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How do the Swedish learn English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| palfrey Senior Member Canada Joined 5274 days ago 81 posts - 180 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 9 of 61 12 March 2013 at 1:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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Could some of it be due to better language instruction in the schools? I have been reading some descriptions of the "reform" method, introduced in Scandinavia and Germany in the late 1800's:
- Leopold Bahlsen, The teaching of modern languages - Otto Jespersen, How to teach a foreign language - Henry Sweet, The practical study of languages The schools in Scandinavia (and Germany) have probably moved on from these methods. But recalling my own experiences in school (in an English-speaking area), I think we may be at least a century behind the Scandinavians, when it comes to approaches to language teaching. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Γρηγόρη Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 4456 days ago 55 posts - 154 votes Speaks: English*, Greek, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: German, French, Russian | Message 10 of 61 12 March 2013 at 3:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
Unfortunately, your teacher misled you. This is not an exception. Cf. the old American hymn "Bringing in the Sheaves," based on Psalm 126.6 (KJV), "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4640 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 11 of 61 12 March 2013 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Ari sums it up very well in the second post, and most of what he says is valid for Norway as well. I could add that at Norwegian universities, in many subjects students will use English manuals and textbooks, there is just a wider and better choice, and producing books on medicine, physics or cosmology in Norwegian is very expensive.
With regard to language instruction in schools I am not sure to what extent it is better than elsewhere, although at least when I went to school back in the 1970s and 80s a lot of emphasis was put on communicating from the very beginning. I also remember spedning a lot of time with listening exercises, and that was of course with native speakers. And at least I was lucky to have mostly very well qualified teachers, and even a native English American teacher in secondary school. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 12 of 61 12 March 2013 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
An important factor must be that when you see so many people who have no problems with English, you believe you can do it too, and/or you believe it's easy. English might not be particularly easier than many other languages, but the exposure makes it easy, and then the "exposure to the easiness" gives you confidence. It must also help that people don't have to compare themselves to native speakers unless they want to. In the USA anyone will compare themselves to Spanish native speakers and feel like a loser, but I suppose for Scandinavians it makes more sense to compare themselves to fellow Scandinavians, unless they actually want to have a native-like accent, spend a long time abroad etc. 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 13 of 61 12 March 2013 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is pretty much it. I have not spoken to a single student in high school who thought English was useless. Not a SINGLE ONE!!!! Everyone agrees you have to learn English here, in fact, not doing so is considered rather clumsy and uneducated. People accept that levels, accents and such may vary, and 95% of Dutch people if not more retain an accent of some sort (much like Swedes do) but they consider it kind of weird to not learn English at all. (It's compulsory for everyone. And speaking Dunglish is frowned upon). Edited by tarvos on 12 March 2013 at 8:13pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 14 of 61 12 March 2013 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think anyone will tell you that English is useless. But quite few will sincerely say it's useful, important and a high priority for them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| palfrey Senior Member Canada Joined 5274 days ago 81 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 15 of 61 13 March 2013 at 2:43am | IP Logged | |||||
"Dunglish"? Oh my. There must be another way of expressing this :) 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 16 of 61 13 March 2013 at 5:13am | IP Logged | |||||
I don't know about translators but I know that teachers of English are in unbelievable demand. One does not even have to know Russian if one knows English. And the main reason is that parents think their children must know English well, they are crazy about it. For some reason English is taught badly in many schools. My brother and his classmates still don't know the transcription (!) although they have four lessons a week. In some spheres English is obligatory, but in other spheres - it's not. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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