Knowing multiple languages

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

English is the international language and most people around the world accept it and try to learn it.  This perhaps has made the British people complacent and smug. I think they rarely try to learn other languages (I could be wrong).

Here is an article about the British learning local languages when they travel.

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-40813707

************

Over half of Britons who holiday abroad say they have pointed at a restaurant menu to avoid having to pronounce non-English words, a survey suggests.
And almost half said they were embarrassed at not being able to speak the local language while away.

But 80% of more than 1,700 people questioned for the British Council felt it was important to learn some phrases.

"Trying out a few words is the perfect way to get started," said Vicky Gough, British Council schools advisor.

The Populus survey found 37% of British holidaymakers always tried to speak a few words in the local language but 29% said they were too scared to try.
It also found that 36% felt guilty at asking locals to speak English, while:

56% resorted to pointing at menus
45% relied on the assumption that all locals would speak English
42% spoke English more slowly and loudly
15% even tried speaking English in a foreign accent

A minority (15%) admitted to being so unwilling to try pronouncing words from other languages that they would only eat in British or fast food restaurants while overseas, rather than sampling local cuisine.

A similar number said they preferred staying in self-contained resorts to avoid local culture.

Previous research by the British Council, the UK's international culture and education organisation, has found that the UK has a shortage of people able to speak the 10 most important world languages, which is likely to hamper the country's future prosperity and global standing.

************

I can speak 5 languages including English. Most Indians can speak and even read and write at least 2-3 languages. Learning more languages is said to be helpful and is said to keep the brain healthy.

Do any of you speak any language besides English? I know HH lives in France and so perhaps speaks French...but not sure of the others.  Are Scottish and Welsh very different from English?

Cheers.

Sriram

[Nearly Sane]

Being Scottish or Welsh makes very little difference, except there are bilingual schools for Welsh and Gaelic. I can only speak for Scotland but certainly the Gaelic schools tend to be oversubscribed. But overall it's much the same.  (BTW any reason you left out NI?).

We are definitely complacent about languages, and there is an element of being smug but I think the second is less so then it used to be.


I speak and write 2 languages, I speak a couple  of others, and I can write 2 dead languages, though my ancient Greek is melting away. I can get by in a few others for tourist purposes

But we are shockingly bad.

[Rhiannon]

I'm shockingly bad at learning languages and still resent being forced to take French instead of RS. That's not smug though, that's just fact. I admire an aptitude for languages in others.

As an aside, I do sometimes point to menus written in English, in English restaurants. Shyness or noise usually.

[Nearly Sane]

I'm shockingly bad at learning languages and still resent being forced to take French instead of RS. That's not smug though, that's just fact. I admire an aptitude for languages in others.

As an aside, I do sometimes point to menus written in English, in English restaurants. Shyness or noise usually.

I often point to wines on wine lists because saying it confuses the wait staff because they don't speak the language that the wine is named in.

[floo]

My mother reckoned if you spoke English loud enough the foreigners would understand what you were saying. I can speak a bit of French, but languages were never my forte.

[Anchorman]

Being Scottish or Welsh makes very little difference, except there are bilingual schools for Welsh and Gaelic. I can only speak for Scotland but certainly the Gaelic schools tend to be oversubscribed. But overall it's much the same.  (BTW any reason you left out NI?).

We are definitely complacent about languages, and there is an element of being smug but I think the second is less so then it used to be.


I speak and write 2 languages, I speak a couple  of others, and I can write 2 dead languages, though my ancient Greek is melting away. I can get by in a few others for tourist purposes

But we are shockingly bad.

There are now - thankfully - courses in Scots as well as Gaelic in both primary and scondary education.
The former is receiving little funding at the moment, but should proceed to higher level as "Scots language and literature" by 2020.
Apart from Scots, I speak a little Gaelic (badly), took higher French, have a working oral Arabic, and studied Latin at school, and Greek at uni, inducing frequent headaches.
I can get by in Inglis gin I hae tae.

[Nearly Sane]

There are now - thankfully - courses in Scots as well as Gaelic in both primary and scondary education.
The former is receiving little funding at the moment, but should proceed to higher level as "Scots language and literature" by 2020.
Apart from Scots, I speak a little Gaelic (badly), took higher French, have a working oral Arabic, and studied Latin at school, and Greek at uni, inducing frequent headaches.
I can get by in Inglis gin I hae tae.

I have a quali in Scots Lit but I remain to be convinced that it's a language.

[Aruntraveller]

I too am shockingly bad at languages altho I can get by in Spanish quite well now. And I have some knowledge of Polish having lived there for mearly a year....although that is melting away as the years pass. Every so often I force myself to run through Spanish tutorials ... and there's the Englishmsns giveaway 'force myself' .

Sririam we are shockingly complacent in the field of languages.

[Robbie]

I'm shockingly bad at learning languages and still resent being forced to take French instead of RS. That's not smug though, that's just fact. I admire an aptitude for languages in others.

As an aside, I do sometimes point to menus written in English, in English restaurants. Shyness or noise usually.

I've never heard it put like that before - perhaps if you'd dropped something else you could have done RS - but certainly we all had (&have) to do one modern language, usually French (my ole man did German) which was considered a core subject. We did Latin to 'O'level which is more useful than many think.

I liked French but would say better at reading than speaking - & agree we are shockingly bad at foreign languages. The French aren't especially good either & Americans are terrible.

French is taught to younger children now as a core subject, I didn't start until 'big' school though my mum gave me & sis the basics before then. For a few years Mandarin has been on the curriculum (for age 11+) &  it's quite popular so in future we may not lag behind so much in languages. Can't imagine doing that  even tho' it;s pretty!

