'Alarming shortage of top ten foreign language skills'

Open Forum in English
21

@ Paule

“Are you suggesting that the locals should make an effort and speak the language of another country, instead of a foreigner making the effort to speak the local language?”

No, I am not suggesting this. Locals in any country have no obligation to learn any language. If a foreigner turns up and can’t communicate, it is not the locals’ responsibility. If, however, the locals decide to learn a foreign language anyway, despite having no obligation to do so, this does not mean that the foreigners who speak this language have any more obligation to learn the local language.

“Well, it´s good to know that europeans are studying English so that people from English speaking countries don´t have to “waste their time”. ^^”

My experience in Vienna is that this has nothing to do with people from English speaking countries. I know many foreigners here, very few of whom are from English speaking countries, and they never learn German. Instead, they use English when possible, and when not, they find a way to manage. I have noticed no difference in attitude or behavior between people from English speaking countries and people from anywhere else.

When I go to France for conferences (which I do often), there are always a few Germans there, and they always use English to order food, check into hotels, and do whatever else, in the exact same way a native English speaker would. When I go to Germany for conferences (which I have done a few times), there are always a few French there, and once again, they always use English in the exact same way that the Germans use English in France. I go into a restaurant in Vienna, and I hear Russian tourists talking to the waitor in English. I even went to Taiwan and heard Japanese tourists speaking with Taiwanese boarder control in English.

A lot of people from non-English speaking countries have this attitude that people from English speaking countries simply expect them to be able to speak English. This attitude is understandable, and certainly has a lot of justification. However, I never hear Germans say things like ‘those blasted French just turn up here and expect us to know English and make no effort to learn German’, even though the bahavior of the French when they visit Germany is exactly the same as the behavior of English native speakers (at least in my experience) and is exactly the same as the behavior of Germans when they go to France.

22

@ spatterson

I don’t know about Switzerland, but in Austria, it is not my experience that most people know English or love to practice it. I doubt the average person on the street could hold a conversation in English, and I bet my left foot that they don’t want to try. I do meet some Austrians who seem to find having conversations in English with a native speaker to be one of the greatest joys in the world, but such people are not so common, in my experience.

23

@Colin

“No, I am not suggesting this. Locals in any country have no obligation to learn any language.”

Indeed. ^^
Well, if some locals want to practice speaking English and some expats are too…whatever…to learn the local language, all of them get what they want.

@ "“Well, it´s good to know that europeans are studying English so that people from English speaking countries don´t have to “waste their time”. ^^”

What I meant is that a lot of non-native english speakers “sacrifice gigantic amounts of time” to learn English, while brits, americans (etc.) just speak it as their native language. Spatterson called “learning any other language than English” a waste of time. That´s why I made the above statement :wink:

@ “When I go to France for conferences”

There´s nothing wrong with using English for business or travelling. I´m just saying that one should learn the local language if one intends to live in another country. I think we already agreed that this is a good idea. ^^

24

Fine. I’ll rephrase from “a waste of time” to “time better spent elsewhere FOR ME” I have a bazillion other things on my plate that I want to start attacking. German is the priority… but I’m anxious to attack the others. People take things way too seriously on this board (including me)

25

@Spatterson: “…I think English must be special in some way. I can’t really describe it. Don’t you find it quite strange that English music is EVERYWHERE? There seems to be a musical quality to the language. I don’t think Germans are less creative… but the rest of the world isn’t listening to German music…”

I think English has two advantages: 1.) it is a Romance-Germanic hybrid, meaning that it isn’t entirely alien to most people in Western Europe, and South America; 2.) it is relatively simple - no cases, no gender, easy plurals, few inflections.

But “special”, the “Jose Mourinho” of languages? Mmm, well that’s wholly subjective, I guess…

26

Yes, I think you’ve hit 2 out of 3 points. I’d be interested in seeing a study comparing the number of rhyming and near rhyming works in English compared to every other major language. My feeling is that English has a much higher ratio. That’s what I mean by “special”

27

@ Paul

I should be clear that I have been making two essentially separate points on this thread. The first was about the question of whether people should learn the local language when they live in the country. My posiiton is that people have no obligation to. If they want to learn it, or need to learn it, then great, but a lot of people don’t need to and don’t want to, as is the case with a lot of English speakers (native or non-native) in international cities like Berlin, Zürich, and Vienna. A lot of people say they should learn it out of respect for the locals, which is great, but I think there should be a limit to what we reasonably expect of people out of respect, and I think learning a language is way beyond that limit.

The second, and copletely separate point I have been making is about the behavior of native English speakers when it comes to language learning. I have heard a lot of people say things like this

“What I meant is that a lot of non-native english speakers “sacrifice gigantic amounts of time” to learn English, while brits, americans (etc.) just speak it as their native language.”

This is of course true, but this is in no way the fault of Brits, Americans, Aussies, etc… People in English speaking countries would be learning English in the same way as everybody else is if they didn’t already speak it as a native language. When it comes to travelling to, and living in, foreign countries, my experience is that English native speakers behave exactly the same as everybody else.

