Why are we generally so useless at languages?

[Millymollymandy]

Really? I would have thought French was way down the list. After all where is it spoken but France, parts of Canada and a couple of smallish nations in Africa? Surely the likes of Bengali, Portuguese (think of Brazil) and Russian might be high up there too?

Graye, haven't you heard of the Domtoms? There's a lot of French spoken in Africa (don't know which countries offhand though I think Mali is one), then all the Domtoms, which sure, aren't big places. Then there are all the ex French colonies (north africa, Indian ocean islands......) quite a lot of places really, they just aren't necessarily big countries with big populations. So French is spoken in the Indian ocean, the Pacific, the Caribbean, Canada, a small part of the US, and France. Probably still find some older people can speak it in Vietnam as well. Baguettes are still part of the Vietnamese diet!

[the.fee.fairy]

I think that we as brits are seriously disadvantaged by our non-language learning!

Here, they start learning English at the age of 4 (when they start school), so by the time they come to the university here, they are pretty good! I basically teach them about pronunication and words and phrases that they might not have come across (needle in a haystack was interesting...).

I had a dutch housemate once, and she spoke 5 languagaes fluently. I asked her what she was ging to do after university, adn she said 'Stick a dart in a map of europe and go and work there'!

I'm learning mandarin slowly...well, i suppose its quite quickly really, but it seems slow to me...It is very hard though, because a lot of chinese people don't want me to speak to them in mandarin, they want me to speak to them in English so that they can practice. Small children come up to say hello, and then giggle when we say hello back, beacuse it means that they have pronounced it right.

It is true that in Britain we get taught languages in a very strange way, we get taught 'tourist language', so enougbt o get us by if we visit somewhere, but for some reason, pronunciation and the ability tohave a conversation are not taught, proper grammar and spelling is. Here, i'm learning to pronounce mandarin and understand what is said to me, i don't think i'll be able to learn to read or write Mandarin, but i'll be happy if i can speak it well, and talk to people beyond conversations like 'where is the train station', or 'can i have noodles please?', which are the typical phrases that you're taught to say in French in in school. There's too much emphasis on saying somethign rather than being understoond, and being able to understand. I have a Chinese friend here, Phoenix, and we have really good conversations, ad apart from the fact that she looks Chinese and has a strange hybrid Chinese-American-English accent, i would forget that English is not her mother tongue.

We're also taught accent too much, here, if you say something in an English accent, in Chinese, they will still understand! One of my most used phrases is tingbudong, which means 'I don't understand', or canbudong, which means 'I can't read that', and even though my tones are really bad, i say the words, a chinese person repeats it in the correct way, then i copy them...badly, but we all understand what's going on. They then tell me whatever it was i couldn't understand again...in Chinese...a little slower with hand gestures. They still understand that i don't have a clue what the words they are saying are, but with the hand gestures, we can work it through. Maybe we should concentrate on universal hand gestures in English schools...

[Mrs Moustoir]

I do think you have to have an aptitude for languages though - the right sort of brain! My daughter started school here in 2002 aged 4 and was fluent in French after a relatively short space of time. Her brother has been totally different - he also started at 4 and is now nearly 7, but still struggles with his French.

Daughter is now at college (secondary school) and learning languages seems to be a high priority. At the moment, she learns Breton and next year will be able to pick up Latin and a modern language - German or Spanish or even Greek if she wishes.

My spoken French isn't too bad although I wouldn't say I was fluent, but I often find that if I am speaking to someone, they will answer me in English! So we end up having a Franglais conversation with me speaking French and the other person - English. I tend to say that French is OK although often people like to practise their English on an "anglophone".

[Millymollymandy]

You're lucky Mrs M cos nobody where I live can speak any English! Just been chatting with the plumber here who again, like so many French, started on about the 'we French are so useless at languages, we can't speak yours' thing which I hear a lot. Many French would like to be able to speak English so that they can holiday away from the usual places for them i.e. Morocco as they are so limited in where they can go.

So we English speakers are very lucky indeed!

[george]

I also think it is about the importance that the schools and the country put on learning languages. Here is Korea learning English is considered really important and I wouldn't say that ability is really good but there are some elementary school students who can speak pretty well (even more so considering that they probably see native English speakers only once a week).

When I studied French at school in England we didn't start learning until high school and even then it was considered just kind of an also ran subject and not important except for visiting our French pen friends. Even so I can still hold a basic conversation in French. I think England definitely suffers from the attitude (in general) that when we go abroad everyone speaks English anyway so we don't need to bother learning another language.

I am trying to learn Korean but I have the same problem as most people in other countries. If someone speaks any English at all they want to use it with me so they speak in English rather than Korean. If someone speaks no English then they just assume that I can't speak a word of Korean either and so in shops instead of telling me how much something is they will type it onto a calculator and show it to me. I found the same thing in Japan either they wanted to speak English or just assumed I spoke no Japanese and resorted to sign language (which is universal and incredibly useful!).

Personally I think learning at an early age is the key. Not only is it easier to learn the language then but you are also less embarrased about making a mistake and much more willing to use it so you can gain confidence.

[Cloud]

Why are we so useless - lack of opportunity to practice has to be one big factor in this.

Yo hablo espanol un poco. ¿Pero, cuando peudo hablarlo?

Other than holidays in Spain I get no opportunity. I did once subscribe to a Spanish newspaper, but it's not the same as conversing in Spanish with another person.

I remember the thrill of once walking in to a shop in Spain and ordering in Spanish and being answered in Spanish. That does not happen often. Mostly in the tourist areas they answer in English. That was towards the end of a week in Spain in some small town.

