similarity makes the two languages mutually intelligible although the younger generations sometimes have issues with some words. In general Slovaks understand Czech more as there are still many old shows that only have Czech dubbing which Slovak children watch (e.g. The Simpsons). Slovak has a longer alphabet (the longest in Europe) and have some letters the Czech doesn't have: ŕ, ĺ, ľ, ô, ä, dz, dž and vice versa: ř, ů. Both languages have their unique features.
@@annaf3915 38% of Czech and Slovak texts are identical, 46% are partially identical and 16% are different. Out of the 500 most frequent words (well, lexemas), 230 (46%) are identical, 154 (31%) are partially identical and 116 (23%) are different. They can be very similar, but also sometimes very different, like in this example: EN: What is your name and how old are you? CZ: Jak se jmenuješ a kolik je ti let? SK: Ako sa voláš a koľko máš rokov?
I'm from germany and had to take english from 5th grade to 12th grade as a main subject (4 lessons a week) but I only got fluent in english when I got into music and started liking an american band and translating their lyrics, watching their videos etc. But in 12th grade there were still classmates who could barely string two sentences together and also had the thickest german accents. And I was the same way with French. in school I had to take it from 8th to 10th grade but I didn't have a connection to the language (also the teachers I had were not helping that) so I could barely speak it. But now I have friends who are from France and I'm visiting them once in a while so with the help of them and Duolingo my French is getting quite good. So school forcing you to learn languages isn't what makes people learn languages, other people and interests make people learn
Europe can be amazingly one-lingual too in some places that you would least expect😀 I was on vacation in Monaco, we stayed in a big apartment complex full of people from all over Europe, English, Germans, Danes etc. One morning I went down to the reception and there were 5 staff (all of them under 30y of age, so not old people). I wanted some information, I speak very basic French (not good enough for a conversation), so I asked in French if they spoke English, none of them did. Then I asked if any of them spoke German, again none of them. Then I asked if any of them spoke Dutch, they all laughed. Well Monaco is close to the Italian border, so I asked if any of them spoke Italian (since my wife speaks Italian and I thought then I get her), again no one. All 5 only spoke French. To me that is so amazing, in a tourist resort, only French. I mean, in The Netherlands, if you want even a summer job on a camping or bungalow-park, any place where tourists come, employers ask that you speak Dutch and ate least 3 foreign languages, if you only speak 2 then you only get the job if they can't find anybody else 😀. And then this in France, 5 people who do this for a living and only French, I was absolutely amazed.
They speak other lenguages without any problem, they are just French. They hate to put effort in communicating in other lenguages, in the end you are in France, then speak French 😅
Me and my family were on vacation in France this summer. Most of them actually spoke English. But when we were supposed to buy train tickets from the machines it was real weird because you could change the language but it would still be in French. We were also in Monaco for like 20 or 30 minutes and at least the train announcements are in several languages including English
Clue, they all knew at least English, they were just messing with you, which is s very Frech thing to do. Has similar situations a lot of times all around France. Don't know, seems that's their way to say "f**ck tourists.
They will have had it in school, but some just suck at languages. I work in IT and I'm still surprised how big of a topic "speaking English" is. (Yes, I took the offered courses myself, but mostly because I had little opportunity to *speak* as opposed to read/write/listen, not because I needed to be able to understand manuals)
@@DDanV Less than 40% of the population of the Republic of Ireland claim to be able to speak Irish, and in Wales it's only about 20% that claim to be able to speak Welsh. In Scotland only about 1% speak Gaelic. Hence why I excluded the UK and Ireland when I said "most'. Learning it in school doesn't mean you can speak it, otherwise every British kid would be able to claim to speak French or German.
I'm from Finland and know Finnish, English and then some Swedish and German. My son is now 12 and knows Finnish and English and this year started learning Swedish in school. He's also learning Spanish, Italian and Japanese thru Duolingo.
I kinda learned English through watching TV too. I'm lucky I wasn't born in Germany because they (used to, not sure if they still do) overdub everything in German. I watched Star Trek on Sat1, the German version, just for fun.
While working at an International School in East Africa we were having problems renewing our work permits for that country due to new government requirements. When I was asked in the visa office how many languages I spoke I said six (English, Australian, American, Canadian, New Zealand and South African). He seemed very pleased with that answer and happily stamped all my paperwork.
in my country Tunisia the norm is 3 languages wich are arabic french and english, you can add a forth language if you want during the last two years in high school and you can choose between spanish italian and german , these are the basic ones you can learn , but you can also choose russian if there is a russian teacher available in the area , especially if you live in the capital .
I am absolutely fluent in German and English, I know Latin, I have a decent command of the French language, and knowing Latin helped me to get along well with Spanish, Italian and Romanian. If needed, I can manage a little Dutch, and also some very basic Norwegian. That's not totally uncommon in Europe.
17:30 The best way to get motivated to learn a new language, is when you fall in love with someone from another country. Trust me, you will bust your ass off to learn as quickly as possible to be able to talk to her/him.
@@Citoyen_du_Monde Hehehe, nice one. It's how I picked up some Portuguese when I was young. The fact that I'm not fluent in it should tell you how that relationship ended up ;-)
In Deutschland hat man eine Fremdsprache mit im Unterricht, je nach Schule Englisch oder Franz. Zusätzlich kann man noch eine zweite Sprache wählen. Angehende Jugendliche lernen gerne auch noch den aktuellen Straßenjargon/Netzjargon...eine Mischung von Abkürzungen aus dem Internet und der türkischen Sprache. Auch im Duden finden sich solche Beispiele gerne wieder "LOL, wtf, ftw, Alter, Lan, Valla, OOOOHAAA und Habibi". Dazu kommt eine nicht ganz korrekte Aussprache oder grammatikalische Korrektheit an die man sich aber mit der Zeit gewöhnt und nach wenigen Augenblicken selbst in diesen Slang abdriftet.
@1:30 you cannot learn languages only through education, you can only truly learn them through culture. Cultures that embrace multi lingual living, that sub movies instead of dub, that have media and music in more then one language. They will learn, by just existing and learning, those who embrace mono lingual life, like for example the Spanish, they simply cannot even speak a single word of another language. This is the key.
You might still sound sick, but the positivity shines through ! I only speak 4 natural languages; Dutch, English, German, French, but at least 30 programming languages too 🤓
@Dawwwg : Excellent ! You beat be, since I only _"spoke"_ programmed in : Assembler for IBM 360/370, Fortran, JCL, PL1, COBOL, C, Apl, Basic, Visual Basic, C++, Logo, Java, PHP, Javascript, Python, and what else ... ? (Max 15 💡, just half of your 30). PLUS a few _human_ languages, YES ! 😎👍
@@mrHello420__For most of us Dutchies it really is 'just 4 languages', especially French, German and English because they're our neighbors. A lot of Dutch people speak more than those 4.
Older Dutchman here. I speak dutch, english, pretty good german, because I read german books about military history for fun, My biggest pet peeve is that I can't do the same in French, because I can speak and understand a little french, but nowhere near the level I need for scientific level books on my preferred subject... Apart from that four I speak "duolingo"-level Italian, arabian and hungarian.
That wasn't very typical of Sweden though. Most young swedes only know English and Swedish, perhaps some Spanish. (Understanding Norwegian etc doesn't count.) However, older educated swedes tend to know French and/or German too (and some Latin).
Younger generations also know a lot of languages. I've had quite a lot of multilingual classmates. It's also easier to find resources to learn nowadays
2-3 fluent, 4-5 was defacto standard in Austria for people that went to a "gymnasium" (high-school) in my generation. First language: German, followed by english. Then in high-school starting with Latin (which often is not considered a real language, but a common ground to make it easier to learn other languages lateron), and at the age of about 14 the next "living" language where you could choose between italian, french or in my school russian. Of course some people are bilingual from the start (mostly turkish immigrants) so they start with turkish in addition to german.
Finnish, Swedish and English fluently..but I understand (if spoken slowly) German, Italian and Spanish. Same goes for Norwegian and Danish..oh, and Estonian 🖖🏻
@@Celisar1 yes but but there are diffrent levels of understanding and speaking. If one understad a languise one can usually speak a litle without being fluent.
In European countries, whatever grade you are in, most countries offer classes in the border countries languages. School is mandatory for everyone from 3 to 16 years old in France. You're taught French straight away, obviously. Then other european languages are gradually introduced. At around 5 yo, we started getting weekly German lessons. In Grade 6th, you have to choose which languages you want to study. English and German were mandatory. You could also choose a 3rd language if you wanted to. I remember some of my classmates chose Latin. In High School same thing. I stuck with English and German. I could have also taken Spanish. So if you ask me what languages I speak I would say: French (Mother Tongue) & English (fluent). I understand German (I'm rusty) and Alsatian (local dialect, learnt through hearing my family speak). I also took some languages classes at Uni so I know some basic Italian and Spanish.
I am german and i speak english, spanish, french, italian and dutch. But learning foreign languages always was easy for me and living abroad as a child made it even easier.
