Why is Lemmy so US-centric? The largest instances are in Europe, aren't they? So why does it have to be US news trolling as if it were Reddit?
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I made my account so I could block all the "news" /politics , which are mostly US news/politics XD. There is no community for my country here as far as I know, and if there is, and it's anything like it's counterpart on reddit, then also no thanks.
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People are drawn to trainwrecks. The weirdest part of living outside the US is the number of people who still obsess over the US.
Canadian, here. Kind of hard to ignore our giant idiot neighbour to the south.
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The United States is a giant nation in the English language. It comprises of a majority of English as a first language speakers and a large percentage of English speakers overall. American media output is also going to be primarily in English, including local news.
In contrast, a nation like Germany is likely going to speak in German when possible. This likely includes media like news. So, when it comes to news articles, I don't expect English news from Germany to be written in anywhere near the quantity of English news written about California.
I feel like it would be like asking why Portuguese media focuses on Brazil.
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*any of the 10,000 or so regional dialects of india
They know what I am saying, they just want to pull that whole smug PC thing.
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The internet as a whole is pretty US centric
There are however exceptions (for example: china)
And I'm sure that Mandarin Internet media sites are very Sinocentric.
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This is one of my main motivations to learn other languages. The internet is tedious if you only speak English.
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And I'm sure that Mandarin Internet media sites are very Sinocentric.
English is a first language in more countries than Mandarin is, though.
Do wish Yanks would recognise the world as bigger than themselves, the PRC and the USA are shockingly similar.
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While a huge portion of the population chooses not to become fluent in a language, because nearly everything within hundreds of miles of where they live uses the same language by default, we still provide opportunities to learn languages and in some areas people are commonly bilingual.
It can be hard to maintain a language without frequent exposure. I had some classes in Spanish and French, but without a large population that speaks either language in my area I just forgot it over time. Moved tons place where we do have a lot of people who speak Spanish and English, but since I'm not part of their community my exposure is limited to the occasional festival or signage as nobody needs me to impose my attempt to learn their language on them.
It isn't all about refusal, it is mostly lack of exposure.
I actually has another language, but kinda never used it. The Mandarin part of my brain is sort of "inactive" ever since I immigrated to the US, because I mostly like to watch western content, and Chinese drama is way too censored, cliche, and never explores new concepts Most of the stuff is WW2 drama, or its about the distsnt past like the imperial dynasties, its too much cringy romance stuff, has this weird conservative "men strong, woman weak" trope, no LGBT characters, no plot twists because every plot is follows a predictible pattern. I never once seen an accurate portrayal of child abuse. Its always the kid character being portrayed as a psycopath, and they never portray the parents with any sort of blame. So much Filial Piety propaganda in everyday media.
And ever since I had depression, I feel like none of the people in the Chinese-American community (those who were born in China) could even understand what depression is like. Whereas at least those who grew up under a western culture sort of understands what depression is.
I just don't find Mandarin to be very useful, so its kinda a repressed memory now.
I mean, what would communicating with mainland Chinese people even look like? Those nationalists are just gonna call me a "汉奸" (han traitor) merely for the fact that I'm living in the west. Hearing a Chinese language whether it be Cantonese or Mandarin give me PTSD because of how toxic the community is.
I mean, I'm cis, but imagine if I came out as trans or gay (I'm not, I'm saying hypothetically if I were), my parents would tell me to go to the 18th level of hell and my entire extended family would look at me in a weird way. I'm struggling with depression and everyone just assumes I'm being lazy. No fuck off, I don't need your stupid necklace to "protect me from evil spirits", I need my meds. I sort of just expect anyone speaking Cantonese or Mandarin to be extremely conservative.
As for other languages, they tried teaching spanish in middle school and highschool but I didn't retain and memory of most of it. Unless they were taking us on a school trip to Spain or Mexico, its very impractical to learn it. And I do not live in a hispanic nighborhood so its practically impossible to learn. I mean, I couldn't think of a scenario where I ever needed to speak another language. And I already understand enough Cantonese to understand my parents gossipping with other people, I don't really want to have a conversation with them anyways, so no need to expand my vocabulary.
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I am actively working on learning spanish as an American, because I want to be able to speak to people when I go to central and south America.
I have far less interest in learning french or german, because Europe is both expensive to get to for me, and expensive to stay in relative to other places I have equal interest in travelling to. And besides that, if I were to travel to Europe, I've been told that everyone there already speaks english anyway. And besides that, I've been told that even if I try to learn french or german, the locals will just speak to me in English anyway since it is faster for them. Due to this, learning these languages largely becomes an intellectual exercise performed for its own sake. And if I'm going to spend hours doing some sort of intellectual hobby, I could just as easily want to learn to paint or play the guitar or perform statistical analysis on the different varieties of weeds in my back yard.
yeah, broadly speaking, there are two languages spoken on this continent and french is not one of them (désolée Quebec)
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have you set a preferred language? if you do, lemmy filters posts in other languages
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This is one of my main motivations to learn other languages. The internet is tedious if you only speak English.
That's a good point. I've already been tempted to pick up French for weird cartoons like peepoodo, but there's so much Internet I don't see at all because English
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That's a good point. I've already been tempted to pick up French for weird cartoons like peepoodo, but there's so much Internet I don't see at all because English
French is fun!
Well to read at least. I can't speak it worth a damn. Sentences are like a single word.
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I see German content here all the time, even though I don't understand it or follow it.
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Because the Europeans post in their weirdo languages.
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I'd spend time in All and filter out a bunch of US-centric news communities if I was you. I did that with loads of communions I didn't want to see stuff from.
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I see German content here all the time, even though I don't understand it or follow it.
I've blocked so much german.
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wrote last edited by [email protected]
Nice! I was wondering if US or India would be higher and this answers that. I didn't spot that page in time for the previous response.
I should add too, I don't disagree with your point! It is a huge portion of the English speaking population. I was mostly just being pedantic, but also wanting to push back on a statement that could overstate the importance and relative size of the US.
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English is a first language in more countries than Mandarin is, though.
Do wish Yanks would recognise the world as bigger than themselves, the PRC and the USA are shockingly similar.
If you compare English as a first language, the USA is still over a majority. There is a reason why most other English-speaking nations have some subsidy for local media.
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I am Canadian at heart
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Canadian, here. Kind of hard to ignore our giant idiot neighbour to the south.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I mean I feel like Canada is a given. The reference in my mind was China.
I guess in retrospect, people in China obsess over the US about as much as Americans obsess over whatever China does, so in that context maybe it's just superpower rivalry.
But it is something when you go to other countries like Mongolia where people don't generally know English, yet you walk into a random shop and they're still playing Taylor Swift over the radio, and the first question asked when people learn you're American is what you think about Trump.
