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Comment by k__ | Hacker News Reader

As a German speaker, I understand those issues.

I currently learn Spanish, and I'm always amused by how regular everything is.

In German, words constantly get split up and change positions in the sentences when you say something slightly different.

Du sprichst Deutsch.

Sprichst du Deutsch?

Hablas Español.

¿Hablas Español?

Also, most Germans don't like speaking German with people who don't speak it well. Probably, because subtle errors can change the whole meaning.

For most Germans it's easier to speak English with foreigners who speak better English than German.

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And in French...

Tu parles français

Tu parles français ?

Parles-tu français ?

Est-ce-que tu parles français ?

I guess it's the best of both worlds.

The French like to hear foreigners speak French though, they're just terrible at understanding accents they don't hear often and terrible at adjusting their speech so the other person understands them. And too self conscious about their English accent to speak English.

I only heard bad things about the French and their language, but I never met a unfriendly french person.

Don't know where this prejudice comes from.

I'm assuming you've been to France and particularly Paris? I wouldn't say every French person is unfriendly, but my anecdotal evidence seems to point to there being a higher rate of unfriendly people (towards tourists perhaps) in France (mostly in the south of France + Paris twice), compared to other places I've visited as a tourist.

You would tutoyer a stranger?

It depends on the context and the age of the stranger. If it's at work (some random sysadmin or dev at a client, say) yes I would, in the street I wouldn't. In Québec it's more common to tutoyer strangers than in Europe, too.

Yeah it took me until B2 or so before I could get any Germans to really engage with me in German. My son grew up there and his German was quite good while we lived there, and even when I reached C1 he was perpetually ashamed of my accent and all of my grammatical errors. Of course, now that it's been some time since we've lived there my German has only gotten worse and he suffers even more when I try to practice

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