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Countries good at 2nd foreign language? | ||
Tags: Foreign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 41 10 July 2012 at 6:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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We Scandinavians are often being praised for being good at languages, because our level of English is so
high. And we are generally quite good at speaking English, compared to many other countries. There are however some very specific reasons for that, which do not apply to the other languages. English is a closely related language, we learn it from the age of 6 (or even before), 90% of what we watch on TV is in English and most Internet related activities are in English. If you want to, you can be almost fully immersed. To have a fair idea of how we really do at learning foreign languages, we have to look at 2nd foreign languages, and then the picture is not so rosy anymore. We start learning them at the age of 13, we get absolutely no help from the media, and I doubt that more than 0.1% of the language learners use Wikipedia or other Internet sources in those languages. In short, we are in the same situation as e.g. an American learning French. Sadly, our results are mediocre at best. Those of my generation, who had to study German, can usually get fed or get train tickets in Germany, but would mostly be unable to hold a conversation with a native educated speaker. This is after 4 years of study in a closely related language. Personally I have had only 2 years of German, but I have tried to read a bit on my own, it is however still the weakest of my languages. Those who choose French and Spanish do no better. They lose the advantage of studying a closely related language, they have a lot more vocabulary to learn, and particularly in French, they struggle with the pronunciation. So the question is, what is the situation for the second foreign language in your country, and do you know any country which does well? 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 41 10 July 2012 at 8:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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Scandavians: so good at English it's not fair to everyone else to call it a foreign language!
Edited by newyorkeric on 10 July 2012 at 8:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 41 10 July 2012 at 8:29am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, we do have monolinguals, and people who speak it badly and/or with a horrible accent, so I do think we still have to call it a foreign language. If you make that statement again in 30 years I may however agree with you. Some of the kids in the next generation are so good it is scary! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 4 of 41 10 July 2012 at 10:12am | IP Logged | |||||
It is not so closely related. For some reason English speakers do not consider closely related German easy. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 41 10 July 2012 at 11:18am | IP Logged | |||||
I am not sure what you mean here. Are you suggesting German should be easier? I think you are misinformed then. Norwegian is considered one of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers. It makes sense that English should then be easier for us. German with its cases and different word order is much more difficult for them. There are a number of very good reasons why it makes sense for an English speaker to learn German rather than any Scandinavian language, but not because of it being closer linguistically. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 10 July 2012 at 5:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5783 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 6 of 41 10 July 2012 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Just out of curiosity: what do you do in English at school starting from 6 years old, and
what do you do at school in your second foreign languages starting at 13? Edited by Random review on 10 July 2012 at 2:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4678 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 7 of 41 10 July 2012 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with what you just said, but I wanted to nitpick a bit:
Counter-example: replace German by Swedish in your sentence. ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4859 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 8 of 41 10 July 2012 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In Poland sometimes it's hard to say, because some Poles learn their second or third language at private courses, therefore their results are usually better.
My situation was kinda different - English was my first foreign language, but taught at extra lessons and the second one, but the first 'official' was German. Besides, now pupils start learning the second foreign language earlier than when I was in basic school/junior high. Edited by prz_ on 10 July 2012 at 2:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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