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 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.
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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.
It took a long time before I started actively filtering. My current feed is mostly what I'm asking for, at this point.
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I've blocked so much german.
wrote last edited by [email protected]It’s either that or learn German and I’m way too busy scrolling for that.
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Most of us came from Reddit, and Reddit is predominantly Americans.
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Because it's the most newsworthy country at the moment. The most powerful country in the world is crashing before your eyes, whilst the rest of the world mostly continues on as it was. Yeah, some noteworthy things are happening all over the world, but that's not as dramatic as the fall of arguably the most hated country in the world. And everything from genocide to climate change, disease and general suffering can be at least tangentially related to the disaster that is the US and it's administration. I mean, what noteworthy things are there to chide Sweden for? Anything? Is it comparible to the horrors and despair that the US is causing? There's your answer.
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Everyone slows down to watch the car wreck.
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Most of us came from Reddit, and Reddit is predominantly Americans.
and unfortunately a lot of people don't want to leave the reddit behind
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and unfortunately a lot of people don't want to leave the reddit behind
If they’re that addicted to reddit’s way of doing things they can stay.
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It’s either that or learn German and I’m way too busy scrolling for that.
I've accidentally learned a good amount of German from lemmy, actually. I didnt mean to, but from similar words, to looking up Rammstein lyrics, I had a base. From that base, and context, I'm actually learning a good bit of German without intention. Sometimes I read a German headline and it takes me a second to realize I'm reading German. I come across a word I don't know and I'm like "oh shit, I'm reading German". It's honestly been my favorite part of lemmy, I struggled with Spanish in a classroom setting and here I am learning German on accident. Granted, I couldn't pretend to know how to pronounce half of it, but I'm learning to read it.
