"And you enjoyed the show? Do you speak Spanish?"
Such small minds.
I only speak English and German with any skill. Why should I cut myself off from enjoying something merely because of a language barrier?
My Mom was a music teacher, so I grew up listening to all kinds of stuff. Opera is one of her favorites; I never really caught that bug. As I recall, most of the biggest pieces in opera were written (and sung) in Italian, German and French, with English coming in 4th.
Moving away from that, my own music collection (and shopping list) mostly has music with lyrics in English. However, German, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, French, Russian, Hungarian, Gaelic, Arabic, Latin, Tongan, Finnish, Luven, Nyanjan, Ndebele, Mongolian, Indian, Cambodian, Shona, Tamisheq and Polynesian tongues are represented as well.
…some by English-speaking artists showing off their multilingual skills, like Roberta Flack, Beck, Dave Mustaine, Mike Patton and Geddy Lee.
(To say nothing of the vocalists for whom English isn’t their primary language, but who nonetheless use it as their main language for recording and performance.)
Sorry- I see this all the time, manifesting in different ways. My maternal aunt W was very leery of trying new cuisines. We became very adept at describing foreign dishes as analogous recipes she knew & liked.
OTOH, I visited Russia 20 years ago, and early on, a father/daughter duo on the same trip were often no-shows for at least one meal a day. Come to find out, they had a large suitcase of granola/energy bars and the like that they were living off for tge first half of the trip. WHY TRAVEL TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO TRY THE CUISINE?
