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German Minister refuses to speak English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5899 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes  Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 9 of 128 12 October 2009 at 11:05am | IP Logged | |||||
Hi woodpecker I like your nick :-) Because English-speakers are imperialists with the English language and expect that all the world speak it. Edited by newyorkeric on 13 October 2009 at 11:09am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| pythonbyte Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5929 days ago 26 posts - 28 votes Studies: French, German | Message 10 of 128 12 October 2009 at 11:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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What was the harm in answering a question in English? German elections have a much wider consequence than Germany alone and as a potential foreign minister it's surely mandatory to converse with outside media sources.
As has been mentioned his English may not be perfect and a politician's career can be ruined by a slip of the tongue but he nonetheless made a mountain out of a molehill. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5812 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 12 of 128 12 October 2009 at 11:51am | IP Logged | |||||
Perhaps you should try to explain, rather than merely informing me that I'm too feeble-minded to understand. If, as the foreign minister of my country, I was asked a question by a media outlet from another country, and they requested a quote in the language of that country, and I felt I had a reasonable command of the language in question, I would certainly humor them. Why not? It's good politics (I mean, come on, he's the FOREIGN minister), it's polite, it makes sense (especially for a television audience), and it would help me connect with the people of the country in question more directly. And if I didn't have a reasonable command of the language in question, I would say so. Talking down to the reporter, indeed almost mocking him, was completely unnecessary, in my opinion. Though apparently he did score a lot of cheap political points with fellow Europeans... In response to the linguistic imperialism point above, well, it's true that English is the current lingua franca (oh, the irony) of the international community. But it's not like we executed some grand master plan to achieve that. And as someone who's spent some time in French West Africa, I would suggest that we leave imperialism in general out of this. Everyone of European stock bears some ancestral guilt. 14 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5905 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 13 of 128 12 October 2009 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, since I'm not of European stock I relish the fact that I don't have any of that guilt ^_^ but besides that I do feel that there is a justification for speaking in German, on German soil, in a German press conference... It's a bit arrogant to send monolingual English speaking journalists to other countries to report, especially to other EU countries in the light that German is as much an official language of the Union as English is... 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6295 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 14 of 128 12 October 2009 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think that was part of the point. He had apparently just answered the same question in German. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5899 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 15 of 128 12 October 2009 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
When it happened that the US foreign minister replied without preparation a question in a conference in a foreign language?
"(oh, the irony)" I don't understand "French West Africa" - I didn't see a french wrote on this thread. Anyway, yes, imperialism in Africa was disgusting, and in all the world. It doesn't justify the English language's imperialism. I havne't ancestral guilt because I didn't those things. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5899 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 16 of 128 12 October 2009 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
yes, exactly - I think this is part of the point. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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