Here in Belgium, well... the Dutch part of Belgium, we start learning our other language French around like 9 or 10 years old, and it works. It also helps that we're such a small country between the Netherlands and France, so we have to keep practicing anyhow.
3:10 yeah, that's actually a good point. As a kid, i always watched movies in english with dutch subtitles. With time trying to read less, and rely more on my english understanding. To be fair to the Americans, the infrastructure and just the mere scale of the country works also against multilingualism. You don't get forced to. drive half a day, and english is still the norm. Here i walk 10 minutes and i end up in Germany, drive 10 minutes and i am in french Belgium, do i want to communicate internationally, bam need english.... So we really need to adapt with languages.
There are people in Mauritius who speak 13 languages. Every child is taught in Kreol until they have learned French. Then they are taught all subjects in French until they have learned English. After that, most teaching is in English and they can start to formally learn their family's languages like Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Bhojuri, Hakks or Cantonese. Mo prefer koz kreol.
Indeed. If you are from an English-speaking country you can manage without a second language, but when your native isn't English you are more or less obliged to learn it. For Europeans, English is a mandatory part of the school system all the way from elementary school until high school graduation (at least in my country, it was). Besides, we often have a second foreign language in our latter schooling years. I know 2.5 languages - Bulgarian, English, and Japanese (around intermediate level). I tried some German too but it wasn't my thing with all the der, die, das, and the murky conjugations.
Im from the german speaking part of Italy (South Tyrol). So my mother tongue is a very strong german dialact. I also speak "standard" german, italian and english.
I'm Irish and we learn the Irish Language in school. This makes it easier to learn other languages. I learnt French in School, Spanish in the 80s when I lived in Spain, German because my son lived in Austria and then Russian because he married a Russian girl and Dutch because they live in Netherlands and my granddaughters speak it as a first language. Both Portuguese and Italian are not difficult to understand because of Spanish and so are other Slavic languages because of Russian. I've been teaching English to other nationalities for 45 years. Now a lot of my students are from African countries where they already speak a few languages. The majority of the world is multilingual.
I'm fluent in Polish (my native language) and English. I can communicate on basic issues in German and Czech. I know a little of Spanish and Greek. (fun fact: Polish and Czech are quite similar except for the vocabulary ;) )
I think every American should be made to do a year abroad. You are so isolated and live in your own bubble. From birth, you're taught that the USA is the best country on Earth. Surprise: you're the only ones who think that, except for people from poorer countries.
I whant to say that english (maybe not for the very old generation) is almost a given in europe (still some countries like France that kind of suck at it exactly because what was said early on in the video... every movie etc is translated with french actor voices etc compared to others that just leave the english version... so you have to learn early on). Then because many mixed marriages where you learn the language from both parents and finally the country you live in. Me for example: my parents are (where for one of them) Danish, so I learned that at home + my mother is more specifically from the Faroe islands, so I understand this language (whent there almost every summer as a kid; but not enough to be fluent). Born and raised in Luxembourg where you have 3 official languages -> Luxembourgish, French and German. So fluent in Danish, French, German, English and Luxembourgish. But I am not "proud" of it... I didn't really had to put a lot of effort in it, it came naturally
i can say from a Norwegian guy here. I speak Norwegian and English fluently. I can hold a conversation in German and understand Swedish and Danish( since Norway is so close to Sweden and Denmark we can understand each other) so I understand 5 languages.
Doesn't your wife speak spanish fluently? Just speak spanish at home exclusivly with your family for a few weeks and you will be amazed how quickly you are able to master a language. The key is to stop translating from english to spanish in your head and just think in spanish kinda. And force yourself when you do not really know the right translation to find a different way to express what you want to say with different words you do know. Don't fall back on english but just find different words to convey the same message. I'm sure you will pick it up really quickly if you have a large vocabulary already anyway. You'll be fluent before christmas 😮 It is good for you and will be good for your kids as well if they are fluent in both english and spanish.
This is always a bit of an overstatement, while we definitely have people that easily switch between 4-5 languages, that's not the norm, i can't help but point out that most people in EU know "only" ~2,5 languages (their own, english & a few basic sentences of a few nearby languages)
Europeans usually are like - Baltics and one or two more - 1st native language, 2nd+3rd english/russian, 4th german for some Rest is native language + english + similar languages to native with some twists. As a Latvian, I speak fluent latvian, fluent english, some stuttery russian
🇸🇪 here. I would say I speak between three and ten languages, a little depending on how you define it. Swedish - obviously fluent English - fluency, education and frequent use German - near fluency, education and jobs Danish and Norwegian - well, not fluent, but I've been mistaken to come from Jutland several times in Copenhagen Farsi (Persian) - Some (Girlfriend) Spanish, Italian and French - I speak these poorly, but read them fairly easily Et ego quoque paulo latine loqui
I was born in Denmark, but now I live in Sweden. People often guess I'm from Germany, for some reason. Well I live in the south of Sweden, so up north they just don't understand me at all 😂 apparently I speak Scanian and not Swedish
I spak Norwegian,English and I was fluent in German, but have forgotten a lot of it .I understand Swedish, Danish and some French. And know some words in many other...I just think it's fun to learn
As a kid I've learned English and German simultaneously after emigrating from the Netherlands. I'm surprised that I still know Dutch after that, and 15 years of speaking German.
I am fluent in German (native), English and Spanish, while I'm on B1 in Portuguese. But that's only because I lived/am living in countries where those languages are spoken. I know TONS of Europeans who don't speak shit besides their native language (I am looking at you, Spain...).
I live in Italy, and in here it's very difficult to find a native Italian that speak another language. When they do it's usually a very rough English. The immigrant community usually does better in the language department...
The American accent is a bit special I guess because it is already the product of accents from people with a different native language. It's also the only accent Dutch people take back home when they lived there for decades and speak Dutch with an American accent. I don't hear that in Dutch people who lived elsewhere for decades. Europe didn't used to be this multilingual. 30 years ago it was mostly the Dutch, Flemish and the Scandinavians who were this multilingual, and that was special to the people in France, Italy, Spain and even few Germans were fluent in English.
Well, 30-50-100 years ago, Europe still was multilingual. There are many multicultural regions. In Transylvania, for example, hungarian, romanian and german was the norm for the last 1000 years...
I am portuguese and I have learned in public school English for 8 yearss, French for 5 years and 3 years of German and simultaneously I also had 3 years of translation techniques. And of course I understand 99% of spoken and 99.8% of written Spanish but it is so similar to portuguese that no one really even counts it as a foreign language
I love the Portuguese language, it sounds so fluent and smooth. I would love to be able to speak it one day, I'm actually learning Spanish right now so maybe I can learn Portuguese after that. Warm greetings from the Netherlands. 😊🌷
8 years of English and you write "I have learned in public school English for 8 yearss". You surely can't be a translator when you are unable to write correctly such a simple sentence. Try again.
German and English fluently, enough Italian to communicate, working on my Polish. With so many languages spoken all over Europe, it's quite normal to learn a few of them. Sit in a train for a few hours - boom, new language. And it's helpful to understand at least the menue in a resraurant.
I Speak Serbian, English and Hungarian but believe it or not I never felt that made me stand out in any way. Now if I knew seven that would be impressive. Life might have me down but I'm still planning of expanding my portfolio with German and Spanish.
To me you are standing out. It's one thing learning languages that share roots or alphabet with your natural language, it is a totally other story learning languages with different roots or alphabet! Even know the more you learn foreign languages the easier it is to learn a new one, I'm very impressed.
I think the most accurate comparison would be that of US Americans and Brits, or maybe even just English, as the rest of the Europeans have native languages other than English, and thus we have to learn it as a second language. With that being said, I'm Greek and I speak Greek (duh) and English fluently, and at the moment I'm learning Swedish at a pre-intermediate level (A2) 🙂 Edit: I just realized that in some countries they already know more that one language so English is not their second language, but yeah, you get me
glad you are starting to recover, I was looking forward to your videos speak hungarian, english, little german, and I understand russian, we have to learn in the kommunism, but dont use it... and i started to learn italian, by the time I retire, I'll learn :D learning a language is a good thing, it keeps the brain in shape, when you older
I don't think I know anyone in my physical surroundings who speaks only 1 language. They might not be fluent, but speaking less than at least 2 languages is rare. And that's from someone who grew up in a very rural area. As someone that speaks 6 languages to at least a conversational level, and because of that can understand at least 6 more, I don't think I'm the average. But no one is surprised if you know your languages here.
Linguistically, Croatian, Serbian. and Bosnian are just dialects of a single language. But, do you know the difference between a dialect and a language? The latter one has an army.
@twinmama42 i didnt want to offend any of them. If you are such an expert you should know how they are when they are offended. And if you deny them their own language they certanly are. So i did no harm.
Ian, I have lots of Italian friends and they have taught me many words and phrases over the years. So much so, that when I was in Italy years ago, I was able to communicate with the waiters and shop keepers quite effectively. I have also learned lots of Italian lyrics to the songs of the now retired band, I Pooh, and know quite a lot of Portuguese words from listening to Brazilian singers from the 80s, like Ana Caram and Gilberto Gil.
