I believe we come from very different perspectives. Your mother tongue allows you to speak more or less with everyone everywhere (of course with exceptions), you probably watch or listen almost everything in your language. You don’t feel the urge to learn a second language because actually you don’t need it.
I have 1 mother tongue that almost nobody speaks, I learnt other 2 languages in order to be able to communicate outside my country and to be able to understand everything I see and read elsewhere. Thus, it is more than usual for me to have contamination from different languages and to hear foreign languages on a daily basis.
Needless to say, English is the most used: cinema, tv shows, music, the biggest chunk of pop mass production in the area of entertainment comes from the US and from the UK.
With such premise, it is very easy that foreign words or expressions find a way in the national language. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing as such, but you are not closer to learning any Spanish if you say “margarita y churros” or English if you use a random word while speaking in your language.
What I can see in Italy is this tendency to abuse of English (even misusing the meaning of the words) when we have perfectly functional words or sometimes translation since forever. I’m not saying that we need absolutely to find a translation for “gamer” or “streamer” which are neologism coming from the US, but there are so many words that do not need the abuse of English. This tendency, in my view, is very sad, because often you hear people speaking 80% Italian, 20% random English words and overall it sounds so poor, so stupid, that it would be best to avoid.
Finally, Italian, as French, is a very complex language that require many nuances and long sentences, it’s completely opposite to English which is more direct, snappier and straight to the point.
The way we speak equals the way we think, and I believe that the tendency to oversimplify the use of a language that it’s not simple by nature is also changing the way people think in a more superficial way.
You might very much be onto something with regards to the lack of “needing” to learn another language from a place like the US being its own excuse. Truly needing to learn or be completely left behind (depending on the situation) is a very powerful motivator. My use of random things is sure to be no different than the folks you know for sure. Some is just because maybe a word from somewhere else in the world just sounds better to me (though I try to use them correctly). I will say that I imagine that the youth and the next generations that have such easy access to different ways to learn language might be a game changer. It would’ve been great to have super easy access to stuff like Duolingo when I was a child. The simple difference in just how a sentence is constructed in different languages does give an insight into how people think (or even explain why to a non-speaker folks from other places are no nonsense or super expressive). Which is very very helpful in building both relationships and real understanding. Also for what it is worth, I do tend to go with original languages of the media I am at least watching (dubbed over voice acting quality has definitely gotten much better but still “feels” wrong in most cases for me). The only times I tend to go with English dubs are normally due to needing to multitask or if my ADD is making focusing hard. Sometimes a dub that is done well might have me re-watching stuff just to see how things are presented differently. Having random interactions like this comment and reply also help me have a better understanding of the world. So many things are just catered to the US and leads to arrogance on our part. Just going through life thinking that we (US citizens) are “correct” about things. When the reality is that we just don’t care to understand. Especially re-enforced by our “America is the greatest nation in the world” indoctrination from our right-wing and centrist politics. We are seeing a rise in the drive to “whitewash” history and to keep forgetting all the times we have been both wrong and the creators of suffering (both metaphorical and literal).
I believe we come from very different perspectives. Your mother tongue allows you to speak more or less with everyone everywhere (of course with exceptions), you probably watch or listen almost everything in your language. You don’t feel the urge to learn a second language because actually you don’t need it. I have 1 mother tongue that almost nobody speaks, I learnt other 2 languages in order to be able to communicate outside my country and to be able to understand everything I see and read elsewhere. Thus, it is more than usual for me to have contamination from different languages and to hear foreign languages on a daily basis. Needless to say, English is the most used: cinema, tv shows, music, the biggest chunk of pop mass production in the area of entertainment comes from the US and from the UK. With such premise, it is very easy that foreign words or expressions find a way in the national language. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing as such, but you are not closer to learning any Spanish if you say “margarita y churros” or English if you use a random word while speaking in your language. What I can see in Italy is this tendency to abuse of English (even misusing the meaning of the words) when we have perfectly functional words or sometimes translation since forever. I’m not saying that we need absolutely to find a translation for “gamer” or “streamer” which are neologism coming from the US, but there are so many words that do not need the abuse of English. This tendency, in my view, is very sad, because often you hear people speaking 80% Italian, 20% random English words and overall it sounds so poor, so stupid, that it would be best to avoid. Finally, Italian, as French, is a very complex language that require many nuances and long sentences, it’s completely opposite to English which is more direct, snappier and straight to the point. The way we speak equals the way we think, and I believe that the tendency to oversimplify the use of a language that it’s not simple by nature is also changing the way people think in a more superficial way.
You might very much be onto something with regards to the lack of “needing” to learn another language from a place like the US being its own excuse. Truly needing to learn or be completely left behind (depending on the situation) is a very powerful motivator. My use of random things is sure to be no different than the folks you know for sure. Some is just because maybe a word from somewhere else in the world just sounds better to me (though I try to use them correctly). I will say that I imagine that the youth and the next generations that have such easy access to different ways to learn language might be a game changer. It would’ve been great to have super easy access to stuff like Duolingo when I was a child. The simple difference in just how a sentence is constructed in different languages does give an insight into how people think (or even explain why to a non-speaker folks from other places are no nonsense or super expressive). Which is very very helpful in building both relationships and real understanding. Also for what it is worth, I do tend to go with original languages of the media I am at least watching (dubbed over voice acting quality has definitely gotten much better but still “feels” wrong in most cases for me). The only times I tend to go with English dubs are normally due to needing to multitask or if my ADD is making focusing hard. Sometimes a dub that is done well might have me re-watching stuff just to see how things are presented differently. Having random interactions like this comment and reply also help me have a better understanding of the world. So many things are just catered to the US and leads to arrogance on our part. Just going through life thinking that we (US citizens) are “correct” about things. When the reality is that we just don’t care to understand. Especially re-enforced by our “America is the greatest nation in the world” indoctrination from our right-wing and centrist politics. We are seeing a rise in the drive to “whitewash” history and to keep forgetting all the times we have been both wrong and the creators of suffering (both metaphorical and literal).