On my travels today, I had some thoughts. (I forgot to include these in my last blog post).
First of all, I am an idiot and assumed everyone would just speak English to me because they would know I'm American and don't speak their language. WRONG. I can't believe how selfish I was. WHY is it ever fair that someone should have to work twice as hard to understand and speak MY language, when I'm just lazying by not making an effort? English is not their first language, and is certainly not the language they actually want to be speaking. They do it because they have to because Americans travel to their countries without making an effort to understand their language. I figured this out on my flight to Rome. It was on a Spanish airway, and the whole flight, plus all flight attendants, spoke Spanish. Pretty quickly I realized that speaking English wouldn't gain me respect on that plane, and that they didn't want to speak English if they didn't have to. I did my best to listen to their Spanish and try to understand it to the best of my ability and respond in Spanish as best I could.
On Monday we start a week of intensive Italian language learning! CAN'T WAIT!
First of all, I am an idiot and assumed everyone would just speak English to me because they would know I'm American and don't speak their language. WRONG. I can't believe how selfish I was. WHY is it ever fair that someone should have to work twice as hard to understand and speak MY language, when I'm just lazying by not making an effort? English is not their first language, and is certainly not the language they actually want to be speaking. They do it because they have to because Americans travel to their countries without making an effort to understand their language. I figured this out on my flight to Rome. It was on a Spanish airway, and the whole flight, plus all flight attendants, spoke Spanish. Pretty quickly I realized that speaking English wouldn't gain me respect on that plane, and that they didn't want to speak English if they didn't have to. I did my best to listen to their Spanish and try to understand it to the best of my ability and respond in Spanish as best I could.
On Monday we start a week of intensive Italian language learning! CAN'T WAIT!
Comments