In most European countries kids learn at least two and often three languages. In Ireland for instance even in my day (50 years ago) you learned two in school up to 13 years of age and then an additional one usually either French or German to 18 years and you needed at least two languages to be admitted to university. And the EU has the objective that all citizens should speak at least three EU languages at A2 level. A2 is a basic working knowledge of a language that would allow you to do all the usual daily chores in that language - shopping, making enquiries, getting around on public transport etc... And of course the human condition - if you drive an hour down the road here it's a different language, so you need to be able to make yourself understood and get your tasks done. So there is more motivation to at least pick up the basic in the languages being used around you.
Jamaica was similar in my days. However, from 11 to 13 years Latin was cumpulsory as the basis of the romance languages and you could add either French or Spanish. At 13 you could drop Latin and continue with your chosen language to 17. Along the way at 15 you could add French or Spanish to your original choice. So we ended up doing "A' levels in our original choice, which meant being able to write essays as well as converse in that language and 'AO' in the choice we added at 15, which meant simple conversation and written answers to simple questions.
once you know English and Spanish Mandarin is the obvious 3rd, no matter where you are on earth someone is likely to speak one of those three to some degree. They are the three most spoken languages on earth.
I´m glad I was born in Europe and lived in different countries as well. So I can speak fluently 6 languages and 3 more where I can talk a little bit. Cheers from Portugal.
i talked to guys from Brasil last weekend at work, i know some Spanish and Italian, so we got an understanding....! German national....born next to an international border and visited over 20 European countries!
I was shocked when I heard that a lot of people in the US do not have a passport, meaning they never leave the country. Despite being a so huge country, it is pretty homogeneous in terms of language (except maybe for the regions near the Mexican border and of course Puerto Rico), maybe they dont need anything else than English...
I live in Sweden. Speak Swedish and English fluently. Can speak and understand a bit german, Spanish, turkish, norwegian, danish and finnish. Trying to learn French now but french is hard!! So in conclusion i KNOW 2 languages and dabbles in 7 more languages. So i can communicate a bit in 9 languages...
try this: you probably have a favorite/cult movie that you've seen several times and you know almost every line by heart, even a cartoon possibly. Find it in French with French subtitles. Watch it, like a school assignment, several times, the more, the better. Since your brain already knows every line, it won't have to translate the lines, it will perform a transposition: fast and efficient. You would be amazed at the results this produces.
Hi @@willythebluebear - The learning technique you describe in your comment is very efficient. I've done it not by watching a movie, but just with a simple book. (Yes, I'm that old 😅!). It's the story of an outlier bird who thrive to get better and better at flying. I read that story (written by Richard Bach) in my mother tongue, at first. Then, a few years later, it was the very first book I read entirely, in English. Title is *_"Jonathan Livingston seagull"_* ... then in German *_die Möwe Jonathan_* ... etc. Now I have a little collection of them, in a few other languages. 😎
Same! I am fluent in 2 languages and can understand and speak a bit of Spanish, Russian and Japanese. Even if my grammar is not great, I tested it and the Japanese understood me when I went on a trip to Japan. I learned Japanese through anime, since it is nigh impossible to find it dubbed or translated in my own language, so watching and repeating is a valid way to learn.
@@willythebluebearThank you for a wonderful idea! I will definitely try that! I work in a very multicultural environment and right now I have 2 French speaking coworkers (French as their native language) that allows me to practice in a safe and secure space without any judgment 🥰 Today I learned three more sentences! But I will try watching Heartstopper in French when I come home tonight! Thank you!!
Spanish, Italian and French are all languages of roman offspring. So it is a lot easier to learn the next language if can speak one of them . Many words have similar spelling in all of them even if they are pronounced differently.
I live in the UK, and whilst languages are taught in schools, the vast majority are not fluent in other languages. I personally think that this is because English is the global language (Lingua Franca), and they arrogantly don't bother to/ not incentivised to learn any other
French are the “American of Europe”… most of them only know one language (barely) and it’s French. Don’t even try to speak to them in any other language, they assume everyone in France should speak French, even if you’re just a tourist…
I'm french and this is true but I think it's a good thing we have cultural value to preserve and if you're in France you must try to speak french even if it's bad we don't care. There is nothing more annoying than feeling that you're a stranger in your own country when you visit somewhere. When people visit countries they should remember if they go to US,poland or somewhere at least know how to say hi :)
im a brazilian living in Portugal, i came here already speaking 2 languages (Portuguese and English, which i learned by myself) and during school years i had French classes, it wasn’t enough to make me speak fluently but i can communicate some basic information and im now learning Italian, i feel like US people don’t realize how common it is to know at least 2 languages, being bilingual is not something impressive outside the US
As a Belgian, we have 3 official languages in Belgium; Dutch (Flemish), French and German, I speak those three and English and currently I'm studying Spanish, which I'd say i'm almost A2 in. My level in French and German is B1, English C1 and Dutch (Flemish) is my native language.
Note language families. If you speak Dutch, English and German like me, you speak Swamp German, Island German and Forest German- this is far easier than learning, say: English, Spanish and Chinese.
Here in Sweden we start to learn english in the second grade, so atleast 90% of the people in Sweden can speak english really good. My son, who is 7, can speak english almost fluently thanks to youtube. I can speak 4 languages, swedish, english, sign language and german.
Kids in Sweden start to learn English the third year in school when they are 8 - 9 years old so more or less everyone can at least Swedish and English. Some schools even start the first year when the kids are 6. And Americans speaks English, a European language from England.
I'm from the Netherlands, and at school i got my first (pre) English language lessons at the age of 10. But even at that time i already knew quite a bit of basis English, because of all of the (mostly) English spoken television programs, with Dutch subtitles. Hearing English on a daily basis, with Dutch subtitles to explain what is being said, is a huge contributor of the fact that so many people in the Netherlands speak English that well (and also often with a minimum accent compared to lots of other European countries). I also speak a fair amount of German, and understanding (but not really speaking) a bunch of French and Spanish (words).
Only because I attended French classes for years doesn’t mean I speak french. English class was more interesting because i spoke English already before class started. Teachers didn’t like that i skipped homework but still got full points in tests
I was taught French badly for 3 years with a 2 year gap after the first. Back in UK fluency didn't seem to be the main goal, so I can read French better than I can speak it. The Dutch have to to learn 3 languages compulsory with an optional 4. Dutch has similarities with German so it is a good fit. Likewise Swedish has Germanic roots so not that difficult to learn: Finnish is an official language in Sweden but it is not as common as it used to be. I have been told that for Spaniards it is easier to learn Italian than Portuguese. Ian, you are correct, it is better & easier for children to be learning a second language from a young age ideally starting at 6 or 7. 11 or 12 is too late.
In Norway, the english influence hit you early. Games,movies,tv-shows ,internet aso.Kids speak english nowadays. Personally i also speak french and german. Swedish/danish is no problem
It's crazy for some reason Americans have problems hearing dutch accents. I can't differ between Florida New York or California or Ohio accent it sounds all the same to me but that Dutch girl had a strong Dutch accent xD but all Americans listening to Dutch always say they sound American while I don't even think it's close it's SOO dutch the accent xD
The problem is that English is today's lingua franca. So you can find some English speaker almost everywhere and people from English speaking countries are not forced to learn another languages. For example Americans can travel around the world only with their English (maybe except some places in southern US states).
@@101steel4 Of course you can find a ton of different English/American/Australian etc. accents, but you are able to understand. And you can understand even when the speaker from a non- English speaking country is butchering the language.
I just want to point out how (as a long time subscriber) the "How'di 'all, Hello" is essential and super familiar at the beginning of your videos, and how it is missed when you do not say it, then something feels off... 😅 I am glad it was in this one. Cheers from Germany.
I'm English. Obviously I speak English, understand American English, but don't speak it! I also speak Swiss-German and French. I understand some Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. The first lady that spoke recognisable American-English probably learnt a lot from US films and cartoons.
In italy, i know only few people, that speak english well.. A part,people that used this for work, the rest( me too), Speaks a maccheronic english, when rules, and pronunce, when you don't remember it, you invent. With some hand gesture, At the end, we understand, each other. ( see italian politics try to spesk english)😅😅😅😅😅😅
When i went to school we started to learn French and German, but not until middle school. Nowadays i am out of practice, due to it not being part of my everyday life. As a Brit i have holidayed all around europe over the yrs and find myself getting by with just a little bit of various languages. To be fair though a lot of Europeans speak English to a good standard which makes things a lot easier.
