[delis-thumbs-7e]

I do typos and grammar mistakes in four languages (only two of them fluently) and it’s pretty easy to learn basic vocabulary, read a bit of a comic book and order coffee with a thick accent. A lot of “polyglots” who can do basic phrases in 11 languages and make videos about it on YouTube. There’s people who genuinely speak plenty of languages fluently, but they are quite humble about it. Reaching B1 after completing A2 is 200-300h of study, preferably in a class. That’s a lot for a working adult with a family.

However, there is plenty of people who think that they speak a language because they can order a coffee in some language close to theirs and have never lived in a foreign country for any extended period of time, ie. don’t know what they are talking about, and arguing from the position of complete ignorance say “just learn the language”.

The idea that there’s one country with one language is very recent actually, part of the nationalistic idealism of 19th Century. Most of the history, as it is still today, any nation is a mishmash of cultures, languages, dialects of various kinds and origins, there of course always being some official one (used to be Latin, then French, now it’s TikTok-memes). The fact that pur systems cannot facilitate that multitude is a shame and I believe those systems that can will succeed.