The examples I gave about people travelling to conferences extends to people living in other countries too. In general, for a physicist, if one wants to remain in academia after finishing their PhD, they will do a series of postdoc jobs. These postdoc jobs consist usually of two, three, or four year contracts and can be anywhere in the world (and the country usually changes between jobs). Therefore, most of the people I work with have lived in several different countries. I know of many French people who have lived for years or are currently living in Germany and don’t speak any better than very basic German. I know Germans who have lived in French speaking places for years and know no French. I have met people from many different countries who have lived for years in many different countries, and the vast majority of them have never learned the local language. Even the previous head of the institute where I work in Vienna, who is from Portugal, has not got past intermediate German after many years in the German speaking world. This isn’t just in academia. My experiences from meeting people outside of academia are the same.

28

@Colin

Yes, in most of academia and in most of the world of business, English is today the undisputed lingua franca - of that there is no doubt whatsoever.

But when it comes to, for example, diplomats (or indeed their shadowy counterparts in intelligence) you would find that learning foreign languages to a high level (even several of them over a number of years) is still pretty much a standard part of the job.

Also, there are specialist fields in academia where knowing a language is a definite requirement. Would an academic historian specialising in (let’s say) Italian history be taken even remotely seriously if he/she were unable to read Italian to a very high level…!?

But these are, of course, specialist fields.

29

"Personally, I think that learning the local language shows that you respect the country you live in. "

Personally, I find paying taxes and obeying the law shows enough respect. The rest is just optional

30

@Colin

That was interesting to read :slight_smile:
I don´t have anything to add.

@spatterson

" I’d be interested in seeing a study comparing the number of rhyming and near rhyming works in English compared to every other major language. My feeling is that English has a much higher ratio."

I´ve seen something close to that. A guy made a ranking based on how many words end in vowels. As a musician, I think that´s a good to measure the “musicality of a lanuage”. I wrote lyrics in German, French and English and the “rhyming difficulty” seems the same to me. ^^

Funny thing is, English scored lower than German, Polish and French.
Icelandic, Spanish, Hindu and Italian scored pretty high.

What the guy who made this “study” forgot, is that English is a “vowel heavy”-language anyway, they just don´t appear at the end of words that often. I think that it´s a musical language, but not “the” musical language. Italian opera, French hip-hop, German Metal, Portuguese latino music…there´s sooo much good stuff out there. :slight_smile:

31

Should people learn the local language? This would be the great subject of a Steve video!

32

Well, Steve lived in France and Japan and he speaks both French and Japanese fluently.
The only argument against learning the local language was “but it´s sooo much work!”.^^
If you´re willing to make the effort, it will be worth it. At least, I think so.

I assume that a waitress in Japan would get “more bang for her buck” (her time spend studying) than a scientist or a programmer in Norway.

I´m sure Steve would have something interesting to say though, so it would be cool if he made a video :slight_smile:

33

“The only argument against it so far was “but it´s sooo much work!”.”

The only argument against what? Who made this argument?

34

I’ve dabbled in a few different languages, but have been actively learning Korean for over 6 years now. While I really enjoy the language, I don’t learn it to show respect for Koreans (as a side note, I don’t live in Korea). I learn it because I want to be able to communicate with Koreans. There are many ways you can show respect towards a certain group of people. I know several people who only know a few words of Korean, but show much more appreciation for the culture by learning the history, or taking up Korean drumming, or practicing Taekwondo, etc.

Several years ago I also met an elderly caucasian fellow who lived in China. He spoke only a morsel of Chinese but had dedicated over a decade of his retirement years to volunteering in China.

Not everyone will learn the local language, and people like Steve are an exception, but making language learning more accessible and less daunting is a great way to encourage more expats to spend a bit more time learning the local language.

It should be noted too that not everyone has time to learn another language. We all lead busy lives, and language learning is merely one of many past times that we can choose to spend our time doing. In the end it’s about which provides the most satisfaction and fulfilment.

35

@Colin “The only argument against what?”

Learning the local language. My last post was poorly structured, sorry for that. ^^

@alex “There are many ways you can show respect towards a certain group of people.”

Indeed.
I´m not saying it´s the only way, don´t get me wrong. ^^

36

@ Paule

I am certainly not arguing against learning the local language. People should do so if they want or need to. I know for a fact that many people do learn the local languages simply because they want to despite how much work it is.

p.s. You don’t need to apologize for anything written on the forum.

37

Don´t worry :wink:

38

“The only argument against it so far was “but it´s sooo much work!”.” Yeah, how arrogant. Because expats have all the time in the world. You know, a lot of expats are expats because their job relocated them. And those jobs are not the 9-5, put your 40 hours a week in, and go home to learn the local language. My wife routinely puts in 80 hours a week here in Switzerland… not much time to learn German eh? Luckily I only work around 60… so I have a few extra hours. I would suggest a more careful reading of our posts and stop twisting our words. Being an expat is not always rainbows and unicorns.

Also. This post was made at 6:00 am local time. That’s because I wake up every day at 5 (okay 5:30 if I’m lazy) and study “the local language” for a few hours before work. It’s a lot of work and ideally if you’re going to be living in the country for a significantly long period of time I think you should learn the local language.

39

I don’t think he ever said anything about arrogance, and I certainly don’t think our words have been twisted at any point.

“Also. This post was made at 6:00 am local time. That’s because I wake up every day at 5 (okay 5:30 if I’m lazy) and study “the local language” for a few hours before work.”

No wonder you hate learning German!

40

Yeah, I see the humor now that it’s not the ass crack of dawn. Really I just wanted an excuse to use the “rainbows and unicorns” phrase.

Hate is a strong word – another member from LingQ corrected me today at lunch – I’ll rephrase to “I’d rather do other things with my time”