Hi Ian !! Just a little ad on to the Swedish part of the first video you watched: Those Swedes also (most probably) are able to communicate pretty easy with the Danes and Norwegians too. ( I'm unsure if this should count in their language tally though)
It kind of depends on the Danish and Norwegian regions too. If they're from the Oslo area I can understand around 95% and fill in the 5% with the context. Understanding someone from Bergen is a lot harder though
i am German, i speak German and avg English.. little Danish, born 200m from the border.. very little Dutch, its 3 hrs drive from here... very little Polish, working in construction... very little French, because i spend my vacations in France and the French part of Switzerland... a little more Spanish, my Ex-wife is Peruvian, so i spend time in South America and Spain! a very little Italian.....Spanish is close enough to use Italian... i also understand Plattdeutsch and Austrian... and i started to learn Korean, planing to visit Korea in 2 or 3 years! so i barley speak a foreign language, my daughter speak 4 languages very good, born Deutsch, mother language Spanish, both parents used sometimes English and because of her Abi, also French! my younger sister, Deutsch English a little Spanish and Turkish... my older sister, German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek and Thai! my mum, German, English, Danish, Swedish and Turkish! so we are just average European Union citizens!
Na sowas! Das ist aber mal multikulturell und ja ich bin ein bisschen eifersüchtig. Haha. Wow! That's truly multicultural and am a bit jelly. Hehe. I may can say "Thanks" in a good amount of these languages, thanks to the entertainment industries but other than that my self-dicispline isn't one to teach myself a whole new alphabet,sadly. Tack! Dank je!/ Bedankt! Merci! Gracias! Gracié! Kamsamida! Kha (Khun)!
The thing you need to realise, Ian, is that everyone who learns English as a second language is automatically bilingual. The fact that millions of people speak at least two languages might be surprising for US americans but for us non-native English speakers is kind of the minimum requirement. 🙂
Yeah, so if we don't speak english, people usually look at us like at uneducated Neanderthals. While burgermericans don't even know about the existence of other languages
Except for a lot of French people. They don't WANT to learn English, they refuse to, and think everyone that visits France should speak THEIR language. And perfectly, otherwise they despise you and make fun of you trying, while not even trying to speak English when they go to other countries themselves.
U bent belgish?😊@@Keyboardje
@@Keyboardje I really think it is not true anymore. As French I did not find Germans more helpfull than French in this perspective. My wife who is from none of them find that French people are trying much more to speak in english even if they are really bad.
@@Keyboardje The younger generation of French does speak English now. It is not a matter of not wanting to speak French not being to learn English in the past, but not being able to learn it. I met English language school teachers in France and frankly their English was not very good at all.
But let’s turn it around. Find English native speakers who speak good French. I guarantee you, you will find hardly any. Ever spoken to French teachers in the UK? Again, their French isn’t that good.
It is not my experience that nations do not want to speak another language. It is because people never had the chance to learn the other language so why struggle?
As a Dutch national I worked for Anglo-Saxon companies as their sales rep in Belgium, Germany and Austria. French was the language I spoke at home, Dutch is my native tongue. Studied German and French. Luxembourg was my base.
When I now travel to France or Germany for instance, those up to age 40 address me in English. The older ones in their own language. They do not speak another language.
I think most of us outside The USA are baffled that US citizens aren’t taught Spanish and French in school when you only have Mexico and Canada as your neighbors…? 🤷🏻♀️
They should teach them English too 😉
I think it is sad that the Natives don't teach the 'whites' the indian languages. Like in Gemany you can learn Frisian in the north and Sorbian in Brandenburg and Saxony. In Sweden you can sign lessons in Sámi or Meänkieli.
@@DamnOldAlreadysadly, there are not many people left who could teach these languages!
Well... Franco Canadians learn English in school as well. So there's not realy a need to learn French. But Spanish should be a must!
@@DamnOldAlready Sami are not Natives in the North the Nordic people are
Many Americans don't seem to realise that they are speaking European languages, mainly Spanish or English.
Some don't even know they ARE European 😂😂
The fun thing is that America is 35 countries but still ppl in U.S.(A) are the ones that refer to themselves as "American"
@@ThelemorfAmerica is a country in the continent of North America.
United States of A......
@@101steel4 If you'd omit the ”of A“ then it could actually be Mexico. The official name is “United Mexican States”.
Lol russian and belorusian isn't the same, but it's totally useless languages
@@101steel4 Yeah, it's called "United States of America" meaning it's *in* America, *not all* America.
USA is the country, American is the continent. Even if you consider only North America there's still 2 other countries in there.
I like how Americans are so shocked Europeans speak different languages. Here in Belgium alone we have 3 official languages.
well AREN'T you better than everyone else then...
@@mynameiskal Triggered?
@@mynameiskal yeah pretty much
@@mynameiskal what a childish response is this ?
@@mynameiskal Did you ego get hurt? 😂
I dont think it’s strange that people here in Europe speaks 3-4 languages and understand a handful more. We have to. It’s often our neighbors and countries we visit often, and then we have English for the rest.
But what I do think is strange is that people in the US just don’t bother to learn the neighbors language, Spanish and French, that Americans just take it for granted that everyone in the world speaks “American”.
For me it’s just another sign on that typical American ignorance against everything outside USA.
IMO learning a new language opens up a whole new world to you. You get to experience and understand a new culture, by watching their movies, comedians, Wikipedia pages or any online content in that language, which really broadens your horizon. I would recommend learning a neighboring countries language because you be most likely the most exposed to that language.
Seen a american who wrote and obviusly read Swedish that he learnt from working at SAAB so basically learnt it from handbooks and service manuals so he replied in Swedish in a Swedish SAAB forum! So choose from your interests and learn basic words until you can guesstimate the rest of a sentence.
(Learnt english from third or fourth grade to 9th and then tv and car magazines)
That works better from English to Swedish, since they are both Germanic (not German!) languages and have some word and grammar overlap. It doesn't work as well for, let's say, English and Polish who are not related to each other.
_"you can guesstimate"_ oh, wow !
I love that liberty to create new words like that. This one is halfway between estimating... and just guessing 😅. Wunderbar !!
@@equolizer oh you're absolutely correct. As A Dutch person guessing German is quite easy. But i tried the Polish language with a friend and the words change so much to even recognize anything to be honest haha :)
Guesstimate as a portmanteau has been around for quite a while. It’s a nice concept. I guesstimate you could fit 2 million people*on* the Great Wall of China
3:34 That Dutch girl is right about the undubbed movies there. They do have Dutch subtitles, but you basically learn English from your childhood just by watching TV. Germany, on the other hand, dubs everything, so I had to learn English in school and from rock music. I once was pretty fluent in French, too. My grammar is still fine, but I forgot too many words. Three weeks in France would sure help; I just don't have a reason to go there. Italian and Spanish, well: "tourist level".
Most english I've learned came from reading book and watching movies/series in english way after I've finished school, just cause I was sick of waiting for a translation or ger dub.
Exposure at a young age makes language learning so much easier.
It's the same in Sweden. I've definitely learned more English from TV/movies/music than at school. The rule is quite clear that the European countries that don't dub movies are better in English than those that do, if you generalize.
yeah, in finland we mostly dub children's shows, the rest are subtitled. i definitely wouldn't be as fluent in english if i had only learned what was taught in school, so consuming english media definitely helped me develop my skill further.
The Dutch speak better English than the Danes do, but in Denmark films and series are also only shown in the original language, so that's not the whole explanation.
When I was working in Austria my boss was Finnish, and his wife was Swedish. They had a little boy Josef who was going to a German speaking Kindergarten. Our workplace was English speaking, so at the age of 5 this little guy was fluent in all four languages. When a Dutch speaking family with a 5yo son joined our team, we wondered what language the boys would communicate in. Turns out Josef quickly learned Dutch solely to play with his new friend. 😮
Josef?❤ that's actually adorable that the old people's names are returning after a few generations😊 I guess it's a cycle. My great-grandfather was called Luka and that is now again one of the most popular names in Germany/Austria to give babies😆
I know a similar case, a friend of mine was from Peru, her husband was Finnish, they lived in Sweden so their adorable little girl spoke all 3 languages, which are completely unrelated, by the way, as a native since she was a toddler. A true trilingual child. At the age of 7 she joined a British school, so by age 12 she spoke 4 languages, all learnt naturally.
@@NoctLightCloud Luka has been a popular child name in Croatia for probably last 50 years. I know 60+ year old guy called Luka, 40 y.o. Luka, three 25 y.o. guys named Luka and my cousin who is 6 is also called Luka
@ChR0nos_7734 I know a soccer player with that name!
@@NoctLightCloudAt least in Sweden, Josef is a pretty common name no matter which year it is😅
A very short but fun video is "When people speak English but with German grammar". This gives you an idea what brain acrobatics Germans have to do to speak English and how important grammar is.
