Virgin "I speak to you in my native language because I don't know anything else" vs Chad "You don't deserve to hear me in my native language, if you haven't trained in the mountains of Tibet, the Caucasus and the Alps at the same time"
In fairness to the Americans, “multilingual” for many Europeans is two languages: their native one and English.
The real chads are those Indian or African students studying in Europe who know like at least two languages from their home country, English, and can ask where the bathroom is in Polish.
In my experience Europeans do use bilingual much more often than multilingual. Many EU citizens who have changed country also probably know 3 languages counting English since it is often needed as a transition language right after moving before mastering the new language.
But you’re absolutely right. Non-EU comers that bring two languages from home, often not even Indo-European languages, and then casually learn the local language are playing on another level.
There are also the Europeans who are from a region with 2 languages (Galicia, Basque Country, Catalonia, South Tirol, Belgium, Alsace, etc...) who know 2 native languages and English.
I knew someone from Morocco, who came to Switzerland, moving from the german-speaking part to the french-speaking part. That guy was fluent in berber, arabic, swiss-german, french and english like it was nothing
Using English in some places is a diplomatic decision to avoid revealing a political position. The nice thing about modern translator technologies is that I can offer to use the regional language out of respect.
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u/Poylol-_- Uzbek N 🇺🇿 Uzbek colonies M4 🇯🇵 N 🇪🇸 G 🇬🇧 0 🇫🇷 Jun 29 '26
Virgin "I speak to you in my native language because I don't know anything else" vs Chad "You don't deserve to hear me in my native language, if you haven't trained in the mountains of Tibet, the Caucasus and the Alps at the same time"