Remix.run Logo
stevage 11 hours ago

It's really not too much to expect a train going to the airport to make important announcements in English.

trinix912 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Where I live the bus drivers that drive the bus from the capital to the airport barely speak the local language, let alone English.

stevage 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Where I live the airport bus plays a prerecorded message. It's pretty obnoxious.

nephihaha 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

sho_hn 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's still an expectation I have, even as a native German speaker. I work for a well-known German company (our storefronts are sometimes called "the German embassy"), and our day-to-day business language at work is ... English. We hire from all over and want people to be able to get around effectively. This is infrastructure. Make it work.

Yizahi 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Шановні пасажири, цей потяг який слідує від станції Івано-Франківськ Головний через Житомир до станції Київ-Дарниця буде розділено дві частини, вагони з першого по п'ятнадцятий прослідують до станції Київ-Головний, а вагони з шістнадцятого по двадцять перший поїдуть у пекло, муахаха. Дякую за вашу увагу.

nephihaha 7 hours ago | parent [-]

To be fair, I'm sure the USSR insisted on Russian language announcements in the Ukraine. Look how that turned out... Language war in the east.

If I went to the Ukraine, I would either pick up some Ukrainian or take some who did.

Yizahi 6 hours ago | parent [-]

English is much more diffuse around the globe and can't be attributed to a single empire. There is no risk in dubbing in English and many benefits, from encouraging tourists and workers.

Also people are forgetting that railway announcements both at the station and inside the carriage are usually a complete incomprehensible trash tier. I honestly can't decipher half of the words in the Ukrainian or Russian announcements. Imagine needing to do that in the foreign language.

In my opinion it is way past time that EU has officially adopted English as a standard language for all communications. Especially with the crazies preparing for invasion right at the border.

xenocratus 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Nu sunt englez, așa cã n-o sã-ți rãspund în englezã.

nephihaha 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Ceart gu leòr. Chan eil Romainis agam. :)

rplnt 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Honestly, it should be an obligation. DB should make it one for themselves. DB carries millions of people a year that do not speak the language. Important information like route changes should be available to them. English just happens to be the most likely language to be understood at least enough to ask staff/other passengers as to what is going on.

nephihaha 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm a native English speaker. It is not their obligation to provide everything in English. It is arrogant for someone like me to presume it should be.

modo_mario 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If preventing people that struggle with the local language from getting confused or missing stuff is the goal then they're likely better off doing it in Turkish or Arab.

prmoustache 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not being under any obligation doesn't mean it is not a sensible a courteous way to do. You like it or not, english has become a defacto common international language.

While I speak 5 languages and try to learn some basic words of the local languages of any country I visit out of courtesy (how to say hello, bye, thank you, ask where are the toilets, etc), I wouldn't expect any traveller to know enough to understand this kind of specificities in any country they visit.

encom 10 hours ago | parent [-]

>common international language

Not nearly as much as people on the internet seem to think. In large parts of Europe, speaking english will get you absolutely nowhere.

prmoustache 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Near international airports and capitals usually yes you can usually get help in english accross europe, at least enough to get basic help and instructions.

whstl 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I mean, whenever the Deutsche Bahn is involved, in large parts of Germany speaking German will also get you absolutely nowhere...

umanwizard 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Of course they’re under no obligation to do so. In fact, they’re under no obligation to let in foreign tourists at all, or to not make their lives arbitrarily hard in various ways. But not being obligated to not be a dick doesn’t mean you should in fact be one.

nephihaha 6 hours ago | parent [-]

They aren't though. That's the point. English speakers are determined to force their language on everyone else. I've seen it abroad on many occasions. It is often painful to watch. Sometimes they even make fun of the person for speaking poor English.

You're also assuming the tourists themselves are all fluent in English, which is another issue. In some parts of Germany, many of their tourists are likely to speak French or Polish as a primary language, not to mention Mandarin etc from further afield.

11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
manarth 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And French, as Germany is adjacent to France.

There are train connections to Scandinavia, so let's add Swedish, Danish and Finnish.

