tolsof

It depends, I think.

> If you're from non-english speaking country, then you'll be spending like 14 years at school learning english.

It's not that you get N hours free per week if you don't need to learn English, isn't it? English-speakers probably fill those "English as a second language hours" at school with something else. So, all in all, more or less kids in western countries spend the same time in school.

> So, in order to compete with engineers, scientists, etc from english-first countries you not only have to be as good as they are, but all of that while paying this "english-learning tax"

Depends as well. At least in Europe nobody really cares how good your English is past a certain level (ofc, if people can hardly understand you, then yeah you're in trouble). And, among Europeans, the most difficult accent to understand is the British one :)

> It is actually crazy when you think about this. Almost every person in majority of countries needs to pay that huge penalty that's required to enter science, business, international world.

At least based on my experience and on the experience of others (e.g., family, friends), it is not a huge penalty I would say. You either are good at it (for whatever reason) and then you have no trouble working as an engineer/scientist speaking English, or you are not good at it and you actually don't work as engineer/scientist (edit: in international environments). Cannot comment about other fields.

> In English, it is typical to give an “agentive” description, such as “Sofia broke the glass,” even if it was an accident. But in Spanish, the particle se is typically used, and this changes the focus of the sentence; the description of the same event in Spanish would often be formed as: “The glass broke itself.”

Meh. It depends. I don't think I would say "Se rompio el vaso" ("The glass broke itself") if I saw that Sofia broke it (I would say instead "Sofia rompio el vaso", just like in English). But if I don't know who broke the glass, then yeah I probably would say "Se rompio el vaso" (or just "The glass is broken", "El vaso está roto").

Edit: But, if I don't really want to point at Sofia while still saying that the glass is now broken, then I may use the "se" to lighten the matter. But I guess in English one can do the same thing ("Things get broken, people. Nothing to see here")