• NathanielThomas@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Everyone thinking Canadians are bilingual but it’s just we were forced to take french in school and can now say “ou est le supermarche?” and that’s it.

    • Licherally@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      In the US we take like four to six years of Spanish and walk away with “donde estas la biblioteca” and “donde esta el baño.”

      • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        That’s because you don’t want to learn Spanish. I know English because I wanted to learn it. I practiced it daily and got pretty decent at it.

        I also took 4 years of German. I hardly remember any of it. Because I wasn’t interested in learning any. It was just something I had to do.

      • BartsBigBugBag@lemmy.tf
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        1 year ago

        I took half that many years of Spanish, and that’s about all I remember too. Also, “tocar los pompes”. I feel like we do it all wrong here though. Language classes aren’t typically until high school, and by then your ability to learn languages is far less than when you are younger. It can still be done, but you have to want to, and teenagers have too much going on to care about speaking a language they haven’t used this far in their life.

        • Mothra@mander.xyz
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          1 year ago

          Tocar los pompes? What are pompes? Is it slang for something? Spanish is my first language and I’ve never heard that word

      • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        i just remember “dios mio no es beno” from that 70’s show. i probably spelled that incorrectly.

        although i cheated… i took 2 years of spanish in jr. high, and didn’t learn shit. so i took my native language in hs and college. got an a- in college.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Jay parlay France-says trey bee-in! Jaytude quart annes in laycool.

      That’s all I need to know as an American. Any French speakers will immediately switch into English and forbid me from speaking in French, lol.

      • Anon819450514@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Here is an attempt to fix that for you: J’ai parlé français, c’est très bien. J’ai étudié quatre années à l’école.

    • Braysl@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Hey speak for yourself, I was forced into French immersion school by my parents with promises of good government jobs. Now I can understand French but Quebecois is a whole different beast 😂

    • Haus@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      The foundations of my French were built on puzzling out the backs of shampooing bottles while sitting on the crapper, pre-internet.