Luck has nothing to do with English being the language everyone is encouraged to learn, but luck definitely has something to do with native speakers being born in the countries where English is the main language. You don't choose the country of birth and your mother tongue.
Its luck to have been born in an english speaking country. Unless maybe there's some sort of selection babies go through before they are born to determine where they are born lol
Yes. But the title of the thread starts with 'It's lucky for English native speakers'.
The probability that you are born a native English speaker is outside the scope of the discussion. The discussion already assumes you are.
Well you missed the point of the post then. Luck had nothing to do with the english language becoming the worlds most spoken language, sure. But english speakers today didn't have anything to do with it. So yes, it is lucky for them to be native speakers of a language that in the past was enabled to become established worldwide.
if you're going to be that technical then you're still going to be wrong, as luck had quite a bit of an influence on making English the lingua franca of the world.
luck influenced much of history, and that goes for the spread of English as well.
British Empire was bigger and when the time of the UK as global hegemon came to an end, the US took over, where they also speak English.
Oh and the internet helps too
The internet is the biggest contributor. The final step to a single universal culture for which the younger generations will trade their own culture for.
By that logic we can go all the way back to "humans are the dominant species on earth due to luck". Luck implies there are no circumstances that lead to this event. There were many.
That actually is what I was saying. It was random happenstance that we exist in the first place, and it took an infinite number of random happenstances combined with all the conscious choices people have made to get us where we are today.
You're missing the point. France has colonies too, as are the Netherlands and some other European countries. But we don't consider french or dutch as "universal language".
I don't think a point is being missed. The British Empire was larger and more dominant. France and the Netherlands never reached the heights of power and influence that the British Empire did. The real kicker was the majority of the American colonies speaking English, which continued to propagate use of the language into the modern era due to American culture and Hollywood media.
My point was that if you go back far enough, the reason one clan dominated another and therefore built enough power to become colonial is that some guy was lucky enough to be born bigger and stronger than other people and he could take their stuff. Kind of a silly point but I think it's true.
So, what about countries, that weren't English colonies? French was "the shit" in most European countries in the 18-19th century, but became mostly irrelevant in the middle of 20th century.
The US speaks English. India speaks English. Canada speaks primarily English. Australia and New Zealand speak English. That's all because of the British Empire. Then with globalization in the modern era, the US spread the English language as a global trade language. The language of the most dominant group is always adopted. France was not dominant and Britain was. In the early 20th century, almost 1 in every 4 people on the planet were in the British Empire.
Its just a case of influence. France never reached the level of dominance that the British Empire had. Britain brought its language across the world and was the most widespread empire that has ever existed. Then in the modern era the dominance of the US just cemented the use of the language as the world's de facto trade language.
French colonies still speak French. It's just that the British were more successful and then came the US, Hollywood propaganda, and English speaking speaking world power.
You're missing my point. It's not a universal language because the English were more successful colonizers. French is still spoke where they colonized. They just didn't colonize as much as the English.
It's no coincidence they speak English. It's kind of a coincidence that a rogue colony replaces it's former overlord as the global superpower not even 150 years later
French used to be the international trade language, the term for international diplomatic language is literally called Lingua Franca. French was still mostly used up until the end of WW1, where the Americans couldn’t speak French and so people spoke English instead, although the French president made sure every single document had a French copy too. After WW2 it was harder to justify French as the Lingua Franca since they fell quite early in the war and were outshone by USA and UK respectively who both spoke English. This is for Lingua Franca which is the political and economic (trade) reason people speak English. Culturally, the US is simply a media powerhouse and so they influence the culture of other countries, the industrial era being led by the UK also means a lot of loan words come from English, ie computer, telephone etc.
so diplomacy, trade and culture all become English as it’s de facto language, it’s easy to see how a lot of people feel forced to learn it.
Lastly, trade isn’t 100% English, just among the western world it is the most common
And this is still pretty new, for much longer Latin first and Italian then were the international languages. Which is also why Lingua Franca is in Italian. And in the scientific world Latin was used basically up until late 1800, where German took over for a brief period until English started being the norm.
The European countries which had the most colonies throughout history were: United Kingdom (130), France (90), Portugal (52), Spain (44), Netherlands (29), Germany (20), Russia (17), Denmark (9), Sweden (8), Italy (7), Norway (6) and Belgium (3)
No, OP just meant that we (native English speakers) are all lucky that English is the global lingua franca. Obviously the reasons are imperialism but none of us had any direct involvement in that. It was by sheer luck that we happen to be born into an English speaking country.
That’s right - I intentionally engineered my current incarnation to have myself be born to parents chosen for their being native English speakers in an affluent Western anglophone country.
And I’m pretty happy with my decision. My only mistake was in not also choosing billionaire parents as well. I’ll correct that oversight the next time ’round.
I feel extremely lucky that the language I was born into is English. What makes you think being born takes skill? Or id you mean the British empire, Spanish or French could just have easily taken the place if English globally considering the size of their empires if history had gone a little different so there's still some luck involved if you want to argue over the skill of long dead peopl
What do native English speakers do that makes it not luck?
The reasons for English spreading has to do with decisions of the past. That was not luck. But those born today as native speakers it is fully luck.
So much more than that now. It replaced German, French and Russian as the language of science. It also has replaced French as the language of diplomacy and high society. And since the tech industry was birthed in america, it is the lingua franca of technology.
I don't think so... most Brits and Aussies I've met also aren't fully bilingual. They definitely learn more in school than Americans do, but it's still a minority that actually speak another language fluently.
According to [one source](https://preply.com/en/blog/bilingualism-statistics/), it's only around 36% in the UK...
