In Finland learning (at least dabbling skill level of) English is required to complete school.
It's amazing the number of online communities I have participated in, for which there is a heavy 'Scandiwegian' presence.
Outside of the so-called-English-speaking-world, I'd suggest that there's something (long, dark, winter evenings? ...and reluctance to
just lazily stay in the saunas/lounge on designer furniture/work on the practical elements of Avian IP/defend against Russian attacks/whatever in summer?) that makes you lot more susceptible to the charms of the web than some other places in the world. Or at least in a sociable way, rather than what people under .cn, .ru and various other infamous iTLDs tend to do with the Internet... (And, no, I haven't forgotten anon.penet.fi...)
And, when it comes to stereotypes, non-native English speakers like yourselves are of course the only people me, a semi-typical monoglot[1] is likely to communicate with are those that added to their linguistic repetoir with my own particular mother-tongue. Albeit that this is practically everyone so described. But, still, I find non-British, non-(USof)American, non-Canadian, non-Australian, non-New Zealandesque/etc English speakers are far better at the lingo than some of the natives of those lands I had just now mentioned as excluded. That's one up for you lot, as a whole, I'd say...
[1] Well, I know some German, and French, amongst some minute and essentially vestigial amount of some other languages[3], but I'm hardly conversationally proficient in either. OK, so I can ask the way to the Zoological Gardens from anywhere else in Berlin[2], or ask where the nearest Imbiss was, or just order food at the Arbeitsamt canteen. Because I worked there for a while, and necessity was a good teacher. But it has faded. The other language I learnt at school, and it didn't hold at the time or get used very much at all in the many years since. You know what I find is a pain with French? Bread. But, anyway...
[2] Actually, back when I needed to do that, I was quite
au fait with the U-Bahn and S-Bahn and a lot of the local road system, fiel danke, so I was probably more likely to be doing the describing for others.
[3] About the only Danish I still remember (and not to spell, and probably neither to pronounce anything like correctly) is Kartoffelmoss. Learnt when I was... 10? 8? Whenever I went over to the original (and, at that time, only) Legoland. Oh, and Pif Paf Puf==Snap Crackle & Pop. Is "Anders And" the Danish as well as...?Swedish? name for Donald? So, as you see, some small bits of it; barely more than the size of a five ore coin (if you'll excuse the lack of suitable accented characters), in real terms. And that's minute!
Author
Topic: If you don't do this, you are unamerican. (Read 24175 times)