Same for us Dutchies. 😉
@@BabzV
True for most, but I learned to speak Dutch, English and German all at the same time as a young child. My mother thought the television was a handy nanny, so she put me in front of the TV all the time. To me they became as one. I don't have to translate them, ever, and sometimes I don't even really am aware of which language I'm speaking or reading in or listening in or write in, or even THINK in. O.o
It sometimes gets a bit strange because at times I tend to use words of all three in one sentence, not realizing until people look at me very strange. LOL
@@BabzV...omg, yes, Dunglish. The funniest for me is when people put a "he" after every sentence and every sentence sounds like a question. I'm Dutch too. Typing in English is easier than trying to pronounce it. I'm from Limburg. We have no R to speak of and words like "rearviewmirror" sound, at least when I make an attempt, like "wiawviewmiwwah". And the harder I try, the worst it gets 😂😂
Of you, Jeremy, have I, when you, when I farted, laughed, lowered my opinion
@@BabzV As a Dutchie i have to say the English language makes much more sense, nearing 40 im obviously pretty flawless in Dutch these days, but i honestly couldn't explain the Dutch grammar rules to somebody even if i had a week, meanwhile English just comes way more natural, it seems to be closer to how my brain forms sentences or something, wonder if others experience this too? or am i just that bad at Dutch? 😂
In Denmark we learn English from 1st grade, German from 6th grade. And from 5th-7th grade we can choose either French or German
I sprek danish, english, german, norwegien And can survive in Swedish, Dutch and French
How good can you speak each language? I have two native languages and then English but if i dont speak one much i start to forget a bit but it returns if i speak it for a week .
As a Brit I’m full of admiration for how teachers fit everything in the day with such young children and then a foreign language . 👍🏻
@@aramisone7198 I speak Danish (native), English, German and Norwegian fluently. Dutch and French in common everyday phrases
The trifecta of Norwegian, Danish and Swedish is a weird one. I'm Norwegian and can read Danish perfectly well, but having Swedish family I speak Swedish a lot easier than Danish because of the pronounciation. Up here Norwegian and English is mandatory, but you can choose a 3rd language as an elective around grade 7, and it's up to the school what that language is. For the most part it's German, but it can also be French or Spanish.
Goed bezig Sanne 🙂
I live in Sweden and I don't think I know anybody that knows only one language. Also the reason why most of us speak so many languages is because of several reasons, English is the dominant language, so we have to learn it, Europe is madeup from many small countries relative to america, so it is common for people to move to different countries and so their children often learn their mother tounge as well as the language of the country they moved to, as well as English, since in the EU, you can move and work in different countries very easily due to the EU laws. Also, in Swedish schools, it is mandatory to learn one of the major European languages.
At the age of 11-12 we in the Netherlands get English, German, French and Dutch in school. I got 5 languages at school (including my native language). Before the age of 11-12 we get English and Dutch and in Friesland also Frysian (so 3 languages).
Woaw 😮, how many hours a week did you have at school ? I had 6h of maths and 6h of sciences, hence not enough time to pick a third langage, so I only learnt english and spanish, but I wanted to learn also german. I'm in Belgium.
Yup same here, except for the Frisian language. 😊
@Senda688 The languages were about 1,5 hours a week for each language. Schooldays were about 8 hours a day, sometimes less sometimes more (I can remember some days were long, from 07:15 to 16:30). Each class was 45 minutes. English was proper English, so not what you hear on TV. The teacher would bust out balls about the way we talked English (that we learned from the TV cause "that wasn't right English" lol).
Ik heb een Friese vriend, prachtige taal hoor.
Groetjes van een Zuid-Hollandse in Limburg. 😉
As a Swede, I speak Swedish, English, French and Dutch! Basically every person I know knows at least two languages and a bit of French, Spanish or German since were taught those in school
I grew up speaking 3 different languages (Slovak, Czech and Hungarian). Then I started learning German in middle school and English in High school, now I'm learning Italian and Spanish. The more languages you know, the easier it is for you to learn another.
Is there a lot of differences between Czech and Slovak?
@@annaf3915 They're mostly mutually intelligible but there are plenty of differences. Slovaks know better Czech than vice versa though, especially the younger generations.
@@annaf3915 They have fundamental linguistic features in common, including similar word structures, grammatical rules, and some lexical elements. Some words are similar with the same meaning but there are also words e.g. horký which is written the same way but have different meanings in each language. In Slovak it means bitter and in Czech it means hot. Slovaks also tend to speak more softer than Czechs. The similarity makes the two languages mutually intelligible although the younger generations sometimes have issues with some words. In general Slovaks understand Czech more as there are still many old shows that only have Czech dubbing which Slovak children watch (e.g. The Simpsons). Slovak has a longer alphabet (the longest in Europe) and have some letters the Czech doesn't have: ŕ, ĺ, ľ, ô, ä, dz, dž and vice versa: ř, ů. Both languages have their unique features.
@@annaf3915 38% of Czech and Slovak texts are identical, 46% are partially identical and 16% are different. Out of the 500 most frequent words (well, lexemas), 230 (46%) are identical, 154 (31%) are partially identical and 116 (23%) are different. They can be very similar, but also sometimes very different, like in this example:
EN: What is your name and how old are you?
CZ: Jak se jmenuješ a kolik je ti let?
SK: Ako sa voláš a koľko máš rokov?
We had German already in the kindergarten 😂 and totally worth it 😉
I'm from germany and had to take english from 5th grade to 12th grade as a main subject (4 lessons a week) but I only got fluent in english when I got into music and started liking an american band and translating their lyrics, watching their videos etc. But in 12th grade there were still classmates who could barely string two sentences together and also had the thickest german accents. And I was the same way with French. in school I had to take it from 8th to 10th grade but I didn't have a connection to the language (also the teachers I had were not helping that) so I could barely speak it. But now I have friends who are from France and I'm visiting them once in a while so with the help of them and Duolingo my French is getting quite good. So school forcing you to learn languages isn't what makes people learn languages, other people and interests make people learn
Europe can be amazingly one-lingual too in some places that you would least expect😀 I was on vacation in Monaco, we stayed in a big apartment complex full of people from all over Europe, English, Germans, Danes etc. One morning I went down to the reception and there were 5 staff (all of them under 30y of age, so not old people). I wanted some information, I speak very basic French (not good enough for a conversation), so I asked in French if they spoke English, none of them did. Then I asked if any of them spoke German, again none of them. Then I asked if any of them spoke Dutch, they all laughed. Well Monaco is close to the Italian border, so I asked if any of them spoke Italian (since my wife speaks Italian and I thought then I get her), again no one. All 5 only spoke French. To me that is so amazing, in a tourist resort, only French. I mean, in The Netherlands, if you want even a summer job on a camping or bungalow-park, any place where tourists come, employers ask that you speak Dutch and ate least 3 foreign languages, if you only speak 2 then you only get the job if they can't find anybody else 😀. And then this in France, 5 people who do this for a living and only French, I was absolutely amazed.
Typical french ospitality
They speak other lenguages without any problem, they are just French. They hate to put effort in communicating in other lenguages, in the end you are in France, then speak French 😅
sounds more like they played you, by asking in French they knew that you knew French and didn't have to make an effort
Me and my family were on vacation in France this summer. Most of them actually spoke English. But when we were supposed to buy train tickets from the machines it was real weird because you could change the language but it would still be in French. We were also in Monaco for like 20 or 30 minutes and at least the train announcements are in several languages including English
Clue, they all knew at least English, they were just messing with you, which is s very Frech thing to do. Has similar situations a lot of times all around France.
Don't know, seems that's their way to say "f**ck tourists.
Most Europeans (outside the UK/Ireland) will speak at least 2 languages, especially the younger generation)
They will have had it in school, but some just suck at languages.
I work in IT and I'm still surprised how big of a topic "speaking English" is. (Yes, I took the offered courses myself, but mostly because I had little opportunity to *speak* as opposed to read/write/listen, not because I needed to be able to understand manuals)
In Ireland you learn two languages: English and Irish. And in Walles they learn Welsh and English. I know what you meant, but to be precise...
@@DDanV Less than 40% of the population of the Republic of Ireland claim to be able to speak Irish, and in Wales it's only about 20% that claim to be able to speak Welsh. In Scotland only about 1% speak Gaelic. Hence why I excluded the UK and Ireland when I said "most'. Learning it in school doesn't mean you can speak it, otherwise every British kid would be able to claim to speak French or German.
I'm from Finland and know Finnish, English and then some Swedish and German. My son is now 12 and knows Finnish and English and this year started learning Swedish in school. He's also learning Spanish, Italian and Japanese thru Duolingo.
I love that you discovered this channel! The guy is from Montreal in Canada and did really great expanding on this concept.
I'm from the Czech Republic and I learn English from your videos.
He speaks English quite well ;) Good luck
I kinda learned English through watching TV too. I'm lucky I wasn't born in Germany because they (used to, not sure if they still do) overdub everything in German. I watched Star Trek on Sat1, the German version, just for fun.
Not a good idea, he's American 😂
@@101steel4 Can't wait to be fluent in IWrockerian 😊
While working at an International School in East Africa we were having problems renewing our work permits for that country due to new government requirements. When I was asked in the visa office how many languages I spoke I said six (English, Australian, American, Canadian, New Zealand and South African). He seemed very pleased with that answer and happily stamped all my paperwork.
in my country Tunisia the norm is 3 languages wich are arabic french and english, you can add a forth language if you want during the last two years in high school and you can choose between spanish italian and german , these are the basic ones you can learn , but you can also choose russian if there is a russian teacher available in the area , especially if you live in the capital .
I am absolutely fluent in German and English, I know Latin, I have a decent command of the French language, and knowing Latin helped me to get along well with Spanish, Italian and Romanian. If needed, I can manage a little Dutch, and also some very basic Norwegian. That's not totally uncommon in Europe.