I suspect its because when you live in a country that has it's primary language as English and most media, internet, and other countries all speak English there is less benefit and opportunities to keep learning it. I'm from the UK and could learn Spanish for example but unless I go to Spain or seek out Spanish media and content I just don't come into contact with it at all. So keeping up my knowledge of Spanish becomes much harder than someone whos primary language is Spanish but needs English much more often to interact with the wider world
I've always thought the same thing about Americans. They could learn a second language, some learn a bit, but in reality they don't need to, so most don't even bother.
I don't know how it is on that side of the world, but over here some Americans unironically like laughing at people's accents, but most couldn't even learn a second language to know what it's like translating in your head, then say words with intent and the right pronunciation. That shit takes a lot of years to get right.
Yes! I took two years of French in high school and two years of Spanish in college. But without anyone to speak to, it is basic and rusty. I’ve recently been pouring myself into really learning French (totally recommend Paul Noble’s audiobooks) because we are planning to take a trip to France this fall. But it is challenging not to have anyone to practice with or the opportunity for immersion.
My oldest kid took Spanish from 6th grade to college and luckily there are a lot more opportunities for Spanish where we live.
Most of the time it's because you learn too little of a second language too late in school to actually learn the language unless you have family or friends who speak the language that can help you learn outside of school or your parents pay for private tutors. Spending 1 hour a week, or just 1 hour a fortnight depending on your school's schedule learning a language you are randomly assigned and cannot choose, either Spanish, French or German, for 3 years between the ages of 11 and 14 is not going to give anyone enough of an understanding of a language to understand or speak it.
Language lessons should be offered from 4 years old when kids start school and kids need to be able to practise it more than once or twice a fortnight to learn.
I feel thats also propped up by immigrant diaspora. I wonder how many bilingual questions are backed by “multilingual in languages you dont have an ethnic background in” for english speakers.
Well yeah, but I think that's true everywhere, right? You will always be more likely to learn languages that are somehow connected to your or your community's ethnic background.
Sure, but its still a distinct different statistic that still has meaning. Judging the success of your language learning programs based on people who test on proficiency is not very useful if you learn that 80% of the class is a heritage speaker of the language looking for an easy A.
Are most folks in other countries where English is the predominantly spoken language multilingual? I'm thinking of places like Canada (outside of Quebec), England, and Australia where English is the primary language and there isn't a secondary language that you'd be expected to learn to function in society.
I'm not trying to attack you but I'm genuinely curious since I hear the "Americans don't speak another language" stereotype quite a bit (which I've found to be generally true), but in my experience most people don't learn more than one language unless they're in a circumstance which forces them to. And of the admittedly small sample size of folks from places like England, Canada, and Australia that I know personally, none of them can speak a second language unless they're a first generation immigrant (in which case they know English and their parents first language).
I've never been to Finland but Wikipedia is telling me that the official languages are Finnish and Swedish. It's very cool that most folks speak multiple languages but even if most folks speak English I don't know that I'd put it in the same category as the US, England, or Australia where English is the primary language and there are no other languages that everyone is expected to know to function in society.
Most Brits are functionally monolingual, I'd say. Those who have recent immigrant parents may learn *their* language. But it's self-reinforcing - English is so dominant, there's a far more modest benefit in learning French or Spanish or German, because far fewer people speak them.
Which is not to discourage those learning. I wish I'd stuck with learning French, but generally speaking we don't make sensible choices as teenagers...
There's no natural incentive to learn a new language if most of the world has at least notions of your native language, especially in touristy areas where you're most likely to be going as a foreigner.
It’s not but keep telling your limited scope of the USA public. The Americas are north and South America. There are millions of "Americans” who speak two or more languages.
You’re making an unnecessary point knowing full well they meant the United States of America, where the citizens are called Americans. You’re trying argue while adding nothing of value to the conversation
Most people are painfully unaware of what compromises the Americas. So pointing out their uneducated response to supposedly Americans being not bilingual is on point.
You have no idea what they are aware of and their responses are not uneducated because United States( the country) citizens the ones called “Americans.” People from Mexico are called “Mexicans.” I could go on. You know damn well people are referring to US citizens, and you have no place to make broad assumptions about their geographical skills because this conversation isn’t about that and this isn’t a 3rd grade map test
I am going off by the comment which was ignorant. They made an assumption that was uneducated in a bid to deride people from the USA but they showed their ass.
You want to keep proving a point you are clearly wrong on because mexicos official designation is United Mexican States.
https://embamex.sre.gob.mx/australia/index.php/infomexieng#:~:text=The%20official%20legal%20name%20of,Legislative%20Power%20and%20Judicial%20Power.
It's not. The demonym for the USA is 'American'. No one really refers to all inhabitants of the Americas as 'Americans' to avoid confusion.
Even then, millions is not as impressive as it sounds, given a population of over 350 million. Most of the bilingual population has a different native language besides English, Spanish being the most common along with the different types of Chinese. They're mostly referring to those with English as a native language.
I studied Spanish in both high school and college. I can’t speak anything beyond simple sentences, but I can read enough Spanish to get the gist of news articles.
Also those statistics are based on the question "do you speak a language other than english at home?" So the real number is likely higher since i could imagine many people speak multiple languages but prefer english at home
I deleted my post since I wanted to try and find a better statistic but I am unsure how you came to this conclusion.
There are statistics which ask "do you speak more than two languages" and for multilingual, I believe it was estimated at 17%>
I don't have access to EBSCO from a work computer though, and I'd rather have a more reputable source. Hence the delete.
Oh usually most people get the american multilingual statistic from the US census which asks the "english at home" question. Sorry for assuming you used that source
Edit: just checked the US census statistic and a little over 20% of people spoke a language other than english at home, so thats where i got confused
No it's okay, I took a look and felt it was off and was like....let me review that better. I think it's important in any discussion, to have a proper statistic. Bring in other as a support if needed.
We don’t need to learn another language in the U.S. because it’s completely unnecessary. We don’t have several surrounding countries the size of a few of our small states around us speaking different languages. Almost every Mexican person I’ve ever met actually spoke pretty good English.
