this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
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Europe

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (1 children)

France and Germany already hit their quorum. Now five more member states need to hit 100%. And the main goal of reaching 1 million of course.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Germany shows 96.45% for me. So not quite there yet.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

That's only the online votes. If you add votes collected by other means, you get more than the threshold.

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2023/000006_en

And those numbers are (slightly) out of date

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Meanwhile, France almost at 200%.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I only do this as I like to learn new things myself and appreciate if people correct me.

The title is wrong. It should be “A European…” rather than “An European…”.

The way you can decide which one to use is by looking at the proceeding words first syllable sound. If it has a vowel sound you use an if it doesn’t, then you use a. It’s important to note it’s vowel sound and not just a vowel.

Examples:

  • A teacher
  • An apple
  • A car
  • An hour (note it starts with a vowel sound, but not a vowel)
  • A European
  • An excellent teacher
[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for the correction. I wasn't sure (but also to lazy to check)

I've edited the title

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (3 children)

No problem. Thank you for being receptive to my comment.

Sometimes people get mad, and I don’t get why as I love to learn new things and it may help other people who may be non-native speakers to learn the quirks of English.

[–] Essence_of_Meh 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Here are some possible reasons for people getting mad if you're really wondering why it happens:

  • unsolicited advice can make people feel stupid (you love to learn, not everyone does)
  • comments like yours can be used as a way of making fun of OP to disregard their point without actually interacting with it
  • being corrected on a slip up and not something you sincerely don't know can be annoying (either towards the person correcting you or towards yourself for "not knowing something this simple")
  • I don't know about others but my school life never taught me how to deal with criticism, if you made a mistake you didn't study properly and should go back to doing that instead of being explained what went wrong and why (this one might sound a worse than it really was but you get the point)

I'm not saying you did any of those things and I'm right there with you on learning but the knee-jerk reactions often do have a reason behind them. There's also the whole issue with how polarized social media is these days and the willingness to listen or admit to a mistake can be a difficult thing to stomach ("it's a sign of weakness").

I hope that helps!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for this. It really does help to understand the reasons.

I would say that I always try to preface my unsolicited advice to try and convey that I am not shitting on people or being condescending, as I did here. I do this so people can feel comfortable that I’m doing it to be nice and without any malice at all. I know you said I didn’t do any of these things, I just wanted to explain my thought process.

[–] Essence_of_Meh 3 points 4 months ago

I get it. At the end of the day web is a vast space and people will have different experience functioning here, all we can do is try to convince others we're genuine and do our thing. I'm just happy whenever a positive interactions like your and OP's happen.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sorry, native speaker and language teacher here and I disagree. This is dialect dependent, but in my dialect at least, it’s the glottal stop at the beginning of a vowel sound that triggers it. Saying “an European” for me is like saying “an yellow.”

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I’m confused as you say you don’t agree, but also using an European doesn’t sound right, which is right as it should be a European as European starts with a yoo sound rather than a vowel sound.

It would be a yellow as yellow also starts with a consonant sound.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That’s because I read your comment wrong 😅

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

No harm no foul. 😊

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Sadly i'm deaf, so i can't use sound to correct myself 🥹😭

I sh4uld meet an english deaf and usk them how do they manage those grammar rule. Their answer will be pretty fun :3

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] dotdi 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I convinced my parents to sign it

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for sharing! Now we need to spread to the countries where this position is still not very known.

Portugal and Ireland only have about 500 signatures each for example, we can do better!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

good point. I've created a couple more crossposts

[–] CritFail 11 points 4 months ago (2 children)

English, so can't sign :( rooting for you all over the channel!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So you have to find something else to do with your rich then.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Are you sure? I mean with what they say about British cuisine

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Am improvement then?

[–] christov 2 points 4 months ago

Same, hope it catches on! Wish I could add my signature

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Done and shared where I could.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

If this is supposed to be about the EU, why is the post in french?

Only a small fraction of the EU speaks that.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If you click the link, the site will automatically be translated into your language. But since the organisers are French, it will preview in French.

I agree, that seems like an oversight

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Doesn't translate anything for me

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

weird. Must be a bug.

You can change the language manually using the drop-down in the top right

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's true for basically any European language though, right?

And English is no longer the obvious lingua franca since the UK left

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think English is still the most obvious choice as most people speak it as a second language. In fact I would want that EU wide kids learn English from grade 1 on and ideally we’d be all bilingual in a couple decades.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I think I've already signed this at some point last year or is this a new attempt?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

No, it's been running for some time (that's why I didn't call it a new initiative). So it's probably the one you signed before.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

You can just try. It will tell you if you already signed.

[–] Keineanung 2 points 4 months ago

Thanks, signed.

[–] Nonononoki 1 points 4 months ago

Thanks for the info! I just signed