A general expat question

[Cornfed]

Is there a way to say you only speak English or ask people to speak English without sounding arrogant?

[Spencer]

Is there a way to say you only speak English or ask people to speak English without sounding arrogant?

Im linguil dumass only know the one langage english so i hope you please do favor for me to speak english for acomodate my ignorance due come from idioacracy ango culture so is it ok for you

[flowerthief00]

Is there something wrong with "no hablo español"?

[Cornfed]

Is there something wrong with "no hablo español"?

Often the person is not speaking Spanish, so I want to be a bit more general and leave open the possibility that the person speaks English.

[flowerthief00]

There is the Samuel Jackson approach.

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[Yohan]

Is there a way to say you only speak English or ask people to speak English without sounding arrogant?

I don't see anything arrogant if you speak only English and if you ask people in a non-English native speaking country if they can speak English.

I can communicate in several languages, but not everybody can do so. Some do not speak English, and others can speak only English...
It also depends about what region we are talking, I met people in India who used for me an unknown Indian language with their family members, but spoke clearly Hindi with other Indians, and immediately could speak perfect English with me. - My Chinese friends in Malaysia speak Hakka Chinese among themselves (but cannot read/write Chinese), Malay if customers are clearly not Chinese but Muslim Malay people and English with foreigners from overseas.

On the other side I know many Japanese people, who rarely meet foreigners and they cannot communicate in English at all...

You try with a few question if the other person is able to communicate with you... I met for example some French people in Thailand, they could not speak English at all. Some East European people speak German as second language, but not English...

English is widely used, worldwide - if I have to talk to somebody and I do not know who he is, the first language I try is always English.

No problem at all...

[Gali]

Is there a way to say you only speak English or ask people to speak English without sounding arrogant?

Just do not be like in the forum

[WilliamSmith]

Is there a way to say you only speak English or ask people to speak English without sounding arrogant?

Good question. I just ordered a copy of "Making Out in Spanish" and will let you know if there's a good suggestion in there.
https://www.amazon.com/Making-Out-Spani ... 0804840342

Im linguil dumass only know the one langage english so i hope you please do favor for me to speak english for acomodate my ignorance due come from idioacracy ango culture so is it ok for you

Cornfed just asked how to avoid coming across as arrogant, which is smart, since arrogance or a presumptuous sense of entitlement is a common complaint natives down there have about gringos.
But Spencer's suggestion is too apologetic, and might make a man come across like a beta male (which is just as likely to rub them the wrong way, because of all those macho castizos and indians that are down there).

Still, here's how jewgle's algo-translation bots handled that suggestion:

Soy linguil dumass, solo sé el idioma inglés, así que espero que me hagas el favor de hablar inglés para acomodar mi ignorancia debido a que proviene de la cultura idiocracia y ango, ¿está bien para ti?