General/Off-topic |
|
|
|
|
|
Multilingualism
|
| 40. |
26 Feb 2007 Mon 12:27 am |
|
Quoting AllTooHuman:
And I still back up my former remark- the USA and the UK will remain monolingual, for the very language of their own will sooner or later be, if not by now, virtually the second language of all other countries. This is what I have observed from the way things are going; I may, needles to say, be wrong. But at least this is what I intended to refer to. |
After my error from earlier, English will always be the official language in UK and USA. UK does not border with any other country, and most countries that have more than one official langauge border another country (or more) or am I digging a hole for AllTooHuman to dump my feeble post into! 
|
|
| 41. |
26 Feb 2007 Mon 12:29 am |
|
Quoting libralady: Quoting AllTooHuman: Quoting libralady: I know French, Spanish and Italian as well as Egnlish but I would never claim that I can speak them, until I am fluent and can be clearly understood in those countries. |
By the way, I must say I envy of you in this respect! |
I have read this again and realise how dumb it sounds! Of course, I can hold my own in English
|
An iota of what you mean to say, I didn't understand!
|
|
| 42. |
26 Feb 2007 Mon 01:18 am |
|
Quoting libralady: Quoting AllTooHuman:
And I still back up my former remark- the USA and the UK will remain monolingual, for the very language of their own will sooner or later be, if not by now, virtually the second language of all other countries. This is what I have observed from the way things are going; I may, needles to say, be wrong. But at least this is what I intended to refer to. |
After my error from earlier, English will always be the official language in UK and USA. UK does not border with any other country, and most countries that have more than one official langauge border another country (or more) or am I digging a hole for AllTooHuman to dump my feeble post into! |
I am not talking about libralady who can speak French, Spanish, Italian and Capoeira who can speak English and Spanish, since libralady represents under no condition the UK, nor does Capoeira the USA, whether they have a border with other countries via internet or not. I am talking about the countries as a whole. Take Belgium or Canada at this point.
But you sound you got offended libralady, why?
|
|
| 43. |
26 Feb 2007 Mon 01:51 am |
|
I have to agree with you AllTooHuman (shall we both note this in our diaries?).
I can only speak for the English, but I agree that unless multi linguistic skills are forced upon the English (i.e. imigrants learning to speak English as well as their native language) the English are notoriously lazy with learning other languages.
From my experience abroad, I would say that the majority of English believe that if they speak English slightly slower and very LOUDLY (and sometimes with a "foreign" accent) they believe they can be understood anywhere!! 
This laziness is due to the influence of the USA in Europe (media, films etc.) and the fact that most other countries learn English as their second language in schools. We are too lazy and there is no denying it!!
I defy any English people to disagree 
|
|
| 44. |
26 Feb 2007 Mon 03:21 am |
|
The key word is not "laziness", but "needless", aenigma! To learn any language as a second language is getting day by day "needless", just like the paragraph below, for you, for your own language is getting day by day spoken by more and more people all over the world.
Period!
(Or, am I supposed to say "Full stop!" )
Quoting aenigma x:
From my experience abroad, I would say that the majority of English believe that if they speak English slightly slower and very LOUDLY (and sometimes with a "foreign" accent) they believe they can be understood anywhere!! |
|
|
| 45. |
26 Feb 2007 Mon 04:00 am |
|
Quoting AllTooHuman: The key word is not "laziness", but "needless", aenigma! To learn any language as a second language is getting day by day "needless", just like the paragraph below, for you, for your own language is getting day by day spoken by more and more people all over the world.
Period! |
I'm thinking... hmmm... how can I say this while looking like I absolutely don't agree with Alltoohuman...  Ok, here it goes: I think that Americans and UK'ans are very lazy, yes - lazy, not needless (for example it's a requirement in the US to take at least a year of a foreign language); however the rest of the world is not very hardworking either, they just HAVE TO learn English if they want to get anywhere these days  , if they didn't have to, they sure wouldn't - such a lazy human species we are  .
|
|
| 46. |
26 Feb 2007 Mon 09:38 am |
|
Quoting catwoman: Quoting AllTooHuman: The key word is not "laziness", but "needless", aenigma! To learn any language as a second language is getting day by day "needless", just like the paragraph below, for you, for your own language is getting day by day spoken by more and more people all over the world.