Also Dutch and Polish to accommodate the other adjacent countries.

sho_hn 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is the sort of immature "well, actually" response that you can't afford anymore once you actually take responsibility for things. I wish more people trained themselves to have a "what if I had to do it" habit before having an opinion.

Imagine you're in charge of the train network. You have to pay for the announcements on trains. You can't reasonanbly pay 10 announcements because that's silly and expensive. If you add any language other than German, which are you going to add?

It's not hard to be pragmatic.

manarth 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Pragmatic is multiple languages in locations where it's highly relevant.

For example, the UK Gatwick Express train makes announcements in English, French, German and Spanish.

The Thameslink service (which also happens to travel on the same tracks and also happens to stop at Gatwick Airport) makes announcements in English only.

I wouldn't expect local or regional trains in Europe to make announcements other than in that country's native language – except perhaps where it's a service designed for airport connections or similar international travel.

modo_mario 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>If you add any language other than German, which are you going to add?

Given the demographics? Turkish or arab

wasmitnetzen 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Cheap strawman. Travelling Swedes, Danes, Finns and Poles will be fine with English, Dutch with either/both English or German.

manarth 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Mostly fair, I really appreciate the grasp that almost all Scandinavians have on English.

Don't forget French though! I wouldn't make the assumption that travelling French people would have enough grasp of English or German to understand the announcements.

My comment is mostly a poke at the two assumptions: that non-English speaking countries should universally support English-speaking travellers, and that English is the predominant (and only other) language which should be supported.

jakewins 10 hours ago | parent [-]

I’m baffled that any other language would be considered - the only language that comes close to English in number of speakers is Mandarin, and Mandarin has nearly half a billion fewer speakers than English.

We should be happy there is a language that has emerged for people to communicate globally without borders, and support it’s role as the worlds second language rather than work to re-fracture how people communicate

manarth 10 hours ago | parent [-]

    > "I’m baffled that any other language would be considered"
There are direct trains between French and German cities, where additional announcements in French may be appropriate (and perhaps also English).

For local/regional trains, I wouldn't expect any language other than German.

nehalem501 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I would say that for long distance trains only English and the local language should be enough.

For international trains, we should have all languages of all traversed countries and English. So for example a train from Paris to Frankfurt should have announcements in French, German and English (and it is actually the case for that train, I already rode it).

But for example, the Berlin - Warsaw train has only English announcements besides the local language depending on the country the train is in (so no Polish when it is in Germany, and no German when it is in Poland), I consider this to be wrong. It should have announcements in Polish, German and English for the whole route.

stevage 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Agree with your last point. That's a weird choice. At least the stops either side of the border are guaranteed to have people who natively speak the other language.

I seem to recall lines in Belgium that do announcements is 4 languages: french, Flemish, German, and English.

jakewins 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I take trains like those for work, not to France but to Amsterdam, and I don’t speak German, French or Dutch.. if we want a train system that allows Europeans to use it there needs to be announcements and signs in the language 50% of EU citizens speak

delfinom 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Look, as an EU country citizen, English is more or less the defacto language of the EU, regardless of what politicians declare. Everyone in the EU speaks english in some form as even traveling to a next door country like you state requires communication.

There are cases where in Belgium you will see signs in 4 languages (Dutch, French, Flemish and English)

Also if you ever travel in Japan, they have signs, especially on trains, all in, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English all in one. (usually rotating signage). So the precedent is there to do it on mass transit but :shrug:.

Point is, when your customer base is logically needing more language options, it should be considered.

trinix912 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Don't you think same could be said about German and French? I still remember the time when passports from my (now EU) country used French instead of English, and when signs for tourists were in German.

An English announcement wouldn't hurt but we don't have them on our trains here either.

umanwizard 9 hours ago | parent [-]

> Don't you think same could be said about German and French?

That they’re the de facto languages of the EU? No, this is just factually not true. The vast majority of EU citizens speak no German at all.

encom 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>Everyone in the EU speaks english

That's not even slightly true, where in god's name did you get this idea?