66
Languages in the EU (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by jennwiththesea@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

I'm about to sound like the ignorant American I am, so I apologize in advance! We're looking at a trip to Germany, and possibly Prague, and we've noticed that a lot of the hotel names are French and a couple hotels that aren't named in French have replied to comments with things like "Bonjour! etc etc" What's up with this? Is French just the most commonly spoken common language, even in Germany and Czechia? (I know that Germany and Czechia have their own languages, of course.) Or is it something else?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] lorez@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Yep, we try English. We are not very good at it (thanks Mussolini) and the situation is not gonna improve. But you'll survive, even here. Last time I was in a hotel here a foreigner was communicating with the receptionist via Google Translate ;p

[-] rbhfd@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I've been to Italy multiple times (actually on a plane to leave for Milan right now). I never had any problem communicating while there.

[-] lorez@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Lucky you. Sometimes I have issues understanding other people's incorrect Italian...

[-] Banik2008@infosec.pub -1 points 1 year ago

Mussolini came to power a hundred years ago. That's one century. It takes a couple of years to learn English to a passable degree. How can Mussolini possibly be blamed for how badly Italians speak English today?

[-] lorez@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Mussolini's nationalism led to movie dubbing. Still to this day we dub everything (tv series, documentaries, you name it). Since TV was and still is via steaming the main spreader of language, you can understand why we didn't learn English the way other countries did.

this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
66 points (95.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43781 readers
1262 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS