As you might have noticed, avo. European languages have spread throughout the entire world. We can communicate with most of the world because we speak multiple languages. French is spoken throughout most of africa together with english, spanish is spoken thoughout south and middle america (apart from Brasil and the tiny parts were they speak dutch). Russian has spread rather well in Asia too.Australia is English and Spanish is spoken throughout the Philipines.

Learning another language that isn't European and useful would mean to start learning Japanese, Chinese or Indian. The first two are completely different in every way from ours and it's almost impossible to master it completely. And Indian, although slightly related, is still a whole different language that would take an enormous time to master completely.
African languages are not mentioned as related languages are very local. As my professor in ethnic art told me "it's painful to find out that the language you managed to understand is not spoken in the next village".

So I conclude, and it may not surprise you, that your argument is not a valid one. You insinuate we only speak foreign languages cause the people who speak it live closer to us than most americans. Our aim is to be able to communicate with other people, regardless where they're from, not because they're part of Europe..

The British are notoriously bad at knowing other languages, and as a Brit I am no exception. I have forgotten all of my schoolboy french but I do know a little spanish.

I don't consider people to be ignorant or arrogant for not knowing other languages (possibly because I don't myself, but then maybe I am ignorant!)

*cough*Philippines*cough*

> Douglas Reynholm wrote:

>So I conclude, and it may not surprise you, that your argument is not a valid one. You insinuate we only speak foreign languages cause the people who speak it live closer to us than most americans. Our aim is to be able to communicate with other people, regardless where they're from, not because they're part of Europe..

i think you're in denial if you think its purely coincidence that the vast majority of Europeans don't know non-european languages..

lets take primo for example because he is the only european that listed the languages he speaks. he knows his native tongue, and is fluent in english; so far reasonable consistent with the "Our aim is to be able to communicate with other people, regardless where they're from" claim... but then he learned german, italien, and estonian? those languages don't travel well, and at very least germans and italians are far more likely to know english or spanish or french then say chinese or indians would know english, spanish, or french...  those languages are wasted ones if his aim was to be able to communicate with other people regardless of where he's from; so either Primo is an idiot who thought those would be the next obvious choices or his goal wasn't to be able to communicate with as many people as possible regardless of where they are from...

also, if an american would travel to Italy or Germany and spoke none of their language, because they are confident that the majority would speak english perfectly fine, he would receive a rather icy reception in many of the places he went. europeans want you to at least to attempt to learn their language, and if you don't, they are insulted. i think learning another country's language is a sign of respect and european's tendency to learn each other's languages is the different european populations jacking each other off.

Never! We'd rather invent languages to AVOID global communication! Like Klingon and Na'avi!!

> avogadro wrote:

> lets take primo for example because he is the only european that listed the languages he speaks. he knows his native tongue, and is fluent in english; so far reasonable consistent with the "Our aim is to be able to communicate with other people, regardless where they're from" claim... but then he learned german, italien, and estonian? those languages don't travel well, and at very least germans and italians are far more likely to know english or spanish or french then say chinese or indians would know english, spanish, or french...  those languages are wasted ones if his aim was to be able to communicate with other people regardless of where he's from; so either Primo is an idiot who thought those would be the next obvious choices or his goal wasn't to be able to communicate with as many people as possible regardless of where they are from...

German used to be the language of the sciences for a long time, so learning german could be useful for a scientist who has to look into older sources.
Italian closely resembles Spanish, I have found that most Spanish people understand some Italian (also works the other way around), so this might help him communicate with Latin American people as well.

So i wouldn't say those languages were wasted...

Estonian however... i can't really think of a language that's closely related to Estonian that isn't in Europe. As Finnish is in Europe as well and there aren't really a lot of people outside of europe who speak finnish...

first Dutch
English is pretty much what it needs to be, unless i meet the queen.
Germans can understand me and i understand them. But its really tourist german i speak
French i understand if its not going to fast (understand main part of the convo, i cant translate stuff properly)
thats about it for me

Re: Europeans and LanguagesAvo, care to validate your argument and tell us how many of the worlds most spoken languages YOU know?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

Take a look at the map too, and see that different european langages cover the most part of the world, africa and southern asia excepting.

> lets take primo for example because he is the only european that listed the languages he speaks. he knows his native tongue, and is fluent in english; so far reasonable consistent with the "Our aim is to be able to communicate with other people, regardless where they're from" claim... but then he learned german, italien, and estonian? those languages don't travel well, and at very least germans and italians are far more likely to know english or spanish or french then say chinese or indians would know english, spanish, or french...  those languages are wasted ones if his aim was to be able to communicate with other people regardless of where he's from; so either Primo is an idiot who thought those would be the next obvious choices or his goal wasn't to be able to communicate with as many people as possible regardless of where they are from...

Note that I am dutch and live in belgium, in belgium german is an official language, and both countries are neigbours of germany. The chances of me encountering a german speaking person are much higher than me encountering someone that speaks an indian language.

You don't always learn a language because that allows you to speak to as many people as possible. Sometimes (most of the time even) you learn a language so you are able to speak with a specific group of people or a specific person even.

I already speak a language that is known to most of the civilized world: English. It's the language of aviation, engineering, political discourse, and so much more.

The fact is most people would appreciate you more if you can communicate in their language(or even attempt to).
Its not about ignorance or anything its just an additional set of tools for life, koodos to the multi-lingual I'm stuck in this English well.