17:30 The best way to get motivated to learn a new language, is when you fall in love with someone from another country. Trust me, you will bust your ass off to learn as quickly as possible to be able to talk to her/him.
Yep, that's right ! La motivation de goûter aux _langues_ étrangères 😏
(pun intended 😇).
@@Citoyen_du_Monde Hehehe, nice one. It's how I picked up some Portuguese when I was young. The fact that I'm not fluent in it should tell you how that relationship ended up ;-)
In Deutschland hat man eine Fremdsprache mit im Unterricht, je nach Schule Englisch oder Franz. Zusätzlich kann man noch eine zweite Sprache wählen.
Angehende Jugendliche lernen gerne auch noch den aktuellen Straßenjargon/Netzjargon...eine Mischung von Abkürzungen aus dem Internet und der türkischen Sprache.
Auch im Duden finden sich solche Beispiele gerne wieder "LOL, wtf, ftw, Alter, Lan, Valla, OOOOHAAA und Habibi". Dazu kommt eine nicht ganz korrekte Aussprache oder grammatikalische Korrektheit an die man sich aber mit der Zeit gewöhnt und nach wenigen Augenblicken selbst in diesen Slang abdriftet.
@1:30 you cannot learn languages only through education, you can only truly learn them through culture. Cultures that embrace multi lingual living, that sub movies instead of dub, that have media and music in more then one language. They will learn, by just existing and learning, those who embrace mono lingual life, like for example the Spanish, they simply cannot even speak a single word of another language. This is the key.
You might still sound sick, but the positivity shines through !
I only speak 4 natural languages; Dutch, English, German, French, but at least 30 programming languages too 🤓
Klingon too?
@Dawwwg : Excellent ! You beat be, since I only _"spoke"_ programmed in : Assembler for IBM 360/370, Fortran, JCL, PL1, COBOL, C, Apl, Basic, Visual Basic, C++, Logo, Java, PHP, Javascript, Python, and what else ... ? (Max 15 💡, just half of your 30).
PLUS a few _human_ languages, YES ! 😎👍
@@ulfdanielsen6009 - Klingon, no way ! 🤷♂️
But Esperanto, yep ! 😎👍
Whenever you want...
"only" common man, stop it haha
@@mrHello420__For most of us Dutchies it really is 'just 4 languages', especially French, German and English because they're our neighbors.
A lot of Dutch people speak more than those 4.
Swedish, English and Classical Nahuatl. I understand Norwegian, Danish and German pretty well too, being born and raised in Sweden.
Older Dutchman here. I speak dutch, english, pretty good german, because I read german books about military history for fun, My biggest pet peeve is that I can't do the same in French, because I can speak and understand a little french, but nowhere near the level I need for scientific level books on my preferred subject... Apart from that four I speak "duolingo"-level Italian, arabian and hungarian.
That wasn't very typical of Sweden though.
Most young swedes only know English and Swedish, perhaps some Spanish. (Understanding Norwegian etc doesn't count.)
However, older educated swedes tend to know French and/or German too (and some Latin).
Younger generations also know a lot of languages. I've had quite a lot of multilingual classmates. It's also easier to find resources to learn nowadays
2-3 fluent, 4-5 was defacto standard in Austria for people that went to a "gymnasium" (high-school) in my generation. First language: German, followed by english. Then in high-school starting with Latin (which often is not considered a real language, but a common ground to make it easier to learn other languages lateron), and at the age of about 14 the next "living" language where you could choose between italian, french or in my school russian. Of course some people are bilingual from the start (mostly turkish immigrants) so they start with turkish in addition to german.
Finnish, Swedish and English fluently..but I understand (if spoken slowly) German, Italian and Spanish. Same goes for Norwegian and Danish..oh, and Estonian 🖖🏻
It is about how many languages you can speak.
@@Celisar1 yes but but there are diffrent levels of understanding and speaking. If one understad a languise one can usually speak a litle without being fluent.
Poleks arvanud, et siin keegi eestikeelt mainib 🤠
In European countries, whatever grade you are in, most countries offer classes in the border countries languages.
School is mandatory for everyone from 3 to 16 years old in France. You're taught French straight away, obviously. Then other european languages are gradually introduced.
At around 5 yo, we started getting weekly German lessons. In Grade 6th, you have to choose which languages you want to study. English and German were mandatory. You could also choose a 3rd language if you wanted to. I remember some of my classmates chose Latin.
In High School same thing. I stuck with English and German. I could have also taken Spanish.
So if you ask me what languages I speak I would say: French (Mother Tongue) & English (fluent). I understand German (I'm rusty) and Alsatian (local dialect, learnt through hearing my family speak). I also took some languages classes at Uni so I know some basic Italian and Spanish.
I am german and i speak english, spanish, french, italian and dutch. But learning foreign languages always was easy for me and living abroad as a child made it even easier.
Here in Belgium, well... the Dutch part of Belgium, we start learning our other language French around like 9 or 10 years old, and it works. It also helps that we're such a small country between the Netherlands and France, so we have to keep practicing anyhow.
3:10 yeah, that's actually a good point. As a kid, i always watched movies in english with dutch subtitles. With time trying to read less, and rely more on my english understanding.
To be fair to the Americans, the infrastructure and just the mere scale of the country works also against multilingualism. You don't get forced to. drive half a day, and english is still the norm.
Here i walk 10 minutes and i end up in Germany, drive 10 minutes and i am in french Belgium, do i want to communicate internationally, bam need english.... So we really need to adapt with languages.
There are people in Mauritius who speak 13 languages. Every child is taught in Kreol until they have learned French. Then they are taught all subjects in French until they have learned English. After that, most teaching is in English and they can start to formally learn their family's languages like Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Bhojuri, Hakks or Cantonese. Mo prefer koz kreol.
From the Netherlands, I speak Dutch, English, German and Swedish..wish to learn more offcourse!😊
Indeed. If you are from an English-speaking country you can manage without a second language, but when your native isn't English you are more or less obliged to learn it. For Europeans, English is a mandatory part of the school system all the way from elementary school until high school graduation (at least in my country, it was). Besides, we often have a second foreign language in our latter schooling years. I know 2.5 languages - Bulgarian, English, and Japanese (around intermediate level). I tried some German too but it wasn't my thing with all the der, die, das, and the murky conjugations.
Im from the german speaking part of Italy (South Tyrol). So my mother tongue is a very strong german dialact. I also speak "standard" german, italian and english.
I'm Irish and we learn the Irish Language in school. This makes it easier to learn other languages. I learnt French in School, Spanish in the 80s when I lived in Spain, German because my son lived in Austria and then Russian because he married a Russian girl and Dutch because they live in Netherlands and my granddaughters speak it as a first language. Both Portuguese and Italian are not difficult to understand because of Spanish and so are other Slavic languages because of Russian. I've been teaching English to other nationalities for 45 years. Now a lot of my students are from African countries where they already speak a few languages. The majority of the world is multilingual.
I'm fluent in Polish (my native language) and English.
I can communicate on basic issues in German and Czech.
I know a little of Spanish and Greek.
(fun fact: Polish and Czech are quite similar except for the vocabulary ;) )
I think every American should be made to do a year abroad. You are so isolated and live in your own bubble. From birth, you're taught that the USA is the best country on Earth. Surprise: you're the only ones who think that, except for people from poorer countries.
I'm actually surprised they still use English (well, a form of it) after independence.
Well, was close, that they switched to another.
I whant to say that english (maybe not for the very old generation) is almost a given in europe (still some countries like France that kind of suck at it exactly because what was said early on in the video... every movie etc is translated with french actor voices etc compared to others that just leave the english version... so you have to learn early on).
Then because many mixed marriages where you learn the language from both parents and finally the country you live in.
Me for example: my parents are (where for one of them) Danish, so I learned that at home + my mother is more specifically from the Faroe islands, so I understand this language (whent there almost every summer as a kid; but not enough to be fluent).
Born and raised in Luxembourg where you have 3 official languages -> Luxembourgish, French and German.
So fluent in Danish, French, German, English and Luxembourgish. But I am not "proud" of it... I didn't really had to put a lot of effort in it, it came naturally
i can say from a Norwegian guy here. I speak Norwegian and English fluently. I can hold a conversation in German and understand Swedish and Danish( since Norway is so close to Sweden and Denmark we can understand each other) so I understand 5 languages.
Doesn't your wife speak spanish fluently? Just speak spanish at home exclusivly with your family for a few weeks and you will be amazed how quickly you are able to master a language.
The key is to stop translating from english to spanish in your head and just think in spanish kinda.
And force yourself when you do not really know the right translation to find a different way to express what you want to say with different words you do know. Don't fall back on english but just find different words to convey the same message.
I'm sure you will pick it up really quickly if you have a large vocabulary already anyway. You'll be fluent before christmas 😮
It is good for you and will be good for your kids as well if they are fluent in both english and spanish.
