If you lived on a border of a country that speaks different languages how is it chosen what language you speak? If you lived on the border do you just learn both languages?

Or is it more if you lived even like 500 meters of a border do you learn the language of the country your in? Do people choose it based on nearest popular city to where they’re at?

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    2 months ago

    Depends heavily on which border, I think. I live in eastern Austria and don’t know any Czech, Slovak or Hungarian despite those countries being within an hour’s drive of where I live. For the most part I expect people in Austria to speak German, I don’t expect people even in border villages of Czechia, Slovakia or Hungary to speak German; if they do, that is a nice surprise.

    Some years ago, in a border village in one of these countries, a child spoke to me in the local language; I tried speaking in German and English, but the child didn’t understand either, I could barely say “I don’t speak (your language)” in that language. Eventually I figured out he was trying to ask me how old I was, and I could show that on my fingers…