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Should English be the official language? | ||
Tags: Language Politics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 41 of 96 27 April 2013 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, the multiculturalism is a double edged sword. The EU should at least take time to
get used to its internal diversity. But right now, it is not handling it well, especially due to masses of immigrants from countries outside EU. That might lead to a strong reaction towards whole multiculturalism including suppressing smaller languages. And never forget the EU is being accussed of wasting money every now and than. There are many people who would see firing the army of translators as a good thing. You know what is funny? The organs of the EU try to work in all the languages, they hire many translators etc. But about a month ago, I came across an officially translated document related to the grants. And there was a translation mistake which could falsely disqualify lots of projects applying for the grant. (Wrong use of negative question with only one word answer Yes/No. In that case, both answers could be seen as confession that you do not fulfill the requirements.) So, if majority of the EU citizens would speak the large languages, the communication could be more efficient. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 42 of 96 27 April 2013 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
One reason for this might be the fact that Iceland isn't part of the EU, but that's of course pure speculation. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 43 of 96 28 April 2013 at 9:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Most middle-aged people in Eastern Europe do not speak any foreign languages apart from some school
Russian. I'm sure there are plenty of politicians from the likes of Poland, Hungary and Slovakia who have to rely heavily on translation services. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 44 of 96 28 April 2013 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Too much money is spent on translating services between languages.
Maybe, it should be done as in India: English should serve as a linking language of the Union. (for example there are no Bengali to Tamil or Malayalam to Assamese interprets in the Indian parliament, so having Finnish to Dutch, and Latvian to Czech etc interpretors in the EU parliament is just a waste of time and money...this money could be used for better purpose, instead of being pumped into the EU bureaucratic machine). Three weeks ago, the first Croatian elections for the EU parliament were held, and all candidates were required to be fluent in English. Maybe this requirement should be applied in other countries as well. Edited by Medulin on 28 April 2013 at 11:01pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 45 of 96 28 April 2013 at 11:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That won't be for long though as Iceland has applied for membership (in 2011 or 2012 I think). And economically they were practically almost a part of the EU anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 46 of 96 29 April 2013 at 3:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You are wrong. Firstly, all the countries you named are Central Europe, NOT Eastern Europe. And you would find few people who remember Russian and are willing to speak it among the general population of the age group. It is becoming a bit more popular in the last few years due to many Russian tourists in the countries (and actually quite everywhere. During my childhood, I can remember the Germans being everywhere and no sign of Russians, now it is different). So, we can probably expect more people speaking Russian in future but it will never be a major foreign language again, hopefully (no offense meant). Secondly, yes, there are many monolingual middle aged and older people. But many of the middle aged or older are learning languages for their jobs or personal growth and there are visible results and progress. The most popular in all these countries are English and German. But the situation is not that much different in other countries, for example Italy. I have worked in a shop with many customers-tourists including Italians. They were the worst at languages that I noticed. The only difference is that there are twice as many Italian natives than Czech+Slovak+Hungarians and the same amount of the Italians as the Poles. The language dumbness of the politicians from these countries is no argument. Many politicians from everywhere are monolingual, but these are unlucky to come from unimportant countries. And as long as they do not lie about their skills (which happens from time to time unfortunately), I care much more about other qualities and don't mind the translator much. If English was the linking language, it would be cheaper but it would cause misunderstandings as many things would suffer losses from not one, but two translations and that could be a crucial difference sometimes. In my opinion, having six official languages would be much more efficient than having a linking language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 47 of 96 29 April 2013 at 11:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
But the new government, which was elected this weekend, is anti-European, so Iceland probably won't join the EU soon. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 48 of 96 29 April 2013 at 11:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Probably, but I don't know how they can turn back the legislative processes. In any case,
demand for Icelandic - Slovak translations will likely be low, but Icelandic-Danish, Icelandic-English and Icelandic-German translators should be quite possible to find. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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