r/facepalm • u/GlitterMackenzie • Sep 02 '24

🇲​🇮​🇸​🇨​ Smarts. He has it.

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76

u/Fight_those_bastards Sep 02 '24

Meanwhile, the vast majority of us in America are all,

wait, there’s a second language?

33

u/Open-Industry-8396 Sep 02 '24

Funny, I was interviewing potential employees. This woman proudly said that she speaks both languages. I just looked at her, thinking she was going to clarify. Nope, just proudly stared at me. She was so proud of herself that I just had to hire her. You go on and kick some ass young lady!

It turned out to be a great hire.

20

u/DontPutThatDownThere Sep 02 '24

...do we know which languages "both" refer to yet or is that an Easter egg for the future?

10

u/Open-Industry-8396 Sep 02 '24

It was a Portuguese community in southeast Massachusetts. It's all she knew existed. 😁

7

u/JohnGillnitz Sep 02 '24

English and bad English.

3

u/Albanian_Tea Sep 02 '24

There is freedom speak, and then there is bar-bar-bar speak

1

u/Complete-Fix-3954 Sep 02 '24

Definitely the majority. I live in Brazil nowadays but grew up back in the States. People look at you funny when you say you speak 4 languages. It’s really not that uncommon…for people that aren’t American. Had to leave the country to learn that one.

Anywho, this twitter mess pissed me off because I used it for sports ball stuff.

2

u/IGargleGarlic Sep 02 '24

I know its hyperbole, but come on. The US is barely below the EU in percentage that speak multiple languages, 23% vs 25%.

The self-deprecating 'America dumb' humor is getting old.

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u/Aaawkward Sep 02 '24

I know its hyperbole, but come on. The US is barely below the EU in percentage that speak multiple languages, 23% vs 25%.

I think that's just bilingualism. Roughly a bit over a third of Europeans speak three or more languages.

19% of Europeans are bilingual, 25% are trilingual and 10% speak four or more languages.

The closest I could find about the US was this:
According to the US Census Bureau, 20 percent of all Americans can speak two or more languages.

That's two or more, so hard to say what the percentage of bilinguals and trilinguals and so on and so forth is.

I reckon that's the big difference.

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u/PitchBlack4 Sep 02 '24

Which makes it so that the EU has 54% of people who know two or more languages compared to the US 20%.

2

u/ussrowe Sep 02 '24

The issue is how often speaking two languages is looked down upon if you are Latin-American in the US but the media will still write articles marveling over how Princess Charlotte speaks Spanish: https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1799974/princess-charlotte-speaks-two-languages

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u/mfmfhgak Sep 02 '24

Especially considering the geographic size of the US with only one language really needed. It would be different if you lived in Illinois and needed to know two other languages to speak with people in Wisconsin and Indiana.