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Comment by nchmy | Hacker News Reader

This is either a problem with you, or a problem with the specific place you live in.

I talk to people every day in my 2nd language. They are generally delighted to do so.

Yes, some people are suspicious of me, depending on the context. But even then I can generally disarm it with body language etc, because I'm a skilled and empathetic human.

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Your post history suggests your sole personal experience is Spanish. Congratulations, you lucked out learning the language of speakers more likely to be friendly and sociable than not (though there are corners of Latin America colder than others). But that experience will not be representative of many other languages spoken by other peoples.

You made a blanket statement about being a man over 40 makes it impossible to converse with people. I refuted that. Would you like to revise it to say "I happen to be in a place(s) where people are just generally anti-social, so that makes it difficult to practice a language"?

Since my late teens, I have spent ~6 months a year traveling the world, and language learning has been a big part of that. And now I am in my 40s having seen how, in most regions, interest from locals in intensive conversation steadily diminished as I approached middle age. So, my experience has been comprehensive enough to make such a blanket statement.

When you are "home", do you have the same problem? I wonder if people are becoming less social overall?

I also wonder if it is something that happens for women as well, or just men.

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