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How many languages do Europeans speak | ||
Tags: Europe | Number of Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 57 of 66 07 October 2014 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
What you say about the Swedes applies fully to the Norwegians as well (and to your list I should add cross-country skiing as far as Norway is concerned :). Just wait until this Friday when the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Price committee, former Prime Minister Jagland, will announce this year's winner: Half of the comments on twitter and btl in the Norwegian newspapers will be about his horrible English accent (conveniently ignoring that his English is totally understandable and his vocabulary quite adequate). I have yet to meet any non-Norwegian who makes any particular criticism about his English accent, except to note that it is "very Norwegian". If you search for videoclips of e.g. François Hollande or Manuel Valls speaking English, then you can really see that our Norwegian politicans compare quite well to leaders in other countries. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| showtime17 Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Slovakia gainweightjournal.co Joined 6083 days ago 154 posts - 210 votes Speaks: Russian, English*, Czech*, Slovak*, French, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian, Polish, Dutch | Message 58 of 66 26 October 2014 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This depends on the country. While your typical Belgian (from the Flemish part) can speak around 4 languages, a person from Spain or Italy will usually just speak their own language.
The strongest countries for languages, where people usually speak more languages are Luxembourg, Belgium and Switzerland at the top, where speaking 3 or more languages can be the norm for a large part of the people and even a homeless person is almost a polyglot. Then probably comes the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, where people have good English skills and many people can also speak another language such as German (also sometimes Spanish). Also Romanians usually speak multiple languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 59 of 66 27 October 2014 at 6:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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You forgot about Malta
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| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4748 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 60 of 66 30 October 2014 at 11:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||
But still many Swedes fail to voice their [z]'s and use [s] instead, they for example fail to hear(?) the lose [z] / loose [s] distinction and pronounce both words with an [s] please with [s], eyes with [s] lose with [s] music with [s] this is not native English/American/Australian accent, but is found in Swedish/Danish/Norwegian English. It's annoying to hear [s] instead of [z] every time there's a Swedish group (like Roxette or Ace of Base) on the radio. Please include [z] in your English classes. The group September singing ''music'' as [mjusik]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie5UiQoQYz4 This is very weird, and I wouldn't consider it good accent. Edited by Camundonguinho on 30 October 2014 at 11:30am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5188 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 61 of 66 30 October 2014 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
How important is accent when you can speak English as well as many Swedes? Not very, and I happen to like they way they pronounce their [s]. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 62 of 66 30 October 2014 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yes, the failure to voice the 'z' is very common in Swedes speaking English. The voiced
sound doesn't exist in Swedish and many people don't even know it exists in English. It's not taught in English classes either, AFAIK. Also widespread, but not quite as common, is the failure to distinguish "sheep" and "cheap", as well as mixing up 'v' and 'w', leading to hypercorrections like "thank you wery much". 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4520 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 63 of 66 30 October 2014 at 2:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's futile. English teachers aren't qualified to provide the kind of training that would be necessary. An anecdote from Austria (we don't have [z] either): Teacher trying to explain the voiced s used the Standard German word "summen" as an example. Just pronounce it like the buzzing sound at the start of "summen". Stupid teacher, it doesn't have any buzzing sound in Standard Austrian German. Even in Standard German, the s would be unvoiced when not surrounded by other voiced sounds. You can't learn it like that if your native language doesn't have that sound. You need to go a different route, and the average teacher has no idea how to do that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 64 of 66 30 October 2014 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think learning voiced equivalents of sounds that you already know is much easier. Assuming you also know some voiced/voiceless pairs like p/b and t/d.
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