[trippymonkey]

Learn the language - Learn the culture !!!
THIS is what I feel...

My Hindi - Urdu is pretty good & when I'm in Varanasi, north India, where there's a large population of Bengali speakers too, the faces of absolute delight when I speak the bit of Bengali I know is priceless.
AND, ironically enough, I've spoken more French than I ever did when I learnt it at High School.

There are so many different people in the guest house I stay in, I've been learning bits of Japanese too !!!!

[Udayana]

I've used Hindi, French and German in India, Germany and Luxembourg on a daily basis, years ago. More recently have studied Spanish, Greek and Mandarin to various levels but only used on holidays. 

I like learning languages and pick them up fairly easily, unfortunately my main problem is that they get "paged out" of my brain very quickly unless I am using them continuously. Hopefully, if needed again, they might come back to me within a few weeks.     

[ippy]

I feel you'got it mostly right on this Sriram, I think we're guilty as charged, but to be fair and in our defence I have noticed that every time we leave our English shores the rest of the world does seem to be full of foreigners.

Regards ippy

[jeremyp]

Hi everyone,

English is the international language and most people around the world accept it and try to learn it.  This perhaps has made the British people complacent and smug.

And almost half [of Britons] said they were embarrassed at not being able to speak the local language while away.

But 80% of more than 1,700 people questioned for the British Council felt it was important to learn some phrases.

The quote from the article belies the idea that we are complacent and smug - at least not nearly half of us.

[trippymonkey]

Because there are SOOO many completely different languages in India, it's ironic that English is the only language you can around with.
All seem to be taught it there.

[Robbie]

I feel you'got it mostly right on this Sriram, I think we're guilty as charged, but to be fair and in our defence I have noticed that every time we leave our English shores the rest of the world does seem to be full of foreigners.

Regards ippy

 

Because there are SOOO many completely different languages in India, it's ironic that English is the only language you can around with.
All seem to be taught it there.

They do and people I know from the Indian subcontinent can speak quite a few languages fluently. They think nothing of it, it's normal! Sounds like you are pretty good too & Udayana.
(Think I'll keep my school French to myself)

[Udayana]

Because there are SOOO many completely different languages in India, it's ironic that English is the only language you can around with.
All seem to be taught it there.

Europe has been moving that way too, interesting to see if it continues after brexit.

[Udayana]

They do and people I know from the Indian subcontinent can speak quite a few languages fluently. They think nothing of it, it's normal! Sounds like you are pretty good too & Udayana.
(Think I'll keep my school French to myself)

Mostly down to necessity or having enough interest to put in the time and effort. I have always been interested by how language and thinking influence each other and found it deeply frustrating travelling in countries where I do not understand the local language. 

[Robbie]

I can understand that, it's good that you have that interest- & the skill -if you travel a lot.

[Steve H]

I'd like to speak one or two other languages reasonably fluently, but learning languages is a real pain, because there is inevitably a lot of rote-learning involved. I've spent decades fitfully trying to improve my smattering of French, but soon giving up.

[Harrowby Hall]

The real secret to multilingualism is early exposure. My three-year old grandson speaks English and Dutch (his parents' languages).

Chomsky proposed the existence of a language acquisition device in the brains of young children which enables them to acquire and assimilate any language (and almost any number of languages) during the early years of life. In some countries, the teaching of English begins early in primary school - a consequence being that many children become effectively bi-lingual in English and their native language.

My instruction French began when I went to grammar school, on the edge of puberty, and too late to acquire the language naturally - my LAD had - to all intents and purposes - shut down. Instead of being immersed in the language and letting my inherited resources sort out its idiosyncracies, I was forced to adopt a sort of structural/functional/mechanistic code transcribing approach to language learning which was partially influenced by Latin grammatical structures.

I guess that, perhaps, most people on this forum learned their first foreign language at this age and in this manner. If we wish to teach languages in British schools we should start doing so in the reception class, concentrating on communication and not structure.

[SweetPea]

I've always felt a sense of shame when in conversation with someone that can speak my language but I cannot speak theirs. A wee French and Spanish is my forte, and I picked-up a little Polish from a friend of one of my lads.

But yes, Sriram, we English take it for granted that someone will converse with us in our language. 

[john]

There is another way of looking at this.

Language is a barrier to understanding.

If everyone in the whole world spoke the same language perhaps there would be less conflict......... It doesn't have to be English but it is halfway there already.

[Aruntraveller]

There is another way of looking at this.

Language is a barrier to understanding.

If everyone in the whole world spoke the same language perhaps there would be less conflict......... It doesn't have to be English but it is halfway there already.

But another way of looking at it is that languages facilitate different ways of looking at issues - so might actually provide more and better ways of dealing with conflicts and lots of other issues too.

[Shaker]

But another way of looking at it is that languages facilitate different ways of looking at issues - so might actually provide more and better ways of dealing with conflicts and lots of other issues too.

Hell yes. Different languages have different 'vitamins' (Leo Rosten's term with regard to Yiddish) that others don't have. I used the word schadenfreude in a post just this morning; I have a particularly deep and enduring love for certain Japanese terms such as yugen and wabi sabi that do very quickly and concisely what it takes many words to express in English. (The reverse also obtains, of course). We'd have a literally smaller vocabulary without all these borrowings and, I'd argue, a narrower emotionally expressive range.

[Sebastian Toe]

wabi sabi

Love it. Great with sushi!