If I could only learn one additional language, and I wanted to travel the world, what language would serve me best other than English or Spanish?

  • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    8 days ago

    I’ve only been fortunate enough to travel abroad once before, but my experience had nothing like what you’re worried about. The worst that happened was almost getting scammed at the airport, which is something you’ll have to worry about in imperial core countries too. People were either kind or neutral to our presence.

    to me; all of the cultures that speak both languages belong to the same hegemony as the american empire

    Ummm perhaps do not tell Central/South Americans this while visiting their country, lol.

    • eldavi@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      7 days ago

      central and south american history was and is defined by american political intervention/interference in a similar manner to western europe in the decades following world war 2; it’s literally the reason why we have things like panama and reaggeton and why life sucks real bad for people right now in venezuela, cuba and haiti. (none of the governments in those countries are complying with the american empire’s will so they’re being punished for it with embargoes & sanctions and their people pay the price).

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        7 days ago

        I’m just telling you it’s a bad idea to go tell a Mexican or Brazilian or anyone else not in the US or Canada that they’re part of the US hegemony ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don’t think they’d love being told by a tourist what the US did to their countries.

        • eldavi@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          7 days ago

          i’m aware of this and i bring it up as an example of the concerns i’ve shared of trying of traveling outside of the imperial core for me.

          neuro-divergence awareness within the imperial core is weak at best like it is with my other niche lgbtq identities and it’s virtually non-existent in latin america. i’ve literally have bad experiences over the the decades caused by my neuro-divergence and had to rely on my ability to speak spanish to explain that i meant no offense. i’ve learned to leverage the entitled/clueless-american-tourist stereotype to “social butterfly” myself out of situations that my faux pas created and i can’t do the same thing in french, or vietnames, or thai, or russian, etc.