Went to a pub in Reykjavik.

English Brother-in-law had finally decided to learn the language after like 15 years of living there. Had just about learned enough to order the drinks and have a basic conversation.

He orders slowly. The barman looks increasingly perplexed. He finishes and looks up, proud of his first real test of Icelandic.

“Sorry mate, I dunno what you’re saying” says the barman in a thick Australian accent.

Honestly, just try English. Most small European countries speak it better than we do.

Any attempt by a foreigner to speak “cúpla focail” (a few words) of Irish to me has been incredibly well received. It’s usually Americans actually and their pronunciation is terrible, because Irish sounds nothing like it’s spelled when compared to the usual latin alphabet sounds, but fair fucks to them. I appreciate it very much.

I once tried to order some drinks in a noisy bar in France. I thought I was explaining it ok but was not being understood by the girl behind the bar. It got really awkward and was making me seriously question my French (I’m English). Eventually it turned out that she was Irish and had equal but opposite holes in her own French. We had a good laugh about it and spoke in English thereafter.

Had she been Scottish tho we probably would have still been better off speaking in French.

Dutch people’s reaction is probably more of a combination of blue and pink (“Congrats, that’s cute, but why’d you put yourself through this? We can just speak English”), but most people will actually appreciate the effort and go through with speaking in Dutch if you insist.

The Spaniards like that?

I remember one time I was at a resort in Mexico and I asked reddit how service workers feel when foreign guests start speaking their language. Don’t remember what the hive mind said.

All I know is I asked for my drinks muy fuerte and I didn’t feel anything until I switched to cerveza. I watched them pour, I’m pretty sure the booze was watered down.

French is too generalised, in my experience.

Paris, they’ll pretend they don’t understand neither your English nor your 100 words of French.

Towns in the country, you meet indifferent professionalism and you kinda get by in English.

Rural areas, you encounter the greatest of enthusiasm for your knowledge of the local language, and just as well, because those 100 words are all you can rely on for the entire duration of your stay.

True, kinda. But every foreigner I met who is not Russian learns at least some conversational Lithuanian really quickly.

Ive traveled to all those areas to one extent or another and I’ve never seen a more accurate joke meme in my life.

Este atat de tare cand gasesc o persoana ce vorbeste romana pe internet.

Think you miscolored Iceland, pretty sure most natives fall under the “Wait you learned a single word of Icelandic? You’re pretty cool for a tourist…”

Why Brits are grey?

My experience in Germany is quite the oposit, they don’t wanna talk in english and will entretain your broken german unless they literally can’t unterstand you.

Even in the street I am approached in german and “I do not look german” at all.

As an American who learned German, this is very accurate for the krautistanis.

Ive heard from a few different tourists who went to places like Italy and South and Centeral American countries, and aparently often times people there want to practice their english which can cause quite the funny scene where you’re both speaking each others language poorly at one another.

I never understood the “ugh you’re trying to speak my language, I don’t feel like listening to you butcher it” that some countries get.

Like every time a coworker bitches about how they can’t understand a warehouse worker because of their heavy accent, the fuck do you expect them to do, not try to talk at all? (the real answer is usually “hurrrr go back tuh where dey came frum”) but you’re gonna sit there, butchering the language you use every single day by the way you speak and how you spell, while they’re in a country they likely did not grow up in, and are learning the language still. If they don’t converse, they have a harder time improving. If you truly cared about understanding them, you would talk to them more.

Anecdote time: one of the forklift drivers was fairly new when I started last year. She’s a social butterfly. Comes over to ask how we’re all doing, asks how my wife is, how coworkers kids are, how our weeks are going. She moved here from Puerto Rico, and barely has an accent anymore. It’s definitely there and you can place it, but 0 problem understanding every word.

A couple guys started just after I did, and they stand around the compactor all day where it’s too noisy to talk, and nobody voluntarily goes near. They still have very broken speech and heavy accents. They’ve been going out to clean things recently so I try to strike up conversations but they don’t seem too social when they’re working.

I have no way of knowing what these people do outside of work, but if inside is any indicator, being social and talking goes a long way to improving speech in any given language.

So maybe don’t go “that’s cute. Stop trying.” instead go “hey cool, but if you’re up for some constructive criticism…” and be helpful. Or shut the fuck up.