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From: anita@utastro.UUCP (Anita Cochran)
Newsgroups: net.travel,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Usenet Phrase Guide--request for help
Message-ID: <499@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Mar-86 10:07:21 EST
Article-I.D.: utastro.499
Posted: Wed Mar 12 10:07:21 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 22:24:39 EST
References: <1646@mtgzy.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 34
Xref: watmath net.travel:2245 net.nlang:4293
Summary: A Funny Experience

In article <1646@mtgzy.UUCP>, ecl@mtgzy.UUCP (e.c.leeper) writes:
> It occurred to me (as I plan my Scandinavian trip which involves five countries
> and five languages) that *the* two most useful phrases in any language X are:
> 	"Thank you."
> and
> 	"I don't speak X; do you speak Y (please)?"
> (For English-speakers, 'Y' is 'English'; for others, you can substitute the
> language of your choice.)
> 

This reminds me of a funny thing that happened when we were in Scandinavia
last spring.  We were there for a scientific meeting and this actually
happened to one of our colleagues.  The meeting was in Uppsala Sweden.
He walked into a restaurant and sat down.  When the waitress came up to
him, she asked him, in perfect English, "Do you speak Swedish?".  Our friend
was taken aback by this and asked "Since you speak such excellent English,
why should I even try?" (He was not trying to be rude -- he was just surprised).
She explained that few people in the world speak Swedish and many people of
all countries know at least a little English so, unless they know someone
is Swedish, they assume that English will be the language most likely to
be understood!  We found that anywhere we went in Sweden, Denmark or
Norway everyone knew English since they must start learning it in 3rd
grade.  Most restaurants have menus in the native language and English
with, sometimes, either French or German.

Though I do not want to appear rude by insisting on English, when we
covered 3 countries in 3 weeks, it hardly paid to learn the languages.
This was never a problem and the Scandinavians did not seem to resent
talking in English.
-- 
 Anita Cochran  uucp:  {noao, ut-sally, ut-ngp}!utastro!anita
                arpa:  anita@astro.UTEXAS.EDU  
                snail: Astronomy Dept., The Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX, 78712
                at&t:  (512) 471-1471