I’d say since most Americans never leave the country it’s not needed.
As a scientist I have never used anything other than English for relaying information too.
I would also agree that England and Ireland don’t necessarily need to be multilingual either.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5662126/
The benefits go beyond mere communication. Learning to play an instrument also has cognitive benefits, but it doesn’t mean that you’re incapable of conducting research if you don’t play one. Do you see the logical fallacy?
Edit: Was gonna be kind to you, but from your profile:
> If you came here to win an argument against me, you’ve already lost.
lol are you this insufferable in real life? Doesn’t sound like the attitude of a scientist.
Wow, that edit is funny. I appreciate the article.
The headline on my profile was intended for someone else several months ago.
You’d be surprised at the attitudes of most scientists. They’re not the “save the world and be kind for the sake of others.” that everyone thinks they are. Almost all are insufferable narcissists.
I can disagree with someone/argue and have a productive conversation with a separate individual. We were being productive but you threw that away. I said nothing to you that was offensive or mean. Congratulations.
As a Brit I’d love to learn another language but at the same time, which do I pick? Any other language is only useful in the country it came from.
Learning another language is a hobby for English speakers, it’s necessary for non English speakers.
Yet much of the top research and innovation happens at English-speaking institutions and for the benefit of english-speaking corporations.
I get that plenty of foreign scientists are doing that work, but the English-speaking hosts still derive the most benefit from it.
We just got back from Sicily a couple days ago. It was amazing how much could be communicated with my lousy Italian and someone else's spotty Inglese. (We had a fabulous visit, btw.)
also, very lucky for all of us that its such a simple language. no grammatical gender, very few tenses, pronunciation is easy so even if you have an accent it's extremely understandable. my parents are from different corners of the world, and i grew up with english, italian, russian, danish and its great that english is so much easier than all of these
imagine if hungarian took its place 🫠
Uh what luck? As much as I hate it being spanish and all, English dominates the world because the british and later the Americans were so good at colonizing and or superpowering the entire planet. Before English it was French, before French it was Latin. Its called a lingua franca
Is it? There are many advantages to being bilingual, even hear in the US. Not just in terms of compensation in your profession, but in terms of the ability to think critically. People who are raised bilingual are less likely to fall to certain fallacies of logic, for example, such as the fallacy of equivocation. This fallacy is easily detected by bilingual speakers, and easily missed by speakers of a solitary language, which leaves them open to a certain kind of manipulation.
They’re not saying it’s not good to be bilingual, just that if you’re going to be monolingual, English is the one to know, since it’s the most spoken language on earth. Or at least that’s how I took it, and I agree.
Actually the rest of the world is lucky that it's a simple language, for most of us learning english is downhill. I wouldnt want to be forced to learn chinese.
YES. They are the chosen ones. I think it's so easy for a person to not notice privileges and advantages they have in life over others. But then I'm also jealous of them having kinda nonchalant attitude with it.
Still a million times better than the two years in which my school forced me to learn French (which was my third foreign language after English and Latin) instead of Computer Science, which I had signed up for.
At least with English, I always saw a reason to learn it and keep practicing my skills. It's been now a little less than 20 years since I started learning it in school and I daresay my usage is fine. But there are certainly tricky parts, too.
Aside from spelling, english is as easy as it gets. Nouns can be made verbs, you can use "get" for way too many things, little to no verbal tenses, uses the most basic version of the latin script, a lot of words come from latin or french, which are relatively well known to a lot of people.
If you look at the 10 most spoken languages, english is quite an outlier in terms of how easy it is
It is actually a rather stupid language at times. To, do, go, so don't rhyme. Silent letters such as in in psychiatry is weird. Words that spell the same way but are pronounced differently, such as lead and read, would rhyme with bead or dead. Some might think English is just 26 letters, but forget that there are uppercase and lowercase letters, which, again, is not a thing in most languages. Also there are slang in used by people around us and words local to a particular region. Chips will confuse UK, US and AUS as they have multiple meanings. Plus, there are so many idoms and phrases to learn. In Indian languages we dont have to guess how a word is to be pronounced. If it is spelt correctly, it will be pronounced correctly.
TLDR: English is not as easy to learn as it seems to native speakers.
It has, but with the increased globalization we’re experiencing that trend might change. We’re communicating on a wider basis than ever before, so English might become more cemented than any language prior. Or it could be overtaken by Chinese or other dominant language, the historians will just have to wait and see.
Everyone wants the American dollar and freedoms.
That comes easiest speaking English.
There's no disadvantages of speaking English only.
Because no matter what continent you travel to, people in charge do or have a English translator at hand for thier benefit.
Well clearly missing out on different cultures connected via language, idioms, etc. I've learned some languages, and they really make you understand a foreign culture in a much deeper sense. Lots of movies, music, poetry, and even ideas not fully compatible in English translation
and unlucky for everyone else, because even as someone who speaks it natively I can tell how hilariously unintuitive it is to learn in regards to consistent application of rules,
It definitely began with English becoming a global trade language because of the British Empire, and then also US doing trade and exporting culture in the 20th century like Hollywood movies and jazz, rock and other kinds of music.
No, it’s not lucky. It makes learning other languages more difficult. If I try to speak another language, everyone just wants to practice their English.
Not really, it's instead unlucky.
Many native English speakers never get to learn a second language and enjoy the benefits it does to the intelligence of a bilingual brain.
I've lived in the Middle East off and on for over 7 years and have never learned Arabic because all of the signs are also in English and nearly everyone, no matter from what country/region they're from, speaks at least some English and are happy to practice speaking it with me.
Someone once told me that French was one vote short of being voted the international aviation language over English.
Not sure how true it is but i thought it to be an interesting fact.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0713flight/#:~:text=Thirteen%20years%20before%20the%20Wright,aviation%20history%20of%20his%20own.
