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Languages in the EU (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by jennwiththesea@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I'm about to sound like the ignorant American I am, so I apologize in advance! We're looking at a trip to Germany, and possibly Prague, and we've noticed that a lot of the hotel names are French and a couple hotels that aren't named in French have replied to comments with things like "Bonjour! etc etc" What's up with this? Is French just the most commonly spoken common language, even in Germany and Czechia? (I know that Germany and Czechia have their own languages, of course.) Or is it something else?

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[–] EuclidsLemmy@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have been to France in 2000, 2010 and last year, and this last time I was unable to use French with waiters and cashiers in Paris. They realized my French was not exactly fluent and immediately switched to English. Very surprising, but at least in Paris youngish people seemed positively eager to use English instead of French. And the skills were passable, too - generally way better than my French.

[–] Jay@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

The last time I was in France, which was around 2009, everyone answered me in English.

Even though French is my second language.

[–] Redredme@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Large cities, big tourist spots? Yes. Go in land and it's game over. I've been in cajarc (beautiful spot, really!) this year, it's on one of the compostela routes so they get a lot of pelgrims from al over the world. 1 waiter spoke good enough English to have a conversation with. 1.