On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 08:58:15AM +0530, Vinit Bhansali wrote: > Those dumb idiots should have realized that it is every > english-only-speaking person's RIGHT to demand flexibility from people who > know more than one language.
yes... i see this "rude to speak your own language in front of me" complaint almost invariably from english speakers who don't speak that "own language". it is normal to speak in a common language; if a group of 3 people are having a conversation and a couple of others are also present, should the 3 all talk in a language in which they are perhaps quite uncomfortable just for the benefit of the observers who are not participating in the conversation? in my experience, the dutch and some scandinavians will normally keep conversations in english even if they are 10 and you (the one who doesn't speak their language) are 1 or 2, even when they're not actually talking to you. germans do this sometimes. french, spanish, italians do this rarely. this has something to do with an exaggerated sense of politeness and a lot to do with comfort speaking english, which southern europeans tend to find more difficult. i actually have the problem in reverse, at least for the languages i do speak, with people insisting on switching to english for my convenience making it harder to practice other languages. best, rishab