This is always a bit of an overstatement, while we definitely have people that easily switch between 4-5 languages, that's not the norm, i can't help but point out that most people in EU know "only" ~2,5 languages (their own, english & a few basic sentences of a few nearby languages)
10:48 soo.. whos gona tell him that spanish is in fact also a european language^^
And English 😂
Europeans usually are like -
Baltics and one or two more - 1st native language, 2nd+3rd english/russian, 4th german for some
Rest is native language + english + similar languages to native with some twists.
As a Latvian, I speak fluent latvian, fluent english, some stuttery russian
🇸🇪 here. I would say I speak between three and ten languages, a little depending on how you define it.
Swedish - obviously fluent
English - fluency, education and frequent use
German - near fluency, education and jobs
Danish and Norwegian - well, not fluent, but I've been mistaken to come from Jutland several times in Copenhagen
Farsi (Persian) - Some (Girlfriend)
Spanish, Italian and French - I speak these poorly, but read them fairly easily
Et ego quoque paulo latine loqui
I was born in Denmark, but now I live in Sweden. People often guess I'm from Germany, for some reason.
Well I live in the south of Sweden, so up north they just don't understand me at all 😂 apparently I speak Scanian and not Swedish
I spak Norwegian,English and I was fluent in German, but have forgotten a lot of it .I understand Swedish, Danish and some French. And know some words in many other...I just think it's fun to learn
I study, in the school, english and french. Mandatory!!! Native lang. portuguese. And i now German (from living there)
As a kid I've learned English and German simultaneously after emigrating from the Netherlands. I'm surprised that I still know Dutch after that, and 15 years of speaking German.
I am fluent in German (native), English and Spanish, while I'm on B1 in Portuguese. But that's only because I lived/am living in countries where those languages are spoken. I know TONS of Europeans who don't speak shit besides their native language (I am looking at you, Spain...).
Hola
I live in Italy, and in here it's very difficult to find a native Italian that speak another language. When they do it's usually a very rough English. The immigrant community usually does better in the language department...
Ma come? Vivi in Italia è hai dèi problemi a trovare un' italiano?
The American accent is a bit special I guess because it is already the product of accents from people with a different native language. It's also the only accent Dutch people take back home when they lived there for decades and speak Dutch with an American accent. I don't hear that in Dutch people who lived elsewhere for decades.
Europe didn't used to be this multilingual. 30 years ago it was mostly the Dutch, Flemish and the Scandinavians who were this multilingual, and that was special to the people in France, Italy, Spain and even few Germans were fluent in English.
Another strange one.
Many Americans believe they don't have an accent 😂
Well the Nordics. Finland and Iceland aren't Scandinavian
Well, 30-50-100 years ago, Europe still was multilingual. There are many multicultural regions. In Transylvania, for example, hungarian, romanian and german was the norm for the last 1000 years...
I am portuguese and I have learned in public school English for 8 yearss, French for 5 years and 3 years of German and simultaneously I also had 3 years of translation techniques. And of course I understand 99% of spoken and 99.8% of written Spanish but it is so similar to portuguese that no one really even counts it as a foreign language
I love the Portuguese language, it sounds so fluent and smooth.
I would love to be able to speak it one day, I'm actually learning Spanish right now so maybe I can learn Portuguese after that.
Warm greetings from the Netherlands. 😊🌷
8 years of English and you write "I have learned in public school English for 8 yearss". You surely can't be a translator when you are unable to write correctly such a simple sentence. Try again.
German and English fluently, enough Italian to communicate, working on my Polish.
With so many languages spoken all over Europe, it's quite normal to learn a few of them. Sit in a train for a few hours - boom, new language. And it's helpful to understand at least the menue in a resraurant.
I Speak Serbian, English and Hungarian but believe it or not I never felt that made me stand out in any way. Now if I knew seven that would be impressive. Life might have me down but I'm still planning of expanding my portfolio with German and Spanish.
To me you are standing out. It's one thing learning languages that share roots or alphabet with your natural language, it is a totally other story learning languages with different roots or alphabet!
Even know the more you learn foreign languages the easier it is to learn a new one, I'm very impressed.
I think the most accurate comparison would be that of US Americans and Brits, or maybe even just English, as the rest of the Europeans have native languages other than English, and thus we have to learn it as a second language. With that being said, I'm Greek and I speak Greek (duh) and English fluently, and at the moment I'm learning Swedish at a pre-intermediate level (A2) 🙂
Edit: I just realized that in some countries they already know more that one language so English is not their second language, but yeah, you get me
glad you are starting to recover, I was looking forward to your videos
speak hungarian, english, little german, and I understand russian, we have to learn in the kommunism, but dont use it... and i started to learn italian, by the time I retire, I'll learn :D
learning a language is a good thing, it keeps the brain in shape, when you older
I don't think I know anyone in my physical surroundings who speaks only 1 language.
They might not be fluent, but speaking less than at least 2 languages is rare. And that's from someone who grew up in a very rural area.
As someone that speaks 6 languages to at least a conversational level, and because of that can understand at least 6 more, I don't think I'm the average. But no one is surprised if you know your languages here.
I speak Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian , Bosnian, Italian, English and German. Greetings from Slovenija.
Cudo ne doda i crnogorski batke
@Baron-fo5rc mogu i to. Mada ne mogu tako sporovda pričam. 🤣
😂😂 Ajd Janez, ne seri 😅 otherwise me to, except Italian ✌️
Linguistically, Croatian, Serbian. and Bosnian are just dialects of a single language. But, do you know the difference between a dialect and a language? The latter one has an army.
@twinmama42 i didnt want to offend any of them. If you are such an expert you should know how they are when they are offended. And if you deny them their own language they certanly are. So i did no harm.
Ian, I have lots of Italian friends and they have taught me many words and phrases over the years. So much so, that when I was in Italy years ago, I was able to communicate with the waiters and shop keepers quite effectively. I have also learned lots of Italian lyrics to the songs of the now retired band, I Pooh, and know quite a lot of Portuguese words from listening to Brazilian singers from the 80s, like Ana Caram and Gilberto Gil.
English is mandatory at Dutch school. Thats why the Dutch are good at it.
They are .In fact , better than me , an English guy .
Finally, hope you get better real soon - you've really been doing well under the circumstances.
Hasta la vista !!
In most European countries kids learn at least two and often three languages. In Ireland for instance even in my day (50 years ago) you learned two in school up to 13 years of age and then an additional one usually either French or German to 18 years and you needed at least two languages to be admitted to university. And the EU has the objective that all citizens should speak at least three EU languages at A2 level. A2 is a basic working knowledge of a language that would allow you to do all the usual daily chores in that language - shopping, making enquiries, getting around on public transport etc...
And of course the human condition - if you drive an hour down the road here it's a different language, so you need to be able to make yourself understood and get your tasks done. So there is more motivation to at least pick up the basic in the languages being used around you.
Jamaica was similar in my days. However, from 11 to 13 years Latin was cumpulsory as the basis of the romance languages and you could add either French or Spanish. At 13 you could drop Latin and continue with your chosen language to 17. Along the way at 15 you could add French or Spanish to your original choice. So we ended up doing "A' levels in our original choice, which meant being able to write essays as well as converse in that language and 'AO' in the choice we added at 15, which meant simple conversation and written answers to simple questions.
In school we learned English and another language, we learned Spanish while other classes learned German or Russian
once you know English and Spanish Mandarin is the obvious 3rd, no matter where you are on earth someone is likely to speak one of those three to some degree. They are the three most spoken languages on earth.
I´m glad I was born in Europe and lived in different countries as well. So I can speak fluently 6 languages and 3 more where I can talk a little bit. Cheers from Portugal.
i talked to guys from Brasil last weekend at work, i know some Spanish and Italian, so we got an understanding....!
German national....born next to an international border and visited over 20 European countries!
I was shocked when I heard that a lot of people in the US do not have a passport, meaning they never leave the country. Despite being a so huge country, it is pretty homogeneous in terms of language (except maybe for the regions near the Mexican border and of course Puerto Rico), maybe they dont need anything else than English...
I live in Sweden. Speak Swedish and English fluently.
Can speak and understand a bit german, Spanish, turkish, norwegian, danish and finnish.
Trying to learn French now but french is hard!!
So in conclusion i KNOW 2 languages and dabbles in 7 more languages.
So i can communicate a bit in 9 languages...
try this: you probably have a favorite/cult movie that you've seen several times and you know almost every line by heart, even a cartoon possibly.
Find it in French with French subtitles.
Watch it, like a school assignment, several times, the more, the better.
Since your brain already knows every line, it won't have to translate the lines, it will perform a transposition: fast and efficient.
You would be amazed at the results this produces.
Hi @@willythebluebear - The learning technique you describe in your comment is very efficient.
I've done it not by watching a movie, but just with a simple book. (Yes, I'm that old 😅!).
It's the story of an outlier bird who thrive to get better and better at flying. I read that story (written by Richard Bach) in my mother tongue, at first. Then, a few years later, it was the very first book I read entirely, in English. Title is *_"Jonathan Livingston seagull"_* ... then in German *_die Möwe Jonathan_* ... etc. Now I have a little collection of them, in a few other languages. 😎
Same! I am fluent in 2 languages and can understand and speak a bit of Spanish, Russian and Japanese. Even if my grammar is not great, I tested it and the Japanese understood me when I went on a trip to Japan.