It's amazing how fast language is acquire if its used. It always annoys me that all the Spanish class I've taking in England the language most spoken is English. It ought to be Spanish if its a Spanish class. I think there's a fear of language. Or perhaps its a fear of not being understood. I don't know.

[MKG]

I think I agree with everything everyone's said - it's all of those reasons, and more

I really regret the passing of Latin-teaching in schools. That gave me a big gee-up in (a very basic) understanding of French, Spanish and Italian. Learning Dutch (admittedly by sitting in a bar and listening - oh, the price one has to pay! - and discovering that it's VERY similar to English but pronounced differently) gave me a good understanding of German. Knowing a little French enabled me to discover that Catalan is nearer to that language than it is to Spanish (and, let's face it, there are an awful lot of Brit tourists who'd be better off learning Catalan rather than Castilian Spanish). But that basic understanding isn't speaking da lingo.

As usual, there's more to it. It's all those funny conditional word endings!!!!! English is the one and only European language which doesn't have them - and that's why English (well, simple English) is just about the easiest language to learn. You can get away with murder when speaking English - it's not so easy to be understood if you mangle most other languages. English used to have those endings, though. The language which came over with the Angles (and Saxons, if they ever really existed) was as complex as any other when it came to case endings, and if that had been the end of the matter then we'd still be using them. But we also got invaded by the Danes. They spoke a very similar language to the "Anglo Saxons" - they came from the same place, almost. All of the roots for verbs and nouns were the same. The only differences were those endings. So, as the Danes and the Anglo Saxons had to come to a method of living together (and therefore trading, intermarrying, etc.) the endings were simply dropped over time. Hence standard verb and noun forms in English, with very few exceptions - no huge irregularities, no apparently logicless special cases to learn. Not so any other European language.

That makes English unique - certainly in Europe. Top that with the British Empire at its height and you have a lingua franca for the world - which is exactly what English is well on the way to becoming. It is the most widespread language and its use is increasing faster than any other - it is, eventually, going to become the science-fiction Terran language.

I don't think (I hope not, anyway) that English will ever totally supplant every other language, but I see no problem there - previously mentioned daughter was completely at home in English and Dutch, knew when either language was appropriate, and switched effortlessly. But it will become (it's just about there already) the first or second language of every human being on this planet a) because it's easy to learn in its basic form and b) because in it's fuller form it is recognised as one of the most adaptable languages around.

So, if ever you feel like shouting at the archetypical tourist Brit, if ever you become frustrated by our apparent ignorance of all things linguistic, just bear in mind one thing - it's all Denmark's fault.

Mike

[Mrs Moustoir]

I agree with the Latin comment. We did Latin at school in the 70s and it was the only class in which grammar was covered. We learned the verbs and their conjugations by heart.

At that time at my comprehensive school, French was taught in a trendy new "language lab" complete with headphones and although it was mildly interesting to hear about Xavier and his trips to the shops, it was Caecilius in Pompeii that stuck in the memory!

[Graye]

I have to agree with Mrs M. If the curriculum writers made the language a bit more interesting they would hold the kids' attention better. Who wants to know about whether la tarte de Helene est tres delicieuse when they could be finding out about what was going on in the French Revolution and probably getting to grips with adjectives that way? It's a bit of an insult really, isn't it?

The best language class I went to was in Spain, a course organised by the local town hall. The teacher spoke no English (in fact I later found out that he did but he kept it a well guarded secret) and the pupils were English, French, Chinese and Arab - about an enqual mix. We had no choice but to converse in Spanish - it was the only common language. We did silly little plays we had to write ourselves. But it helped no end as we had to work them out ourselves without using English first. The teacher made sure we are never allowed to clump together with our fellow countrymen. And he would take us round the other classes where Spanish ladies were determined we would learn about carol singing Spanish - style, cooking, arts and crafts and glass decoration.

I agree that grammatically English is usually a piece of cake for foreigners. But then they fall down on pronunciation. Try explaining why we use short the short e o and a in some words and the longer version in others. Or why it's lead (pronounced leed) sometimes and lead (pronounced led) other times. I have, it IS possible but it's no fun! Give me lovely phonetic Spanish any day. Once you have the basics of their pronunciation and emphasis accents it's pretty easy to read a passage out and be perfectly understandable even if you have no clue about what you are actually saying.

OH is fascinated by languages. He has been looking at Basque, just out of interest. But he has been put off to learn that a Basque noun-phrase is inflected in 17 different ways for case, multiplied by 4 ways for its definiteness and number. These first 68 forms are further modified based on other parts of the sentence, which in turn are inflected for the noun again. And depending on what else is going on in the sentence there are even more variations, leading into the thousands.

Is this a new smilie or just one I haven't spotted before?

[red]

Is this a new smilie or just one I haven't spotted before?

its new - nice isn't it

[Millymollymandy]

Yup, the French classes I did in Geneva were 100% spoken in French and no other language. We were a right mixed bunch, which is understandable in an international city like that. The loveliest thing is that I met people from all sorts of places e.g. Colombia, Moldovia, loads of Polish nannies, Italians, Egyptians, Jamaicans, Fins, (Is that what they are called? ) you name it. We all had a reasonable command of spoken French anyway at that level and thankfully our teacher spoke very clear and understandable French.

Outside class some of us would have a coffee and a chat and we'd find that people like the Finnish girl was (of course) 100% fluent in English, the Norwegian girl had been sent to an American school in Norway by her parents so spoke word perfect english in an American accent - she said most of their teachers were American but some were Norwegian but the students at school all spoke Engish better than the Norwegian teachers speaking it - and they used to take themickey out of their silly accents!

My only problem was when there was a grammatical point that I really didn't understand and really needed someone to explain it to me in English, giving me English examples as well as French ones, as I don't learn languages easily at all.