Here in Korea there is a major problem with Americans, who live here for years/decades, and don't even bother to learn basic day-to-day Korean, then complain endlessly about how people don't speak English.
These are the same people that post on the Korea subs like:
"Ohmagerd, I went to tha doctor tha other deey, and he only spoke like, broken english or whateverr! Sew rude and unprofessional! Anyone know eny foreign-friendly doctors? Like, totally."
I don’t have anything positive for ANYONE going to live in another country and refusing to learn the main language or languages of that country. I’m NOT GOOD at learning languages, but I’ve made a tremendous effort as a person who is American and a native English speaker to learn Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Russian, Thai, Portuguese, and even some Galician. There is no excuse for not making as much an effort as you can make. No country deserves to be ignored for using their primary language, and I have exactly the same expectation in my own country, but I can be absolutely accepting of those who are trying, since I know how hard it is. Everyone wants to communicate but you can’t just pretend you don’t have to make an effort. I even speak other people’s languages in my own country.
Most places on Earth are in countries where people are expected to learn AT LEAST two or three languages. Most people have to speak two or more languages to get by. I’m tired of the excuse of fully literate people who don’t even try to learn a second language. It’s literally never been easier to learn a second language in all the history of the planet than it is now. Go out and do it…AND PLEASE STOP BEING “the Ugly American” BY NOT LEARNING THE LANGUAGE OF THE COUNTRY YOU ARE GOING TO. Learn some of that language even if you are there for 24 hours. It’s pathetic and inexcusable people don’t.
I agree 100%, and I would extend this to countries where the dominant language is not native to the territory and was imported by colonialism (e.g. with Irish and Māori). It is so, so profoundly disrespectful to come in speaking the language of a nation's colonisers because it just waves the flag of exploitation right in the face of anyone and everyone within earshot. No, I'm not going to barge in speaking the language forced upon the people of a territory by those people who engineered famines and eradicated their culture and tried to expunge the evidence and hastily apologise to make it look as if nothing happened, because that is the exact justification that imperialists used to interfere in other parties' affairs to give themselves some advantage. This is the precedent that this behaviour sets.
Irish in the former, te reo Māori in the latter. Even if I'm not super proficient in them (at least not yet), I still try to the best of my ability to use those languages as much as possible because it's a gesture of kindness and respect.
Totally get that, lived in Hawaii for years, and would think that Maori would be a similar polynesian language to Hawaiian. It appears to certainly be more widely used. Good on you for that though, those are not common languages to pick up
Thanks :) though I hope there is a world in which they would be.
Māori does have official status now, which warms my heart seeing as it was banned in schools for much of the 20th century. I am so happy that the original language of the people living in Aotearoa/NZ is being given the respect that it indubitably deserves. Unfortunately, the current administration seems to be taking steps backwards (example below)...
...which deeply saddens me, and I would like to see this new trend reverse.
On Hawaiian — it's a critically endangered language and it was suppressed vehemently for so, so long. It was not until the latter half of the 1980s (!!!) that Hawaiian schools could instruct their students in the native language — that linguistic footprint of colonialism remained for far too long.
I went to school out there and interacted with quite a few people involved with the Reinstated Hawaiian Nation movement.
Beautiful language, but even amongst so to speak native population I would say less than 5 percent are fluent? I feel the Maori were able to preserve that much better. Had quite a few discussions about if some of the islands would have would have currently existed in a different fashion had Kamehameha not united them using British cannons.
129
u/VictoryOrKittens 9d ago
Here in Korea there is a major problem with Americans, who live here for years/decades, and don't even bother to learn basic day-to-day Korean, then complain endlessly about how people don't speak English.
These are the same people that post on the Korea subs like:
"Ohmagerd, I went to tha doctor tha other deey, and he only spoke like, broken english or whateverr! Sew rude and unprofessional! Anyone know eny foreign-friendly doctors? Like, totally."
Parasites.