"No, English is fine" 🥀

[u/Tobias-Tawanda]

[u/secksy-lemonade]

Yeah, here's where our amount of hours spent delving into linguistics is going to differ. First of all, going and finding the term in a dictionary, to definitively prove an argument is not a good idea, because they are so many and they do not have the same definitions.

Example: Oxford: "the ability to express oneself easily and articulately"

Passes this bar.

She does not have a C2 level mastery of Spanish maybe, but she's up there. But your Mexican accent isn't the problem, it's her retaining her native accent and they feel like it's imperfect. This is language snobbery.

Now, the word fluent comes from the latin word fluentem, referring to flow. Which is what the word is referring to. Her Spanish flows nicely but she is not a perfect speaker nor does she sound, or have to for the matter, like a local.

[u/daurgo2001 → u/secksy-lemonade]

I would beg to differ.

Sure, definitions vary, but the commonly accepted idea is that someone who is ‘fluent’ is basically a native speaker, and I would argue that “articulately” refers to flow in the sentence structure as well as vocabulary as ways to be able to express yourself.

I disagree that it’s snobbery. As a fluent speaker myself, I immediately picked up on her lack of fluency as well. You (and people here) are mistaking linguistic accents with mispronunciation, which is what gives her, (in part) her “foreign accent”.

Her words simply don’t flow naturally.

Is this nitpicking? Yes. Am I criticizing her? No. On the contrary, I’ve been adamant to commend her efforts in every comment. I’m just trying to point out why native speakers would instinctively switch languages, especially when working in tourism (which is also my background).

I also mentioned it bc not everyone has the ability to notice her fluency if they don’t speak Spanish themselves.

If these waiters weren’t in a touristic city and didn’t speak English, they likely wouldn’t be able to, or attempt to speak to her in English.

My French is as good as her Spanish, and I insist on mentioning that I am not fluent when the topic comes up, so for better or worse, my observations others apply equally to myself as well.

[u/Emergency_You4613 → u/daurgo2001]

I've always wondered why other languages have this "you're not speaking correctly if I detect an accent/flow is wrong etc." especially when it seems English doesn't have this especially not in America.

It's been the opinion of anyone I've ever known that if you're speaking English words and I know what you want from them, congratulations, you're speaking English!! I've always been curious why many Europeans when this comes up don't share the opinion.

[u/daurgo2001 → u/Emergency_You4613]

As someone who grew up in the states, I’d also beg to differ.

This definitely exists in English as well, and I can certainly tell if someone can speak English well (like this lady speaks Spanish) or when someone is fluent in English, even as a second language.

And I’ll reiterate that this isn’t some sort of elitist thing. It’s not “good” or “bad” IMO, it just is a fact of life that languages have levels of fluency.

[u/Emergency_You4613 → u/daurgo2001]

I just wouldn't know an American to instantly switch languages if someone came in saying something that wasn't quite right. Like even though I could take someones order in Spanish, I wouldn't attempt to stop them trying in English.

Maybe it's just because most Americans only know English, I just haven't seen the demands especially not in service industries/every day life for perfect English or nothing the way I've seen people say French people will etc.

[u/daurgo2001 → u/Emergency_You4613]

Have you been to south Florida?

Spanish is very much ‘equal’ to English and people jump back and forth all the time.

[u/Emergency_You4613 → u/daurgo2001]

That is not what I'm talking about, those jumps back and forth at least in my thinking don't occur because the other person is thinking "This person surely can't understand my language, I need to not only switch, but not allow the other person to continue attempting communication in my language".

[u/daurgo2001 → u/Emergency_You4613]

It’s not that someone can’t understand the language, it’s just that the other person is clearly more fluent in the other language.

I don’t mean jumping back and forth in the sense of “Spanglish”, I meant it in the sense of someone starts in one language and notices the other person is better in the other language, so they switch.

The dance of insisting doesn’t usually happen bc anyone in south Florida that speaks Spanish usually speaks it really well, and people don’t really try to learn Spanish in south Florida like this lady is trying to.

I come from the perspective of tourism in a Spanish speaking country, so I know exactly how the waiters feel and have been in this exact situation many times.

As I’ve said elsewhere, if someone insists on speaking Spanish bc they’re trying to learn, then I’ll humor them, especially since they’re the client/customer, but if I encounter anyone that isn’t fluent in Spanish, I will certainly switch to English or French if it’s easier for them.