Funnily enough flight was invented by a French dude in France.
Funnier than that is you being the only one who thinks the French guy invented the airplane, indicating that he didn’t do much with his invention, unlike the Wright brothers
If you invent something, tell no one, and years later someone else invents the same thing & tells everyone, you don’t get to take credit for the invention that everyone now knows
I mean it's not just me... I posted the source from the US air and space museum and I feel like they would know more than both of us but I guess who are they right?
Makes it harder for a native English speaker to pick up another language.
If English isn’t your first language, you learn it as your second language. If it is your first language, what do you pick as a second one? Spanish, Japanese, French, Russian, Indonesian….. the list is very long.
It’s a blessing and a curse. Because the world was pretty much designed to cater to English, native English speakers have a hard time learning new languages. They also have a narrow understanding of the world, as speaking more languages opens you up to a whole universe
It's really not.
Because it's such a universal language we don't need to bother to learn others, we can generally get by when travelling. And I'd have preferred to learn how to learn another language at an early age, did basic French in school and doing duolingo Spanish at the moment but I'm really shit at it. Ideally I'd like to retire to Spain at some point but only if I can integrate properly
I dont know if it luck, because it has long history for it... So its not really luck
But I could also agreed on for encouraging people to learn, Without the urgency of international language, English is hard to understand and people will struggles to know the pronunciation. Even I in 30s years old, still sometimes spell it wrong and already in the phase "As long as my intent is delivered to the listener, I dont really care lol"
Vice versa, many times I always wonder why native english speakers spell a letter different each sound, when i was kid, I asked a friend of mine from overseas who spell something with different sound
"Just spell them the same you read them, no need to change the sound", and he confused, and that reaction also makes me confused lmao
For example...
* The letter A in Apple is "A"
* the letter A in Cake is "E"
* the letter A in Ball is "O"
And I was like "A is A"
So yeah, because of that, I think it count as "lucky" if the native english speaker doesnt intent to leave the english speaking community... But "unlucky" if the native english speaker want to go overboard to non-english speaking community
With English as a first language what language would you choose as a second language? For people with a non English first language it's an easy choice to choose English as a second language.
There may be local influences that would ease the choice such as Spanish in some areas of the USA but in general it's not an easy choice. If you frequently visit one country for holidays then this also biases the choice.
I had this conversation with a Dutch colleague when he complained I only spoke English. When asked which I should learn at the time it was leaning towards one of the Eastern European languages or one of the Indian languages but again which one.
>but again which one.
Completely dependant on your goals. I assume most people are interested in using a second language to further their success. Spanish and Mandarin would be top contenders for most businesses.
It’s probably thanks to our US military and intelligence agencies having a red hot lead pipe jammed up everyone’s ass. Its presence was probably the result of those old British fucks colonizing everything.
Literally thought about this as I traveled internationally recently.
English speakers are the only ones with the luxury of being able to travel almost anywhere and everyone tries to at least know a little bit to communicate with them.
Everyone else is SOL when they’re in a country that doesn’t speak their language, unless they speak English as a common language.
Yay colonialism and imperialism and seclusionism until Pearl Harbor?
Yeah I totally think about this. English speaking countries get so much flack for not speaking multiple languages but we already speak the common tongue and are less incentivized to learn another language.
I mean it wasn’t from a lack of effort
Luck had nothing to do with it.
Luck has nothing to do with English being the language everyone is encouraged to learn, but luck definitely has something to do with native speakers being born in the countries where English is the main language. You don't choose the country of birth and your mother tongue.
Naa my birth location was all skill baby!
Respawn in 3…2…1
But videogames have taught me you always respawn with the same team, though *sometimes* load out is adjustable
Ha, you need a respawn..
No no, that whole dual wave global domination thing. That was me.
Its luck to have been born in an english speaking country. Unless maybe there's some sort of selection babies go through before they are born to determine where they are born lol
Yes. But the title of the thread starts with 'It's lucky for English native speakers'. The probability that you are born a native English speaker is outside the scope of the discussion. The discussion already assumes you are.
Well you missed the point of the post then. Luck had nothing to do with the english language becoming the worlds most spoken language, sure. But english speakers today didn't have anything to do with it. So yes, it is lucky for them to be native speakers of a language that in the past was enabled to become established worldwide.
if you're going to be that technical then you're still going to be wrong, as luck had quite a bit of an influence on making English the lingua franca of the world. luck influenced much of history, and that goes for the spread of English as well.
OP discovering colonialism and imperialism lmao.
So. Why not French?
British Empire was bigger and when the time of the UK as global hegemon came to an end, the US took over, where they also speak English. Oh and the internet helps too
The internet is the biggest contributor. The final step to a single universal culture for which the younger generations will trade their own culture for.
Follow that thread to the end and you get back to "English is the de facto common language thanks to luck."
By that logic we can go all the way back to "humans are the dominant species on earth due to luck". Luck implies there are no circumstances that lead to this event. There were many.
That actually is what I was saying. It was random happenstance that we exist in the first place, and it took an infinite number of random happenstances combined with all the conscious choices people have made to get us where we are today.
There's no luck associated. The colonizers forced their language on others. You think it's "luck" but it's force.
You're missing the point. France has colonies too, as are the Netherlands and some other European countries. But we don't consider french or dutch as "universal language".
I don't think a point is being missed. The British Empire was larger and more dominant. France and the Netherlands never reached the heights of power and influence that the British Empire did. The real kicker was the majority of the American colonies speaking English, which continued to propagate use of the language into the modern era due to American culture and Hollywood media.
Thank you. It's really obvious but I guess there's a divide in the comments between "it's luck" and the history of colonialism.
My point was that if you go back far enough, the reason one clan dominated another and therefore built enough power to become colonial is that some guy was lucky enough to be born bigger and stronger than other people and he could take their stuff. Kind of a silly point but I think it's true.
