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From: Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de>
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: French proverb : =?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=9CA?= man who knows two
 languages is worth two =?UTF-8?Q?men=2E=E2=80=9D?= --- is this really a
 French proverb ?
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2024 21:19:29 -0000 (UTC)
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On 2024-06-08, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> wrote:

> At various times I have been in places where my command of the local
> language was somewhere between zero and negligible. That must happen to
> anyone who has done a bit of travelling. How does one deal with this?

Personally, I bulldoze through in English.  That has worked quite
well, but, English-majority countries aside, my travel has admittedly
been limited to major cities and locations of tourism and higher
education.  I would expect poor results when, say, backpacking
through the Andes.

> My own approach is meek. I avoid saying anything at all. Where that is
> not possible, I'll at least make sure to work out how to say "Do you
> speak English or French?" in the local language,

You can shortcut that by simply speaking English (or French) right
away.

> (Special case: I have worked out how to say "I don't speak X" for
> a number of different values of X.)

I once replied "no hablo español" when addressed in Spanish in the
street in Miami, but it's pragmatically weird, since it seems to
be a self-contradictory statement.  Also, if you don't speak the
language, your utterance may well come out unintelligible.

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de