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How many languages do Europeans speak | ||
Tags: Europe | Number of Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| DaisyMaisy Senior Member United States Joined 5379 days ago 115 posts - 178 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 17 of 66 01 October 2014 at 6:41am | IP Logged | ||
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[QUOTE=Jeffers] I think the most important factor must be proximity. In areas near borders I would guess the numbers of people who speak another language are higher. The USA doesn't really worry about borders. Sure we have Mexico, and a lot of areas with large populations of Spanish speakers, but there is an attitude that Spanish is beneath them. On the sitcom "My Name is Earl", when faced by a woman speaking Spanish, one woman said, "Excuse me, I don't speak maid." Of course the woman was written to be amusingly ignorant, but it reflects reality. [QUOTE]
I'm sure there are people who think this way, sadly. Probably the people watching that stupid sitcom! Which as you point out, was purposefully offensive, but I find it racist, not funny. Who knows what TV executives are thinking....anyway, I feel compelled to rebut the generalization that all Americans feel Spanish is below them and look down on it. I think there are huge differences depending on where you live. Where I live, I've found nothing but positive attitudes from everyone I've talked to about learning Spanish. The Hispanic population is a huge demographic and being fluent in Spanish opens up a lot of job opportunities and cultural connections. I agree with you that geographically, the US isn't anything like Europe in terms of borders and variety of different languages. It's interesting to hear that not all Europeans are the polyglots my high school Spanish teacher used to compare us with to make us study harder. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 18 of 66 01 October 2014 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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It isn't necessarily true that most people in border regions speak the language of the "other side". My in-laws in Germany live very close to the border with Poland and they make frequent shopping trips over the border, yet none of them speak any Polish. The prevailing attitude is that "they [the Polish traders] already speak German, so why do I need to learn Polish?". I must admit I had a little chuckle to myself, as it proved that a steadfast refusal to embrace other languages is not confined to the English-speaking world.
But there is one guy who does speak reasonable Polish because he deals with clients a bit deeper inside Poland, where knowldege of German rapidly thins out. So I guess we are back to the same old argument that most people only tackle a foreign language when they can perceive an obvious advantage. So no, I don't think there are many multi-lingual people in Europe. Sure, you've got Luxembourg and Switzerland where several languages are firmly embedded in everyday life. You get some people who have moved around a lot or who have an international family background. But for the majority it's normally a case of speaking your native tongue plus a highly-variable standard of English. Edited by beano on 01 October 2014 at 2:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5058 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 19 of 66 01 October 2014 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Detailed polls exist about the language abilities of people in the EU:
EUROPEANS AND THEIR LANGUAGES (Report by the European Commission) http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_386_en.p df In summary, slightly over half of EU residents report being "able to have a conversation" in a foreign language. 10% report being "able to have a conversation" in three or more foreign languages. Geographically, we see that one cannot generalize about "Europe." Western Europe is significantly less multilingual than Northern and Eastern; less than 20% of British, French, Irish, Spanish, and Portuguese are more than bilingual. In all those countries, at least half of the population is monolingual. On the other hand, there are parts of Central, Northern and Eastern Europe where almost everyone is at least bilingual: 98% in Luxembourg, 95% in Latvia, 94% in Netherlands, 93% in Malta, 92% in Slovakia. These are clearly driven by practical concerns; all those countries have either tiny native languages or neighboring language areas speaking more influential languages. As for the fabled European polyglot, within the EU he is the norm only in Luxembourg, where 61% can have a conversation in 3+ foreign languages. No other EU country is even close to half, although Switzerland and Liechtenstein might be full of multilinguals, as they don't participate in the EU. Now, the comparison to the USA: An American poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/1825/about-one-four-americans-ca n-hold-conversation- second-language.aspx) found that about 25% of Americans speak a foreign language well enough to have a conversation. This would come in dead last in the EU. However, if you divide the USA into regions, the most multilingual region (the Western US) has about the same levels of bilingualism as European countries at the bottom of the ranking (UK, Hungary, Portugal, Italy). I couldn't find stats on the number of people who speak more than two languages in the USA. It must not be negligible, as even the UK scores at 14%. Edited by robarb on 01 October 2014 at 7:36pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 20 of 66 02 October 2014 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Do the Dutch and Scandanavians learn their English mainly through the schooling system or from exposure in everday life? What about the kids who struggle to read and write in their own language, how do they cope with English?
I know from personal experience that you can go to these countries as a tourist and function entirely in English but surely the locals' attitude must cool significantly if you actually go and live there and still can't speak the language after a number of years? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 21 of 66 02 October 2014 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I guess the 92% for Sloavkia is based on people speaking Slovak and Czech. But aren't these two languages almost identical? Latvia at 95% also surprised me. I assume that Russian became firmly embedded in everday life after being part of the Soviet Union for decades. I realise that young people now learn English in these countries but those who can actually speak it must constitute a minority of the population.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4582 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 22 of 66 02 October 2014 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | ||
Just speaking anecdotally, I went to Latvia last year and I was amazed by how high the level of English was in Riga. I hadn't brushed up on Russian before I went because I was aware of the political sensitivities and didn't want to accidentally offend anyone who wasn't a Russian native speaker by addressing them in Russian. Once I got outside Riga I really wished I had though, because almost every time I went into a restaurant or café I was served in Russian. Whether that was because people were speaking Russian by choice or because they could see I was a tourist and assumed I must be Russian, I don't know. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 66 02 October 2014 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||
Scandinavians learn English in school from an early age, and get exposure to the language passively through radio, TV, internet. Subtitles in our native language means that we get to hear spoken English on a regular basis. There are language learning programs for immigrants, but there's a big chance you may succeed without high-level Swedish, depending on the job and where you come from - EU citizens don't need a work permit. Some education programmes at the university are in English, so basically it's like a second official language. Edit: post 4000! Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 02 October 2014 at 6:17pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5058 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 24 of 66 02 October 2014 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | ||
Czech is indeed the #1 foreign language in Slovakia, but many Slovaks also report being able to speak English or German. The high similarity between Slovak and Czech is obviously a factor, but by itself is not enough to get high numbers of L2 speakers. A Slovakian is several times more likely to speak Czech than an Czech is to speak Slovak, a Portuguese to speak Spanish, or a Spaniard to speak Portuguese. Edited by robarb on 02 October 2014 at 7:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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