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Are English speakers lazy with languages? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 9 of 37 08 April 2013 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is possibly the most covered topic on the forum. I wonder what the top ten are?
6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 10 of 37 08 April 2013 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | ||
It's usually the same people bringing up the same topic, too. Edited by hrhenry on 08 April 2013 at 7:05pm 1 person has 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 11 of 37 08 April 2013 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | ||
For pretty obvious reasons there are a lot of Russian immigrants no matter where you look. There's a big community in Germany, although not everyone has this luxury (of using only Russian). Nowadays there's a requirement for having at least some German knowledge afaiu, and I suppose it's like that in other countries as well. (ironically, I happened to get started on Finnish about a week after my 15th birthday - which is the age after which you're expected to be unable to pick it up naturally, and so the exam is required after that. I don't think C1 is necessary though:P) Also, I know that at least for Germany, TOEFL gives a would-be immigrant some bonus points. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 12 of 37 08 April 2013 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sometimes English is enough for non-native English speakers too.
6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4252 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 13 of 37 08 April 2013 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I lived in Italy for three years. While there, I tried to learn the language. I took classes in Italian. When I moved back to the United States, I could buy stuff at the grocery store, order food, and do basic introductions in the language, but I never became fluent.
I didn't have a ton of opportunities to use it in my daily life. On a military base, everybody we worked with spoke English, even the Italians (although some were way more fluent than others). I worked with other Americans. Most of my shopping was done on base with other Americans. While I would often greet my Italian coworkers in Italian, I never really got to the point where I spoke it well. I suppose that it might be harder to do that in places where you're not working with native speakers of your own language, but if you have a job working with people of your own nationality, and shop in stores where the majority of the people there speak your language, it is very possible to live in a foreign country and not become fluent in the language. 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 14 of 37 08 April 2013 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||
Argentinians rarely bother to learn Portuguese, even after many years in Brazil...And tourists couldn't care less... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6961 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 15 of 37 08 April 2013 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Are English speakers lazy with languages?
Yes they are ! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 16 of 37 09 April 2013 at 1:01am | IP Logged | ||
So are...Italians, Russians, Spanish, everybody! How do you explain the tons of Hispanics that fail to learn English in the US after living here for 10+ years? It's not limited to English speakers. Small countries and those that speak languages that are not very influential world-wide tend to be very multilingual. Whereas English, Spanish, and Russian speakers would be less hampered by not knowing a lot of foreign languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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