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German Minister refuses to speak English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5586 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 25 of 128 12 October 2009 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | ||
Couldn't agree with you more. Futhermore, If I was in Germany it would be very insolent of me to expect ANYONE to speak English./whatever native language that one has. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5586 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 26 of 128 12 October 2009 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Also, If I encounter someone that doesn't speak my language very well, I feel as if it's my job to make them feel better/help them out/enjoy where they are.
If that means learning some of their language, or answering any questions that they may have for me, I'll gladly do it, and hopefully they will do the same for me. Expecting the world to speak English is a little demanding in my opinion. It has to go both ways. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Rhian Moderator France Joined 6498 days ago 265 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Personal Language Map | Message 27 of 128 12 October 2009 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree, however, the BBC should not force him into speaking English or acting as if he should. He was a German minister in Germany at a German conference. It was very silly and also rude not to send someone who also spoke German. Also it was a bit rude for the minister to refuse to speak English (assuming he speaks it well enough) especially considering he is the Foreign Minister and, as previously stated, German politics have consequences outwith Germany. However, how silly of the BBC to send a non-German speaker! Hmm no real conclusion there except both sides look a bit stupid and slightly rude! Edited by Rhian on 12 October 2009 at 4:37pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 28 of 128 12 October 2009 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my opinion Dr. Westerwelle should have explained politely in his best English that the press conference was intended for German speaking journalists, and then he should have answered the question ... in German.
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| LatinoBoy84 Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5576 days ago 443 posts - 603 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian | Message 29 of 128 12 October 2009 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think the response was sufficiently polite. The BBC representative, was in a German country, at a German press conference, speaking to a German official.
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| Rhian Moderator France Joined 6498 days ago 265 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Personal Language Map | Message 32 of 128 12 October 2009 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Keyser, it was more the fact that it was starting to descend into an argument and I was hoping to prevent things
escalating (hey descending and escalating in the one sentence...go figure...) However, I have found your post about "Inner Circle" and "Outer Circle" very interesting. Of course cultures are attached to languages, I think the two are very much intertwined but I also think that it is possible to minimise political and social ideas attached to a language. I was a TEFL teacher in India for about six months and in that short time I found that we did use to draw on a lot of stuff from "back home" during lessons, but I was so interested in their culture that I did make my students talk about their life and ways and beliefs in English. (They learnt English, I learnt about a culture, everyone's happy). It is also interesting to note that they used to ask lots about the way we behaved and used to try and copy some of it... it was almost like they thought it was a bit better. Sort of Indian/Nepali values at home but for the outside image and at school and in business they tried to copy British ways... most strange. I didn't like that much I have to say - I think every culture should be proud of itself and I love how there are so many different ways to do things, meanings behind actions etc - then again I am an anthropology student! ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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