Romance languages and switching to English

[DaveBee]

History lesson: the United Kingdom was never a continental power and, even at the height of the power of the British Empire, the English language had little, if any, influence on the European continent.

Yes, but never forget the blazing glory of the Angevin Empire!

[Speakeasy]

Yes, but never forget the blazing glory of the Angevin Empire!

The Angevins spoke French. So did the English. All of this took place shortly after (in relative terms) the Norman French invaded England, killed off the aristocracy and imposed their own language, laws, and customs on the local populace. This is the fundamental reason why French is a Category I language. The English language developed very slowly in the United Kingdom, but it never had a continental influence until the arrival of the Americans following the Second World War.

[Xmmm]

In an (futile, I'm sure) attempt to bring things back on track, I will return to the original point of the thread and say that I don't understand what the problem is. Unless the person you are talking to is a police officer, I don't see what obligation you have to agree to the switch.

I remember many years ago torturing a poor train station worker for 20 minutes over a ticket mix-up with my A2 Japanese until he finally begged "can we please speak in English now?" I was feeling generous, so I agreed ... but only because I was A2 and had almost no idea what he was saying otherwise.

If I had B2 skills in a target language and went to a country where that was the official language, that's the language people would have to use to talk to me (again, exception for people who have guns and/or the ability to put me in prison).

You have to stand up for yourself and before my trip to Italy, Russia, or Turkey I would certain memorize the expression "I'm sorry, I can't understand your English" and maybe get some "Talk to me in X" t-shirts made as well.

I mean, most of us start from the standpoint of trying to be polite and accommodating, but that's a losing strategy in the ongoing world wide cultural race to the bottom. People. Will. Walk. All. Over. You.

[DaveBee]

The English language developed very slowly in the United Kingdom, but it never had a continental influence until the arrival of the Americans following the Second World War.

It would be interesting to track L2 education in Europe. English was certainly one trade language that was used, but compulsory education, and curriculums requiring living language are I think a 20th century thing. At what point English became the dominant L2, and if Europe differed from the rest of the world might be interesting to look at.
--------
I've just ordered, but not yet received Honni soit qui mal y pense which might interest you too.

[nooj]

Why? Spanish is the continental "world language." Spanish is the language with the prize-winning novelists, and the vibrant, chaotic, exciting cultures. True, none of them are coming from Spain, but all the same ...

Spain produces prize winning novelists all the time and is home to several vibrant, chaotic, exciting cultures. America is great, and the present power of the Spanish language is already there, and the future will be even more American, but Spain is also cool.

[leosmith]

In an (futile, I'm sure) attempt to bring things back on track, I will return to the original point of the thread and say that I don't understand what the problem is. Unless the person you are talking to is a police officer, I don't see what obligation you have to agree to the switch.

Your post reminds me of the good ol' Thread on Language Banditry.

[Adrianslont]

Yes, you are quite correct. The United Kingdom played absolutely no part in the process. However, although the process of the Anglicisation of Western Europe (that is, its adoption as a lingua franca) was progressive, it was not part of a design and it was not deliberate; rather, it was somewhat accidental.

Hey Speakeasy, sure you don’t have to convince me! I don’t believe it was deliberate or have any conspiracy theories on this matter. Are you confusing me with another Australian participating in this thread? Anyway, everything you say plus I think American movies, tv, music and computer games. Cheers!

[Cavesa]

In an (futile, I'm sure) attempt to bring things back on track, I will return to the original point of the thread and say that I don't understand what the problem is. Unless the person you are talking to is a police officer, I don't see what obligation you have to agree to the switch.

I remember many years ago torturing a poor train station worker for 20 minutes over a ticket mix-up with my A2 Japanese until he finally begged "can we please speak in English now?" I was feeling generous, so I agreed ... but only because I was A2 and had almost no idea what he was saying otherwise.

If I had B2 skills in a target language and went to a country where that was the official language, that's the language people would have to use to talk to me (again, exception for people who have guns and/or the ability to put me in prison).

You have to stand up for yourself and before my trip to Italy, Russia, or Turkey I would certain memorize the expression "I'm sorry, I can't understand your English" and maybe get some "Talk to me in X" t-shirts made as well.

I mean, most of us start from the standpoint of trying to be polite and accommodating, but that's a losing strategy in the ongoing world wide cultural race to the bottom. People. Will. Walk. All. Over. You.

Thanks. I preferred to skip the last bunch of posts, no disrespect to the posters meant.

Yes, this is the problem. Trying to be polite and accommodating. Learners need to be more selfish.