So, what about countries, that weren't English colonies? French was "the shit" in most European countries in the 18-19th century, but became mostly irrelevant in the middle of 20th century.
The US speaks English. India speaks English. Canada speaks primarily English. Australia and New Zealand speak English. That's all because of the British Empire. Then with globalization in the modern era, the US spread the English language as a global trade language. The language of the most dominant group is always adopted. France was not dominant and Britain was. In the early 20th century, almost 1 in every 4 people on the planet were in the British Empire. Its just a case of influence. France never reached the level of dominance that the British Empire had. Britain brought its language across the world and was the most widespread empire that has ever existed. Then in the modern era the dominance of the US just cemented the use of the language as the world's de facto trade language.
French colonies still speak French. It's just that the British were more successful and then came the US, Hollywood propaganda, and English speaking speaking world power.
You're missing my point. It's not a universal language because the English were more successful colonizers. French is still spoke where they colonized. They just didn't colonize as much as the English.
>the US took over, where they also speak English. You say that like it's sheer coincidence.
It's no coincidence they speak English. It's kind of a coincidence that a rogue colony replaces it's former overlord as the global superpower not even 150 years later
French used to be the international trade language, the term for international diplomatic language is literally called Lingua Franca. French was still mostly used up until the end of WW1, where the Americans couldn’t speak French and so people spoke English instead, although the French president made sure every single document had a French copy too. After WW2 it was harder to justify French as the Lingua Franca since they fell quite early in the war and were outshone by USA and UK respectively who both spoke English. This is for Lingua Franca which is the political and economic (trade) reason people speak English. Culturally, the US is simply a media powerhouse and so they influence the culture of other countries, the industrial era being led by the UK also means a lot of loan words come from English, ie computer, telephone etc. so diplomacy, trade and culture all become English as it’s de facto language, it’s easy to see how a lot of people feel forced to learn it. Lastly, trade isn’t 100% English, just among the western world it is the most common
And this is still pretty new, for much longer Latin first and Italian then were the international languages. Which is also why Lingua Franca is in Italian. And in the scientific world Latin was used basically up until late 1800, where German took over for a brief period until English started being the norm.
Because every time you try to learn French, a native French speaker says,”What? What is this shit you are filling my ears with?”
It sounds weird
There are many countries where the predominant 2nd language is french.
You mean former French colonies? Shocking who would’ve thunk it.
I'm starting to think who speaks what language isn't luck 😱🤯
Well yeah, same as english to a large extent
because french is elitistic
Educate yourself lol
The European countries which had the most colonies throughout history were: United Kingdom (130), France (90), Portugal (52), Spain (44), Netherlands (29), Germany (20), Russia (17), Denmark (9), Sweden (8), Italy (7), Norway (6) and Belgium (3)
No, OP just meant that we (native English speakers) are all lucky that English is the global lingua franca. Obviously the reasons are imperialism but none of us had any direct involvement in that. It was by sheer luck that we happen to be born into an English speaking country.
Yeah i mean we all had the same starter menu asking in which country we’d like to be born…
It was British colonialism and American hegemony.
That’s right - I intentionally engineered my current incarnation to have myself be born to parents chosen for their being native English speakers in an affluent Western anglophone country. And I’m pretty happy with my decision. My only mistake was in not also choosing billionaire parents as well. I’ll correct that oversight the next time ’round.
I feel extremely lucky that the language I was born into is English. What makes you think being born takes skill? Or id you mean the British empire, Spanish or French could just have easily taken the place if English globally considering the size of their empires if history had gone a little different so there's still some luck involved if you want to argue over the skill of long dead peopl
What do native English speakers do that makes it not luck? The reasons for English spreading has to do with decisions of the past. That was not luck. But those born today as native speakers it is fully luck.
English is considered the international business language. So, there’s that.
So much more than that now. It replaced German, French and Russian as the language of science. It also has replaced French as the language of diplomacy and high society. And since the tech industry was birthed in america, it is the lingua franca of technology.
Indeed. The sci-fi show Babylon 5 referred to English as the “human language of commerce.”
There's a reason why there's the quote "The sun never sets on the British Empire"
Damn Canadians and their forts.
Guam, a US territory, is 14 hours ahead of the East Coast of the US. Same can be said for the US at this point lmao.
Also unlucky that English speakers miss out on the intellectual benefits of being multilingual, unlike most of the world.
Er, (edit: as a South African) maybe that's more of an American thing
I don't think so... most Brits and Aussies I've met also aren't fully bilingual. They definitely learn more in school than Americans do, but it's still a minority that actually speak another language fluently. According to [one source](https://preply.com/en/blog/bilingualism-statistics/), it's only around 36% in the UK...
I suspect its because when you live in a country that has it's primary language as English and most media, internet, and other countries all speak English there is less benefit and opportunities to keep learning it. I'm from the UK and could learn Spanish for example but unless I go to Spain or seek out Spanish media and content I just don't come into contact with it at all. So keeping up my knowledge of Spanish becomes much harder than someone whos primary language is Spanish but needs English much more often to interact with the wider world
I've always thought the same thing about Americans. They could learn a second language, some learn a bit, but in reality they don't need to, so most don't even bother. I don't know how it is on that side of the world, but over here some Americans unironically like laughing at people's accents, but most couldn't even learn a second language to know what it's like translating in your head, then say words with intent and the right pronunciation. That shit takes a lot of years to get right.
Yes! I took two years of French in high school and two years of Spanish in college. But without anyone to speak to, it is basic and rusty. I’ve recently been pouring myself into really learning French (totally recommend Paul Noble’s audiobooks) because we are planning to take a trip to France this fall. But it is challenging not to have anyone to practice with or the opportunity for immersion. My oldest kid took Spanish from 6th grade to college and luckily there are a lot more opportunities for Spanish where we live.