Period! |
I'm thinking... hmmm... how can I say this while looking like I absolutely don't agree with Alltoohuman... Ok, here it goes: I think that Americans and UK'ans are very lazy, yes - lazy, not needless (for example it's a requirement in the US to take at least a year of a foreign language); however the rest of the world is not very hardworking either, they just HAVE TO learn English if they want to get anywhere these days , if they didn't have to, they sure wouldn't - such a lazy human species we are . |
+1 You are right!
|
|
| 47. |
26 Feb 2007 Mon 11:57 am |
|
Quoting catwoman:
however the rest of the world is not very hardworking either, they just HAVE TO learn English if they want to get anywhere these days , if they didn't have to, they sure wouldn't - such a lazy human species we are . |
In Greece, English is being taught even in the nursery schools. Officially, in public schools, kids start learning English from the 3rd grade and in the 5th grade they start learning a second one, which is either French or German (which makes two compulsory foreign languages at the age of 10 ). At the same time, Italian and Spanish are languages that kids try to learn, as soon as they enter high school, through private institutes. So, "lazy" is not the word for the Greek kids.
|
|
| 48. |
26 Feb 2007 Mon 02:11 pm |
|
Quoting AllTooHuman: "needless", just like the paragraph below |
Quoting catwoman:
I'm thinking... hmmm... how can I say this while looking like I absolutely don't agree with Alltoohuman... Ok, here it goes: I think that Americans and UK'ans are very lazy, yes - lazy, not needless (for example it's a requirement in the US to take at least a year of a foreign language); however the rest of the world is not very hardworking either, they just HAVE TO learn English if they want to get anywhere these days , if they didn't have to, they sure wouldn't - such a lazy human species we are . |
|
|
| 49. |
26 Feb 2007 Mon 04:36 pm |
|
Quoting sophie: In Greece, English is being taught even in the nursery schools. Officially, in public schools, kids start learning English from the 3rd grade and in the 5th grade they start learning a second one, which is either French or German (which makes two compulsory foreign languages at the age of 10 ). At the same time, Italian and Spanish are languages that kids try to learn, as soon as they enter high school, through private institutes. So, "lazy" is not the word for the Greek kids. |
Sophie, I'm not talking about laziness per se, but about laziness in the deeper sense of it. European/Asian/African kids learn English and other foreign languages because it's good if not necessary for them to do so and not out of love for learning. For example why is it that kids these days learn English, Spanish, German... and not Turkish, Swahili or even Russian... etc? This learning is done with the goal of benefiting from it by getting better jobs and more money in the future. And the reality is that knowing at least English is a must these days, I'm sure many people would love not to have to learn it. Of course there are exceptions to this, however, they don't change the overall situation.
I also wanted to add that in the literal meaning of "laziness" I don't think Brits are lazy either and Americans are one of the most hardworking people I've seen.
|
|
| 50. |
26 Feb 2007 Mon 05:04 pm |
|
Quoting sophie: Quoting catwoman:
however the rest of the world is not very hardworking either, they just HAVE TO learn English if they want to get anywhere these days , if they didn't have to, they sure wouldn't - such a lazy human species we are . |
In Greece, English is being taught even in the nursery schools. Officially, in public schools, kids start learning English from the 3rd grade and in the 5th grade they start learning a second one, which is either French or German (which makes two compulsory foreign languages at the age of 10 ). At the same time, Italian and Spanish are languages that kids try to learn, as soon as they enter high school, through private institutes. So, "lazy" is not the word for the Greek kids. |
i wish languages were taught earlier in english school.they are not even started until secondary(high school) age and even then the parts of the language that you learn is just textbook, you can't really relate it to many situations or use it regularly in real contexts...
|
|
|
