Alleviating The Subtle Debt Of Being English-Only-Language In Europe

Let’s face it, speaking English is a little embarrassing because a) no one ever calls it romantic b) it’s the language ScoMo made speeches in and c) it was invented by the English. Jokes about colonisation aside, the time where speaking English feels the most embarrassing is when you are overseas.

If you’ve been around Europe you’ve probably experienced this situation: you walking into a shop or venue, greet the staff in your attempt at their language, they reply to you in English and you gratefully accept the linguistic change as the bit you just said is the only bit you know. Your attempts to live like a local have died, your country’s education system has failed and you swear you’re going to punch that DuoLingo owl square in the beak next time you see him.

It’s a common story. For English only speakers travelling through continental Europe caries a mild debt that goes beyond the euro exchange rate. Often it can feel like all these people have learnt English just so you can butcher the pronunciation of their national dish, you uncultured swine you.

However, there are some ways to alleviate this linguistic debt that simply involve changing your thinking a little bit.

Evidently, some things will always get lost in translation.

Language Education Is Very Political

As a proud survivor of the Australian education system, I can say that across my 13 years of education I learnt the first 500th of three languages; Indonesian, Italian and Japanese. Meanwhile, my friends from all over Europe studied English as a second language the full way throughout all their schooling.

Why didn’t the Australian Department of Education pick one language to teach me and my peers the whole way through? Because how on Earth would they pick just one language for a whole generation to learn? Picking Mandarin would frighten everyone who watches Sunrise, picking Italian would piss off Greek Australians and picking French would probably damage the members of our submarine alliance.

Instead, what’s much easier is teaching Aussie kids a pissy amount of a few languages so you never have to take a stance. Meanwhile, European education systems are defaulting to English for a brilliant and devious reason…

A nice beer but also a funny one to say in English as it sounds like a ‘90s g-funk album.

It Actually Sticks It To The British

Every country thinks they’re the best at everything but Britain is the only one that thinks they’re the best at thinking they’re the best at everything too. The fact that the rest of their former union has to learn another language just for them must make them feel mighty from their towering throne of crumpets.

For more modest English speakers this can create a sense of guilt but don’t worry about that because the rest of Europe learning English is an ingenious way to ensure they can always whinge about the Brits without them ever finding out!

Whether they meet on the aisle or the continent, a rude, drunk or simply bumbling Brit can be openly mocked in a language that the Brit will statistically not know. If we all learnt other languages we’d be depriving the Europeans of this superpower that gives them the biggest power trip over the UK in non Eurovision months.

Don’t you reckon this sounds funny in English? It’s a theme park in a train station I walked past every day in Antwerp. Never stopped being funny.

Europeans Talk To Other Europeans In English

As mentioned before, Europeans with access to a good education system learn English at school whether they like it or not. Part of the reason is so they can communicate with English only speakers but the other reason is so they can speak to other Europeans.

I first realised this when I was in a lovely small bar on de Pratello in Bologna, Northern Italy. Detecting our accents (and awful Italian) the staff spoke to us in English as did a German couple who came in later. When the German couple ordered drinks they ordered in English and were similarly responded to. Likewise, when a Flemish Belgian and a French Belgian meet they will speak to each other in English. At university campuses across Europe, a group of people representing five different languages will wash down their drinks in English, even if none of them are native speakers.

The reason for this comes back to how political language can be and the difficulty of assigning a single one for a generation to learn. While everyone else learning English was a win for the lazy English speaker, it also gives bilingual people the aforementioned secret power without offending the countries they share a border with or the different language groups within their country.

Mostly importantly, they have a language they can all “agree on” meaning they only have to brush up on one language before they road trip their continent.

Didn’t have another funny language picture so here’s a bit of street art I randomly came across that a mate of mine from back in Sydney did.

Some People Like Speaking English

I started this article by poking fun at the language I am allegedly fluent in. Some say it lacks to romance of Spanish, the passion of Italian and the honesty of literally any other European language. With that honesty in mind remember, if the rest of Europe really didn’t want to speak English then they wouldn’t.

People who speak multiple language love the freedom it affords them. They can travel more comfortably, connect with people they otherwise couldn’t and enjoy those brain-tickling little challenges that sudoku and adult colouring in books try hard to replicate.

Part of the reason European hospo workers switch when they hear your accent is because they now have a unique challenge that they will easily manage while proving their country has a better education system than yours.

So don’t feel bad about failing to master an entire language for a three week holiday. The people helping you in Europe learnt English because they needed it for work and to communicate with their neighbours. Yes, you may still feel a little guilty when a group of people are only speaking English because you’re there but remember they have trained their whole life for this moment and that is something we should all be grateful for.

My Belgian friends Chris (left) and Juliette (right). Friendship and beer should always be a universal language.