Re: French proverb : “A man who knows two languages is worth two men.” --- is this really a French proverb ?

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