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Comment by iagooar | Hacker News Reader

That's, you know, my opinion.

Before English became lingua franca, French used to be it. Another language can become in the future. A globalized world is something I love - yet the world seems to be going in the opposite direction these days.

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I agree with all your points. Don't be discouraged if you get called out by mostly unilingual Americans. As a trilingual Francophone from Canada, I understand from lived experience how language is more than just an economic consideration. In fact, I'd say that the idea of thinking of every aspect of culture purely from economic terms is a very Anglophone way of looking at life.

French & German as the core EU languages would be a great step forwards towards truly making EU independent of American & British influences.

You know its quite hard for us Americans to actually to learn to speak a 2nd or 3rd new language fluently, outside of maybe Spanish.

I lived in Turkey for two years, spoke at a conversation level fairly well, but once the other person realized I wasn't Turkish (it wasn't apparent) they wanted to practice their English. I went to Ukraine in December, spent 3 months learning Russian (I was visiting a Russian speaking area), and once they learned I was American (much sooner than Turkey), they wanted to practice their English. The only two counties that let me practice were France and Italy, with the Italians being the most patient in our conversations.

As an American, we want to learn new languages but no one let us practice.

I feel your frustration, but as Ukrainian, I've spent years learning English in Ukraine before I could actually start using it with native English speakers and English is much easier language than Russian for example.

Most people in Ukraine don't even have a way to practice English with native English speakers at all.

So perhaps a bit more practice upfront would be a good idea :)

That is fair. I was living in Turkey when I went to Ukraine so spending 3 months learning a third language at the time was all I could commit.

I understand others wanting to practice with a native English speaker, and them getting the chance was probably more beneficial than me speaking Russian. Though the stereotype of Americans not attempting to learn a 2nd language gives me a slight annoyance, though nothing I lose much sleep over :)

The only language I could not grasp when traveling was Nepalese. Though all Asian languages based on tones has given me trouble.

Before the World Wars, mathematicians (and physicists) usually learned enough German to read technical literature in their field. It's strange how quickly those things can shift.

If eu becomes an union without any native English speakers, then we should adopt English as a neutral, all across Europe speaking language.

Globalization still has sharp edges cutting up those who aren't benefiting from it. You can preserve culture while still enabling commerce and shared prosperity, but it takes work.

My opinions as well. That's what we're here for!

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