The Best Comments Of The Month: May 2009 The Universal Language Edition

• 15 years ago

The very active conversation on my post asking, is English the universal language, quickly turned out to be my second highest commented post ever. The entire discussion is a nice, full read but in this special edition of the best comments of the month I’ve pulled some of the best excepts.

• “Yes, one can get by traveling with just English, but if one goes off the beaten tourist path and outside of major cities (even in Europe in countries like Spain, Germany, France, and in South America and Central America) it WILL be “an issue”.” –Soultravelers3 (Reply to this comment)

• “Regardless of how convenient or acceptable English has become, it can never substitute the local language.” –Final_Transit (Reply to this comment)

• “I never said that it isn’t worthwhile to learn another language. I’d personally like to learn Spanish. However, for any non-English speakers, I think it is pretty obvious in the 21st century that English is the other language you should pick up. –Gary Arndt (Reply to this comment)

• “I’m not at all sure that English is a universally understood lingua franca, and I’m not convinced that it should be.” -Bill Chapman (Reply to this comment)

• “You won’t find Spanish or French speakers everywhere, but you will always find someone who either speaks English, knows English literature, or listens to American music. It’s as simple as that.” -Deniz (Reply to this comment)

• “I agree with Soultravelers3, you need more than one language! I know it’s come very useful for me on many occasions.” –Marina K. Villatoro (Reply to this comment)

In case you can’t get enough of this question, you can read and argue (or agree) with my post, why English is the universal language.

[photo by: eye2eye]