Unpopular opinions thread.

Welp you guys are mean... You took it too far, and I DO know how to speak English for your information.....I'm a French CANADIAN, of COURSE I speak French :/

If I insulted you then I'm sorry, but it's still my opinion :P
The point is that I have met way to many Fench, Russian and Spanish people that just refuse to talk English to me. If many Dutch people would do that to do I would be surprised if you still liked Dutch people.

I also meant the KnorneELF guy

I nominate this for best post, 2014.

Come on, you know, that's true. It's the same with the wars: France really think they've won any of them (but for sure it were in both WW Britain (+Commonwealth) + the USA who won). Same for their language: They think, that French is THE world language. But only 0,23 billion people speak it world wide (1., 2. or 3. language). English is spoken by 2,13 billion people. That's why I make fun of them. Big Ego, small success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0yxfVFDD-0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUrezmW1EPI

I'm German and I speak 5 languages. Because I live in the 21th century and I know, that German isn't #1 world language.

English isn't the number 1 language either genius. Hell, if you wanna put it that way, English speakers should learn how to speak Spanish properly because the Spanish speaking population is bigger than the English one. So are English speakers ignorant for not learning how to properly speak Spanish?

Buddy, I made my Dr. in it.

But, just to show you (all speakers, not only natives):

1. English: 2,130 billion speakers
2. Mandarin: 1,026 billion speakers
3. Spanish: 0,528 billion speakers
4. Hindi + Urdu: 0,484 billion speakers
5. Arabic: 0,353 billion speakers
6. Russian: 0,272 billion speakers
7. French: 0,230 billion speakers
8. Portugese: 0,217 billion speakers
9. Malay + Indonesian: 0,176 billion speakers
10. Persian: 0,150 billion speakers

You should calm down your national ego. And, just to tell you: I speak German, English, Spanish, Danish and some Russian. But: In the web I speak the number 1, not the number 3 or the number 6. Why? Because I want people to understand me.

Read it: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=YgtSqB9oqDIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

And, if you like Wikipedia (I don't, because their sources suck most of the time): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_language

Alot of people simply prefer to speak their national language. Learning other languages - let alone fluently - is pretty difficult to both do and maintain. I'm English myself and only speak fluent English, but I don't expect people from other nations to cater to my language even if alot of people speak it.

I actually lived in Bulgaria for 9 months and in the area I lived in [Nessebar, near Sunny Beach, a major tourist attraction] the Bulgarians only tried to speak English during the summer months. In Winter they all just spoke Bulgarian and made a point of refusing to speak English for the most part.

Khorn it's great that you're fluent in so many languages - it's incredibly rare and very useful I'm sure. But not everyone can pick up another language so easily. And of those that can, they shouldn't have to be forced to speak a single language for the sake of anyone. People are allowed to choose whichever language they want to speak, even if it isn't the most theoretically practical language.

The only real exception is if they move to another country permanently - in which case I would expect them to attempt to learn the national language for the sake of efficiency and fitting in. But even then it's still their choice at the end of the day. It doesn't matter what their justification is, as it isn't our business anyway and they don't have to justify it.

Your sources, unlike you who has presented none, I have 2:
http://www.alsintl.com/blog/most-common-languages/
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0775272.html
Please don't come to a debate with information that is easily contradicted with a quick Google search. . Also, can I say you have a big ego as well? A lot of historians agree that English is a west Germanic dialect. So please come back with a couple of sources and no ad hominem attacks. Then I might take you seriously.

EDIT: Just saw your source. Couldn't find publication date on the book, so had to look at other websites citating it. 1998. Are you seriously presenting evidence of an exponentially increasing world population from a 17 year old book?