I completely agree. I have heard stories from Japan of people being taken in by friends and relationships only to realize they were only using them to practice English. When I visit Japan, I am speaking japanese since I worked so hard on it… and if anyone ignores my japanese and tries to Speak English, I will respond with this:
“…ummmm, es tut mir leid, kein English.
Sprechen sie Deutsch??”.
Not a bad technique.
People say that the Welsh are good linguists - but I reckon they just switch to Welsh if people overseas try their English on 'em! No foreigner could fail to be terrified :-0
“…Yn sgil mudo a thwf yn nylanwad ieithoedd eraill ar fröydd Cymraeg, cafwyd lleihad yn y nifoeroedd sy’n siaradwyr uniaith Cymraeg[16]. Bellach nid oes siaradwyr uniaith y Gymraeg i gael. Ar y cyfan, mae siaradwyr Cymraeg hefyd yn siarad y Saesneg (yn Nhalaith Chubut, yr Ariannin, Sbaeneg yw iaith y mwyafrif - gweler Y Wladfa). Serch hynny, mae llawer o siaradwyr Cymraeg iaith gyntaf yn fwy cyffyrddus yn mynegi eu hunain drwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg na’r Saesneg. Gall yr iaith y mae siaradwyr yn ei dewis amrywio yn ôl yr angen, pwnc, cyd-destun cymdeithasol, ac o fewn mynegiant (a elwir yn ieithyddiaeth yn cyfnewid côd)…”
(Random stuff from Welsh Wikipedia…)
is it the same way in belgium too? i can remember talking to a old flemish woman and she didn’t like my accent she said i spoke with a “surinaams nederlands” accent and it was ridiculous ,but she was only one person i spoke with from belgium
Sheesh, what a crazy language that is. I don’t know why the british Empire wanted to deal with that in the first place.
Steve said that coming to Czech and Polish after Ukrainian took him about a year, whereas learning Russian for the first time took him close to 5 years before he could understand everything… at a pace of an hour or so a day.
Czech has been really easy at the start for me, it just Feels really similar for some reasons, even the vocab is different. It won’t be hard at all to boost that word count and get to a good level of understanding for your polish…
Now speaking it correctly… that’s a whole nother can of bees.
Regarding this, Amsterdam is a strange city.
Once I was in Amsterdam and they even refused to talk dutch to me at times if I didn’t insist on it. Which is very strange to say the least.
I would, however, if you were to judge all dutch people based upon one city trip.
Prefer that you look outside of Amsterdam for once, and see if you change your mind.
(The majority of dutch people are not too fond about Amsterdam either)
Depends from person to person. In flanders most people can speak english very well. Because like in the Netherlands we get much of exposure via music and movies (in flanders they subtitle literally everything). I don’t have any idea that we will answer you back in dutch. But I am sure it isn’t like in Amsterdam. Wallonia is another story. Most of them are monolingual, especially in small villages far away from the linguistic border(and nothing on tv is subtitled). Although the number f walloons that can speak english is increaing. They will always answer you back in french.
Ik had vorig jaar dezelfde ervaring in Amsterdam. Als je een museum of restaurant binnengaat spreken ze je altijd aan in het Engels. Een man in een café zei tegen ons dat de macht der gewoonte is want 90 % van zijn klanten spreken Engels tegen hem. De druppel voor mij viel pas in Amsterdam centraal. Mijn moeder vroeg waar de Thalys naar Brussel vertrok in het Nederlands en die man begreep alles wat we zeiden maar antwoordde gewoon terug in het Engels.
@usablefiber What Niek said at the end is true. I had also the same experiences in Amsterdam. But last weekend I was in Zeeland (a province in the Netherlands and far away from Amsterdam). And they never spoke english back to me.
As a Scot who has moved to a small town in the middle of Czech, i can of course confirm not everyone speaks English, not even close. Though most young people understand something. But i am glad, learning the language is part of the fun. 
Even worse most of the world is learning a western European language so there’s not much linguistic diversity anyway.
Chinese was the first language I taught my self. Now just starting Spanish Portuguese German French and Esperanto which I’m sure can all be simultaneously be mastered in half the time of Mandarin.
Unfortunately, when choosing a language to study I only chose one’s that are spoken by many people (except for Esperanto). The wide use of English makes learning Dutch the language of my Belgium relations almost a wasted effort.
Btw, Hindi and Malay/Indonesian would be two useful languages still .
why are they not on lingq?
Could you get by in Italy with Spanish though? And Russian in the Ukraine? By that I mean basic communication?
English should not take over the world. Neither should technology. Language is tied to our culture and identity, and I think it would be great if people kept their native languages but also learned English for economic/social reasons.