So, if there was a recipe for minimalisation of switching:
1.Get to B2 or above, with lower levels being ok in some countries (Germany, Austria, Spain) but not expecting them to be ok
2.Get to the places and situations, where tourists are less expected
3.Improve some of the personal qualities, such as confidence, assertiveness, looking extrovert (that is different from being)
4.Be selfish enough to insist on the language

5.Travel alone. (as that is the most important problem that I have found, which is not easy to fix, if you like to travel with someone you care about)

Still, it may not work at times. And it can be exhausting.

Or my alternative solution:
1.Don't learn a language with the idealistic goal "I want to be able to speak with the natives while travelling"
2.Learn the language with more diverse goals, don't put all the eggs in one basket, that way you don't get that disappointed if one goal proves more complicated than expected for external reasons
3.Don't trust people telling you that books, movies, and similar stuff are less valuable than talking, and don't trust people telling you that improvement depends 100% on other people
4.Use all the means independent from other people

That's why I am all for looking for these alternative ways to immerse oneself and practice and improve. Dependence of other people is possible only if you have lots and lots of money to pay for tutors and conversation partners. Sure, if you are so rich and enjoy other people, go for it.

On the mezzofanti guild blog, there has recently appeared a post about the impossibility of improvement without going out and talking to people, which I found extremely naive, despite the author's amount of experience. The worst part was the author confusing words asocial and antisocial, which is pretty offensive and misleading. The second was the complete ignorance of the fact that there is a whole world of ways to prepare oneself for the less frequent opportunities to talk, that lead to success and fast activation of the skills.

If S_allard basically tell us to talk to people only after we get to the C levels, in order not to annoy them (and there is a grain of truth to this, despite my reservations), I add : vast majority of books I've ever read were much more interesting than vast majority of people I've ever met anyways. (half joking now) so, it is up to us to improve.

[s_allard]

...
On the mezzofanti guild blog, there has recently appeared a post about the impossibility of improvement without going out and talking to people, which I found extremely naive, despite the author's amount of experience. The worst part was the author confusing words asocial and antisocial, which is pretty offensive and misleading. The second was the complete ignorance of the fact that there is a whole world of ways to prepare oneself for the less frequent opportunities to talk, that lead to success and fast activation of the skills.

If S_allard basically tell us to talk to people only after we get to the C levels, in order not to annoy them (and there is a grain of truth to this, despite my reservations), I add : vast majority of books I've ever read were much more interesting than vast majority of people I've ever met anyways. (half joking now) so, it is up to us to improve.

As certain statements were attributed to me, I want to point out that they are incorrect. Here is what I actually said:

...We are not there yet but I believe a key point in garyb's post is that speaking a language - whether it's French or any other language - is something of an all or nothing game. You either speak it really well if you want to use it with native speakers or just don't bother.

Actually, I believe that this has always been true. Who wants to interact with someone who mangles your language and may even be incomprehensible? In our native languages, we all attempt to be error-free. The way we speak (and write) is very much a part of our identity and says a lot about our background and especially our education. So it's only normal that the threshold for being perceived as an interesting speaker is very high.
...

I did not say to talk to people only after achieving a C-level. Quite the contrary I believe in talking with tutors and even with native speakers as soon as possible in the learning process within one's limitations.

I follow the guidelines of the CEFR model that speak specifically about the Spoken Interaction skills. Here is how the B2 level is described:

I can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that
makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible.
I can take an active part in discussion in familiar contexts,
accounting for and sustaining my views.

This is not bad. This is what I consider to be a minimum to say that one speaks a language.
Now here is the description of the C2 level Spoken Interaction skills:

I can take part effortlessly in any conversation or discussion and have a good familiarity
with idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms. I can express myself fluently and convey
finer shades of meaning precisely. If I do have a problem I can backtrack and restructure around the difficulty so smoothly that other people are hardly aware of it.

Who do you prefer to talk with? For me B2 is the minimum and may be satisfactory depending on the subject of conversation. But frankly I prefer to talk with a C2 speaker because it probably leads to much more satisfying conversation exchanges. That is why I said...the threshold for being perceived as an interesting speaker is very high.

[Cavesa]

Well, I don't take the language proficiency as the main measure of how interesting a speaker is
I know extremely proficient speakers, who would do others a great service, if they actually spoke less, whatever the reason would be. And people who are far from perfection, B2 or even less, who are however interesting speakers.

And the situations we are talking about are not about people being interesting speakers anyways. We tend to forget this was not originally my thread about switching. It was just my answer to Tristano on a thread about the usual travelling interactions. For that, it doesn't matter at all whether the person is interesting.

The other person may see me as the least interesting person in the world, yet it is arrogant and rude on their part to switch, if there is no real need for it.