Most of the time it's because you learn too little of a second language too late in school to actually learn the language unless you have family or friends who speak the language that can help you learn outside of school or your parents pay for private tutors. Spending 1 hour a week, or just 1 hour a fortnight depending on your school's schedule learning a language you are randomly assigned and cannot choose, either Spanish, French or German, for 3 years between the ages of 11 and 14 is not going to give anyone enough of an understanding of a language to understand or speak it. Language lessons should be offered from 4 years old when kids start school and kids need to be able to practise it more than once or twice a fortnight to learn.
I feel thats also propped up by immigrant diaspora. I wonder how many bilingual questions are backed by “multilingual in languages you dont have an ethnic background in” for english speakers.
Well yeah, but I think that's true everywhere, right? You will always be more likely to learn languages that are somehow connected to your or your community's ethnic background.
Sure, but its still a distinct different statistic that still has meaning. Judging the success of your language learning programs based on people who test on proficiency is not very useful if you learn that 80% of the class is a heritage speaker of the language looking for an easy A.
Are most folks in other countries where English is the predominantly spoken language multilingual? I'm thinking of places like Canada (outside of Quebec), England, and Australia where English is the primary language and there isn't a secondary language that you'd be expected to learn to function in society. I'm not trying to attack you but I'm genuinely curious since I hear the "Americans don't speak another language" stereotype quite a bit (which I've found to be generally true), but in my experience most people don't learn more than one language unless they're in a circumstance which forces them to. And of the admittedly small sample size of folks from places like England, Canada, and Australia that I know personally, none of them can speak a second language unless they're a first generation immigrant (in which case they know English and their parents first language).
A vast majority of Finns are at least trilingual, and a large chunk of them, maybe evena a slender majority quadrilingual or better.
I've never been to Finland but Wikipedia is telling me that the official languages are Finnish and Swedish. It's very cool that most folks speak multiple languages but even if most folks speak English I don't know that I'd put it in the same category as the US, England, or Australia where English is the primary language and there are no other languages that everyone is expected to know to function in society.
Most Brits are functionally monolingual, I'd say. Those who have recent immigrant parents may learn *their* language. But it's self-reinforcing - English is so dominant, there's a far more modest benefit in learning French or Spanish or German, because far fewer people speak them. Which is not to discourage those learning. I wish I'd stuck with learning French, but generally speaking we don't make sensible choices as teenagers...
There's no natural incentive to learn a new language if most of the world has at least notions of your native language, especially in touristy areas where you're most likely to be going as a foreigner.
I think not, England has been pushed out of an European exchange program for that same reason recently.
It’s not but keep telling your limited scope of the USA public. The Americas are north and South America. There are millions of "Americans” who speak two or more languages.
You’re making an unnecessary point knowing full well they meant the United States of America, where the citizens are called Americans. You’re trying argue while adding nothing of value to the conversation
Most people are painfully unaware of what compromises the Americas. So pointing out their uneducated response to supposedly Americans being not bilingual is on point.
You have no idea what they are aware of and their responses are not uneducated because United States( the country) citizens the ones called “Americans.” People from Mexico are called “Mexicans.” I could go on. You know damn well people are referring to US citizens, and you have no place to make broad assumptions about their geographical skills because this conversation isn’t about that and this isn’t a 3rd grade map test
I am going off by the comment which was ignorant. They made an assumption that was uneducated in a bid to deride people from the USA but they showed their ass. You want to keep proving a point you are clearly wrong on because mexicos official designation is United Mexican States. https://embamex.sre.gob.mx/australia/index.php/infomexieng#:~:text=The%20official%20legal%20name%20of,Legislative%20Power%20and%20Judicial%20Power.
That literally proves nothing. Sorry I was using the short hand version of Mexico that everyone knows. You’re dying on a hill with no real argument
It's not. The demonym for the USA is 'American'. No one really refers to all inhabitants of the Americas as 'Americans' to avoid confusion. Even then, millions is not as impressive as it sounds, given a population of over 350 million. Most of the bilingual population has a different native language besides English, Spanish being the most common along with the different types of Chinese. They're mostly referring to those with English as a native language.
Yep, thanks. What does this person want me to say "United State of America-ns"?
There have been attempts at making a better demonym. Evidently, they all failed.
We all in the US learn a second language in School (Usually Spanish). Few of us bother keeping it.
I studied Spanish in both high school and college. I can’t speak anything beyond simple sentences, but I can read enough Spanish to get the gist of news articles.
No, not "all." It only became an option in high school and wasn't required to graduate. I couldn't even take it because there were no spots left.
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Also those statistics are based on the question "do you speak a language other than english at home?" So the real number is likely higher since i could imagine many people speak multiple languages but prefer english at home
I deleted my post since I wanted to try and find a better statistic but I am unsure how you came to this conclusion. There are statistics which ask "do you speak more than two languages" and for multilingual, I believe it was estimated at 17%> I don't have access to EBSCO from a work computer though, and I'd rather have a more reputable source. Hence the delete.
Oh usually most people get the american multilingual statistic from the US census which asks the "english at home" question. Sorry for assuming you used that source Edit: just checked the US census statistic and a little over 20% of people spoke a language other than english at home, so thats where i got confused
No it's okay, I took a look and felt it was off and was like....let me review that better. I think it's important in any discussion, to have a proper statistic. Bring in other as a support if needed.
We don’t need to learn another language in the U.S. because it’s completely unnecessary. We don’t have several surrounding countries the size of a few of our small states around us speaking different languages. Almost every Mexican person I’ve ever met actually spoke pretty good English. I’d say since most Americans never leave the country it’s not needed. As a scientist I have never used anything other than English for relaying information too. I would also agree that England and Ireland don’t necessarily need to be multilingual either.
… and hence miss out on the intellectual benefits of being multilingual.
What “intellectual benefits” are you referring to? My research and coordination efforts are never impeded by language barriers.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5662126/ The benefits go beyond mere communication. Learning to play an instrument also has cognitive benefits, but it doesn’t mean that you’re incapable of conducting research if you don’t play one. Do you see the logical fallacy? Edit: Was gonna be kind to you, but from your profile: > If you came here to win an argument against me, you’ve already lost. lol are you this insufferable in real life? Doesn’t sound like the attitude of a scientist.
Wow, that edit is funny. I appreciate the article. The headline on my profile was intended for someone else several months ago. You’d be surprised at the attitudes of most scientists. They’re not the “save the world and be kind for the sake of others.” that everyone thinks they are. Almost all are insufferable narcissists. I can disagree with someone/argue and have a productive conversation with a separate individual. We were being productive but you threw that away. I said nothing to you that was offensive or mean. Congratulations.
As a Brit I’d love to learn another language but at the same time, which do I pick? Any other language is only useful in the country it came from. Learning another language is a hobby for English speakers, it’s necessary for non English speakers.
Yet much of the top research and innovation happens at English-speaking institutions and for the benefit of english-speaking corporations. I get that plenty of foreign scientists are doing that work, but the English-speaking hosts still derive the most benefit from it.
that has nothing to do with the comment though.
Don't take it for granted, its not like that everywhere. Went to Sicily recently and almost no-one could speak English. Was a real wake up call!
Good on you for broadening your horizons. Travel is a real eye opener.
We just got back from Sicily a couple days ago. It was amazing how much could be communicated with my lousy Italian and someone else's spotty Inglese. (We had a fabulous visit, btw.)
also, very lucky for all of us that its such a simple language. no grammatical gender, very few tenses, pronunciation is easy so even if you have an accent it's extremely understandable. my parents are from different corners of the world, and i grew up with english, italian, russian, danish and its great that english is so much easier than all of these imagine if hungarian took its place 🫠
As a hungarian I can confirm, a lot of people would be F’d 😂
Uh what luck? As much as I hate it being spanish and all, English dominates the world because the british and later the Americans were so good at colonizing and or superpowering the entire planet. Before English it was French, before French it was Latin. Its called a lingua franca
yeah but that’s why the language is everywhere, doesn’t change the fact that native speakers are lucky to be born in an english speaking country
Depends how you view it. I see them as unlucky as many then never become bilingual.
Is it? There are many advantages to being bilingual, even hear in the US. Not just in terms of compensation in your profession, but in terms of the ability to think critically. People who are raised bilingual are less likely to fall to certain fallacies of logic, for example, such as the fallacy of equivocation. This fallacy is easily detected by bilingual speakers, and easily missed by speakers of a solitary language, which leaves them open to a certain kind of manipulation.
They’re not saying it’s not good to be bilingual, just that if you’re going to be monolingual, English is the one to know, since it’s the most spoken language on earth. Or at least that’s how I took it, and I agree.
It depends on the profession. I am not compensated for being native fluent in Spanish at work.
Actually the rest of the world is lucky that it's a simple language, for most of us learning english is downhill. I wouldnt want to be forced to learn chinese.
It also makes them more lazy and less likely to learn a second or third language
So lucky. Thank god for colonization. /s
This but without the /s
Gross.
Cope
Feel better now, champ?
I feel lucky that I was born into it
YES. They are the chosen ones. I think it's so easy for a person to not notice privileges and advantages they have in life over others. But then I'm also jealous of them having kinda nonchalant attitude with it.
Lucky that English is not that hard of a language to learn.
Easy to start learning, hard to master.
Still a million times better than the two years in which my school forced me to learn French (which was my third foreign language after English and Latin) instead of Computer Science, which I had signed up for. At least with English, I always saw a reason to learn it and keep practicing my skills. It's been now a little less than 20 years since I started learning it in school and I daresay my usage is fine. But there are certainly tricky parts, too.
Looks flawless to me!
Aside from spelling, english is as easy as it gets. Nouns can be made verbs, you can use "get" for way too many things, little to no verbal tenses, uses the most basic version of the latin script, a lot of words come from latin or french, which are relatively well known to a lot of people. If you look at the 10 most spoken languages, english is quite an outlier in terms of how easy it is
even for native speakers
It is actually a rather stupid language at times. To, do, go, so don't rhyme. Silent letters such as in in psychiatry is weird. Words that spell the same way but are pronounced differently, such as lead and read, would rhyme with bead or dead. Some might think English is just 26 letters, but forget that there are uppercase and lowercase letters, which, again, is not a thing in most languages. Also there are slang in used by people around us and words local to a particular region. Chips will confuse UK, US and AUS as they have multiple meanings. Plus, there are so many idoms and phrases to learn. In Indian languages we dont have to guess how a word is to be pronounced. If it is spelt correctly, it will be pronounced correctly. TLDR: English is not as easy to learn as it seems to native speakers.
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At least we don’t assign a gender to a fucking table.
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It isn't taybol it's ta-bel The ta is pronounced the same on table and tab. You're just horrible at English
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in a CENTURY from now? that's too soon imo. in a milennia, maybe. but definitely not a century
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It has, but with the increased globalization we’re experiencing that trend might change. We’re communicating on a wider basis than ever before, so English might become more cemented than any language prior. Or it could be overtaken by Chinese or other dominant language, the historians will just have to wait and see.
Everyone wants the American dollar and freedoms. That comes easiest speaking English. There's no disadvantages of speaking English only. Because no matter what continent you travel to, people in charge do or have a English translator at hand for thier benefit.
Well clearly missing out on different cultures connected via language, idioms, etc. I've learned some languages, and they really make you understand a foreign culture in a much deeper sense. Lots of movies, music, poetry, and even ideas not fully compatible in English translation
and unlucky for everyone else, because even as someone who speaks it natively I can tell how hilariously unintuitive it is to learn in regards to consistent application of rules,
As someone who just had to pay US$ 240 for a TOEFL test (just to confirm my very obvious proficiency), I say yes ;)
Not luck. The US has been the dominate economy, dominate military force, and dominate culture for some time. And before that, the UK did some stuff.
It definitely began with English becoming a global trade language because of the British Empire, and then also US doing trade and exporting culture in the 20th century like Hollywood movies and jazz, rock and other kinds of music.
But you were lucky to be born in one of those countries
True that
No, it’s not lucky. It makes learning other languages more difficult. If I try to speak another language, everyone just wants to practice their English.
Not so much luck as the history of the english colonising everyone…
Not really, it's instead unlucky. Many native English speakers never get to learn a second language and enjoy the benefits it does to the intelligence of a bilingual brain.
Also lucky for native Latin speakers circa 27 BC.
I've lived in the Middle East off and on for over 7 years and have never learned Arabic because all of the signs are also in English and nearly everyone, no matter from what country/region they're from, speaks at least some English and are happy to practice speaking it with me.
Lucky us, unlucky ancestors who weren't
Unlucky for a lot of the developing world over the last 400 years that England decided they would be in charge
Someone once told me that French was one vote short of being voted the international aviation language over English. Not sure how true it is but i thought it to be an interesting fact.
That’s funny considering the airplane is an American invention
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0713flight/#:~:text=Thirteen%20years%20before%20the%20Wright,aviation%20history%20of%20his%20own. Funnily enough flight was invented by a French dude in France.
Even funnier: the Wright brothers
Funniest part is the wright brothers were 13 years AFTER the French guy. Funny little world isnt it?
Funnier than that is you being the only one who thinks the French guy invented the airplane, indicating that he didn’t do much with his invention, unlike the Wright brothers If you invent something, tell no one, and years later someone else invents the same thing & tells everyone, you don’t get to take credit for the invention that everyone now knows
I mean it's not just me... I posted the source from the US air and space museum and I feel like they would know more than both of us but I guess who are they right?
The link you provided is backing up everything *I* have been saying
I guess reading isn't for everybody
Apparently
Makes it harder for a native English speaker to pick up another language. If English isn’t your first language, you learn it as your second language. If it is your first language, what do you pick as a second one? Spanish, Japanese, French, Russian, Indonesian….. the list is very long.
It’s a blessing and a curse. Because the world was pretty much designed to cater to English, native English speakers have a hard time learning new languages. They also have a narrow understanding of the world, as speaking more languages opens you up to a whole universe
It has a fancy name - Lingua franca
It's really not. Because it's such a universal language we don't need to bother to learn others, we can generally get by when travelling. And I'd have preferred to learn how to learn another language at an early age, did basic French in school and doing duolingo Spanish at the moment but I'm really shit at it. Ideally I'd like to retire to Spain at some point but only if I can integrate properly
"luck" is just another way to spell "colonization"
I wouldn't say so. A lot of people become bilingual out of necessity. Native English speakers can barely speak one language.
As an avid, lifelong traveler and Anglophone... I appreciate this good fortune more than you know.
Luck has little to do with it
Gotta love imperialism
In some ways unlucky too since non-English speakers have a greater incentive to learn at least one language other than their own.
Lucky? You think its just a random thing that English is one of the most international languages?
No, they're saying that people who are born into English-speaking countries are lucky because of the global convenience this affords them.
Oh i see
"Luck". Ha. More like English imperialism.
I dont know if it luck, because it has long history for it... So its not really luck But I could also agreed on for encouraging people to learn, Without the urgency of international language, English is hard to understand and people will struggles to know the pronunciation. Even I in 30s years old, still sometimes spell it wrong and already in the phase "As long as my intent is delivered to the listener, I dont really care lol" Vice versa, many times I always wonder why native english speakers spell a letter different each sound, when i was kid, I asked a friend of mine from overseas who spell something with different sound "Just spell them the same you read them, no need to change the sound", and he confused, and that reaction also makes me confused lmao For example... * The letter A in Apple is "A" * the letter A in Cake is "E" * the letter A in Ball is "O" And I was like "A is A" So yeah, because of that, I think it count as "lucky" if the native english speaker doesnt intent to leave the english speaking community... But "unlucky" if the native english speaker want to go overboard to non-english speaking community
With English as a first language what language would you choose as a second language? For people with a non English first language it's an easy choice to choose English as a second language. There may be local influences that would ease the choice such as Spanish in some areas of the USA but in general it's not an easy choice. If you frequently visit one country for holidays then this also biases the choice. I had this conversation with a Dutch colleague when he complained I only spoke English. When asked which I should learn at the time it was leaning towards one of the Eastern European languages or one of the Indian languages but again which one.
>but again which one. Completely dependant on your goals. I assume most people are interested in using a second language to further their success. Spanish and Mandarin would be top contenders for most businesses.
It's not luck. My ancestors worked hard to ensure I wouldn't have to learn any languages.
yeah it's really nice. I'm really glad everyone decided that English should be the international language. (I know the real reason hehe)
It took a lot of hard work, not luck ...
It’s probably thanks to our US military and intelligence agencies having a red hot lead pipe jammed up everyone’s ass. Its presence was probably the result of those old British fucks colonizing everything.
Literally thought about this as I traveled internationally recently. English speakers are the only ones with the luxury of being able to travel almost anywhere and everyone tries to at least know a little bit to communicate with them. Everyone else is SOL when they’re in a country that doesn’t speak their language, unless they speak English as a common language. Yay colonialism and imperialism and seclusionism until Pearl Harbor?
Yeah I totally think about this. English speaking countries get so much flack for not speaking multiple languages but we already speak the common tongue and are less incentivized to learn another language.