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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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
The good thing about English is that it's a slut. So many words and terms come from other languages that it's easy to have a basic word base to start with from other languages. As easy as some Americans dismiss Spanish influence, it's hard to not have at least some kind of understanding of at least some words. And being a Latin language, it's not that hard to grow from there. Hell, even the warnings and manuals for equipment will accidentally give you exposure as you look for the english version. Hablamos por uno ràzon. Broken ass Spanish, but it gets the point across.
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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.
You have to be a bit careful, because some people deliberately talk in wrong German ("Zangendeutsch", where words are translated from English by "force").
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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.
The good news is German has consistent pronunciation so it's easy to learn that part
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Whats the latest word you've learned?
Probably eisbrecher, honestly. Because it started coming up on a Rammstein playlist. Which is cool because it gives me the base for ice and breaker, making it that much easier for me to pick up on other words in context, that I may have missed otherwise. Even moreso because I read so much climate news, which is important to me as the US dwindles in climate research, I hope to learn more French and German. I just wish I could learn my grandparents native languages of Norwegian and swedish. Those are much harder for me, even though I've actually put effort into those. It just doesn't come as easy to me.
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Because the Europeans post in their weirdo languages.
Squomp, squendled scruinion.
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I checked the news in the biggest newspaper in sweden, and there's this story about a bus that scraped the roof while driving under a bridge. Must have been scary for the passengers. Luckily it wasn't going that fast. And there's a list of schools where you actually get paid to study so you don't need student loans.
That's awesome that that's the worst news from there. And I love Sweden and Norway as that's where my family originated from. What I wouldn't give to have been born in either of those countries. Unfortunately I'm one generation out of being able to easily go back.
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You have to be a bit careful, because some people deliberately talk in wrong German ("Zangendeutsch", where words are translated from English by "force").
That makes sense, like learning English from Internet memes?
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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.
... but that's not as dramatic as the fall of arguably the most hated country in the world
Easy there, lets not forget Israel. America is maybe right behind them though.
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... but that's not as dramatic as the fall of arguably the most hated country in the world
Easy there, lets not forget Israel. America is maybe right behind them though.
That's why that key word, "arguably" is there. Russia is also working for that title.
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why does it matter so much? when war in Ukraine broke out nobody but the fascists complained.
I have never seen anyone complain about news in Europe take over, so why does it bother you so much?
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More budget for propaganda.
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I think only Americans like announcing they are Americans. Working with tourists in Europe spotting Americans was easy because the first thing they would say is "hello, I'm from America", or "I'm from Califooornia"
Never had this happen with any other nationality.
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That makes sense, like learning English from Internet memes?
Even worse, English memes usually aren't as bad regarding the creation of new words.
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Not in my experience. If you don't want to see politics there is a robust blocking system on Connect (and other apps I'm sure) that you can use.
Alright lemme just block every community brb
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Presumably you're browsing english-language Lemmy
Most people are going to want to converse in their native/primary language, and by numbers that means a lot of Americans who are, of course, primarily concerned with American issues
There's also the fact that America is a huge player on the international stage, so American issues can have a lot of repercussions in other countries
And if you haven't noticed, America has kind of a lot of shit going on and there is a lot to talk about there.
Well said!
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I checked the news in the biggest newspaper in sweden, and there's this story about a bus that scraped the roof while driving under a bridge. Must have been scary for the passengers. Luckily it wasn't going that fast. And there's a list of schools where you actually get paid to study so you don't need student loans.
For Norway a good chunk of the news on our state-run newspaper is related to the US as well. Especially the recent Epstein stuff
Other than that it's Israel/Palestine, Ukraine/Russia, some other international news, sports, the current heatwave, a little about nature, a little about new infrastructure projects, a news story about hate speech, and a couple other misc stories
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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.
i did that too, since they start banning for some misconstrued comments.
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I think only Americans like announcing they are Americans. Working with tourists in Europe spotting Americans was easy because the first thing they would say is "hello, I'm from America", or "I'm from Califooornia"
Never had this happen with any other nationality.
I need to change that. From now on I'll loudly announce I'm from Earth
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Because Americans take over platforms and force them to obey American rules while pretending to be neutral. For example, LemmyWorld touts itself as an instance for everyone which is hosted in Europe.
But its /News and /Politics community discourse is forcefully limited to the USA. This is incredibly weird if you stop to think about it for a second.
Imagine if .ml had a /Politics community where the only allowed politics was China. And an unreliable biased Chinese website was to grade sources a credible, instead of the unreliable American MBFC website. Nobody would think that would be normal. But do the same thing for America and everything is fine.
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I need to change that. From now on I'll loudly announce I'm from Earth
I think its because how people speak in movies, americans speak like a script writer