I learned Japanese through anime, since it is nigh impossible to find it dubbed or translated in my own language, so watching and repeating is a valid way to learn.
@@willythebluebearThank you for a wonderful idea! I will definitely try that!
I work in a very multicultural environment and right now I have 2 French speaking coworkers (French as their native language) that allows me to practice in a safe and secure space without any judgment 🥰
Today I learned three more sentences!
But I will try watching Heartstopper in French when I come home tonight! Thank you!!
Spanish, Italian and French are all languages of roman offspring. So it is a lot easier to learn the next language if can speak one of them . Many words have similar spelling in all of them even if they are pronounced differently.
It`s not roman, but latin. Along with romanian and portuguese, they are called the romance language family.
I live in the UK, and whilst languages are taught in schools, the vast majority are not fluent in other languages. I personally think that this is because English is the global language (Lingua Franca), and they arrogantly don't bother to/ not incentivised to learn any other
The world speaks their language.
I suppose that's the reason many don't bother 😂😂
I'm from England and speak 4 languages...English, Cockney, Mancunian and Scouse 😂
I'm french, I am fluent in english, currently learning korean to become fluent, and I speak a little russian, chinese and spanish.
Americans saying "i speak English fluently"
then say
"on accident"
" i could care less" 😂👌
Yes American English is so different to English.
It should be classed as a separate language.
Bye y'all 😂😂
French are the “American of Europe”… most of them only know one language (barely) and it’s French.
Don’t even try to speak to them in any other language, they assume everyone in France should speak French, even if you’re just a tourist…
Spaniards too. They simply don't want to learn it and don't give a rat's ass.
I'm french and this is true but I think it's a good thing we have cultural value to preserve and if you're in France you must try to speak french even if it's bad we don't care. There is nothing more annoying than feeling that you're a stranger in your own country when you visit somewhere. When people visit countries they should remember if they go to US,poland or somewhere at least know how to say hi :)
A myth that often turns out to be true 🤣
Try Spain and Italy next
- A French
This is so accurate. 😂 (and imho not only in languages)
im a brazilian living in Portugal, i came here already speaking 2 languages (Portuguese and English, which i learned by myself) and during school years i had French classes, it wasn’t enough to make me speak fluently but i can communicate some basic information and im now learning Italian, i feel like US people don’t realize how common it is to know at least 2 languages, being bilingual is not something impressive outside the US
As a Belgian, we have 3 official languages in Belgium; Dutch (Flemish), French and German, I speak those three and English and currently I'm studying Spanish, which I'd say i'm almost A2 in. My level in French and German is B1, English C1 and Dutch (Flemish) is my native language.
Note language families. If you speak Dutch, English and German like me, you speak Swamp German, Island German and Forest German- this is far easier than learning, say: English, Spanish and Chinese.
"Swamp German" , lololol. Thanks for that, gast.
American is NOT English 🤦🏼♂️😂 does anyone in the us know what a bonnet is ?
Exactly.
English and American English are two very different things.
Here in Sweden we start to learn english in the second grade, so atleast 90% of the people in Sweden can speak english really good. My son, who is 7, can speak english almost fluently thanks to youtube. I can speak 4 languages, swedish, english, sign language and german.
Kids in Sweden start to learn English the third year in school when they are 8 - 9 years old so more or less everyone can at least Swedish and English. Some schools even start the first year when the kids are 6. And Americans speaks English, a European language from England.
From England 😉
I'm from the Netherlands, and at school i got my first (pre) English language lessons at the age of 10. But even at that time i already knew quite a bit of basis English, because of all of the (mostly) English spoken television programs, with Dutch subtitles. Hearing English on a daily basis, with Dutch subtitles to explain what is being said, is a huge contributor of the fact that so many people in the Netherlands speak English that well (and also often with a minimum accent compared to lots of other European countries). I also speak a fair amount of German, and understanding (but not really speaking) a bunch of French and Spanish (words).
To play devils advocate,one could argue all Americans speak a foreign language. English. The language of England,not America.
Unfortunately many Americans think English is their language.
Even though it's called English and not American 😂
Sure, but they only know a dialect; American.
@@crocsmart5115 Everyone in the comments are using the language of England, including Americans 😊
@@John-jw8rxEveryone in the comments is using… 👍😜
@@Jeni10 They are.
I speak 5 languages fluently, Finnish, German, Swedish, English and Italian
Only because I attended French classes for years doesn’t mean I speak french. English class was more interesting because i spoke English already before class started. Teachers didn’t like that i skipped homework but still got full points in tests
I was taught French badly for 3 years with a 2 year gap after the first. Back in UK fluency didn't seem to be the main goal, so I can read French better than I can speak it.
The Dutch have to to learn 3 languages compulsory with an optional 4. Dutch has similarities with German so it is a good fit. Likewise Swedish has Germanic roots so not that difficult to learn: Finnish is an official language in Sweden but it is not as common as it used to be.
I have been told that for Spaniards it is easier to learn Italian than Portuguese.
Ian, you are correct, it is better & easier for children to be learning a second language from a young age ideally starting at 6 or 7. 11 or 12 is too late.
Here in Poland kids start to learn English in preschool, at 3-4 y. It really helps. My kids (now 14 and 18) speaks fluently.
In Norway, the english influence hit you early. Games,movies,tv-shows ,internet aso.Kids speak english nowadays. Personally i also speak french and german. Swedish/danish is no problem
It's crazy for some reason Americans have problems hearing dutch accents. I can't differ between Florida New York or California or Ohio accent it sounds all the same to me but that Dutch girl had a strong Dutch accent xD but all Americans listening to Dutch always say they sound American while I don't even think it's close it's SOO dutch the accent xD
Everyone speaking English without an English accent, sounds American to Americans 😁
The problem is that English is today's lingua franca. So you can find some English speaker almost everywhere and people from English speaking countries are not forced to learn another languages. For example Americans can travel around the world only with their English (maybe except some places in southern US states).
Funnily enough, many Americans struggle with English accents 😂
@@101steel4 Of course you can find a ton of different English/American/Australian etc. accents, but you are able to understand. And you can understand even when the speaker from a non- English speaking country is butchering the language.
I just want to point out how (as a long time subscriber) the "How'di 'all, Hello" is essential and super familiar at the beginning of your videos, and how it is missed when you do not say it, then something feels off... 😅
I am glad it was in this one. Cheers from Germany.
I'm English. Obviously I speak English, understand American English, but don't speak it! I also speak Swiss-German and French. I understand some Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
The first lady that spoke recognisable American-English probably learnt a lot from US films and cartoons.
Lithuanian, english, russian, understand spanish just not talking and little bit arabic starting to catch up
In italy, i know only few people, that speak english well..
A part,people that used this for work, the rest( me too),
Speaks a maccheronic english, when rules, and pronunce, when you don't remember it, you invent.
With some hand gesture,
At the end, we understand, each other.
( see italian politics try to spesk english)😅😅😅😅😅😅
When i went to school we started to learn French and German, but not until middle school. Nowadays i am out of practice, due to it not being part of my everyday life. As a Brit i have holidayed all around europe over the yrs and find myself getting by with just a little bit of various languages. To be fair though a lot of Europeans speak English to a good standard which makes things a lot easier.
Hi Ian !! Just a little ad on to the Swedish part of the first video you watched: Those Swedes also (most probably) are able to communicate pretty easy with the Danes and Norwegians too. ( I'm unsure if this should count in their language tally though)
It kind of depends on the Danish and Norwegian regions too. If they're from the Oslo area I can understand around 95% and fill in the 5% with the context. Understanding someone from Bergen is a lot harder though
i am German,
i speak German and avg English..
little Danish, born 200m from the border..
very little Dutch, its 3 hrs drive from here...
very little Polish, working in construction...
very little French, because i spend my vacations in France and the French part of Switzerland...
a little more Spanish, my Ex-wife is Peruvian, so i spend time in South America and Spain!
a very little Italian.....Spanish is close enough to use Italian...
i also understand Plattdeutsch and Austrian...
and i started to learn Korean, planing to visit Korea in 2 or 3 years!
so i barley speak a foreign language, my daughter speak 4 languages very good,
born Deutsch, mother language Spanish, both parents used sometimes English and because of her Abi, also French!
my younger sister, Deutsch English a little Spanish and Turkish...
my older sister, German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek and Thai!
my mum, German, English, Danish, Swedish and Turkish!
so we are just average European Union citizens!
Na sowas! Das ist aber mal multikulturell und ja ich bin ein bisschen eifersüchtig. Haha.
Wow! That's truly multicultural and am a bit jelly. Hehe.
I may can say "Thanks" in a good amount of these languages, thanks to the entertainment industries but other than that my self-dicispline isn't one to teach myself a whole new alphabet,sadly.
Tack! Dank je!/ Bedankt! Merci! Gracias! Gracié! Kamsamida! Kha (Khun)!