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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • OP: You haven’t given any positive rationale- this sounds like idealism

    My counterpoints:

    I live in the UK. I can get to several other European countries in time to have lunch there and be back home for supper. I have visited several of these countries. In each case I have attempted to speak the local language (I studied French at (high) school for 5 years). In each case, as soon as I open my mouth, locals respond in English with apologies that their English isn’t perfect (it’s usually fine anyway). As a result it is almost impossible to improve in that language since there is little opportunity.

    You are forgetting the ‘common language’ problem: Let’s say you have parties from 2 different countries or states that speak completely different languages. What language do you choose for communications between them? one-on-one you might take turns but what happens when you have 3? 4? or maybe 20-50 like India? What language do you suppose Poland and China communicate in? What language do you use to cover news in science and technology? The other trade languages have largely lost out to English on the world stage.


  • Are you able to provide an example as to how greater complexity makes it easier

    Edit: Thanks for the explanations. I get that multiple languages use gendered nouns to mean something that is clearly not ‘gender’ in the biological sense but key to understanding context. Seems strange as an English speaker where noun gender is vestigial if it even exists at all and even then it doesn’t matter if someone gets it wrong