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Why the Spanish can’t learn English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Lemus Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6382 days ago 232 posts - 266 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese, Russian, German | Message 1 of 33 20 July 2010 at 7:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I came across this artcle in El Pais and I thought it as really interesting from an American perspective. We hear the constant drumbeat of how bad we are at languages, so it makes me feel a little better that this same sort of thing happens in other countries too.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/opinion/espanoles/nos/da/mal/ ingles/elpepiopi/20100719elpepiopi_11/Tes For those of you who can't read Spanish, it essentially argues that the Spanish have problems learning English compared to their European neighbors for several reasons 1. The Germanic/Romantic dichotomy, with its associated vocab and grammer differences 2. The greater number of English vowel sounds 3. The dubbing of foreign media into Spanish hurting listening comprehension I'd be especially curious to hear from any Spanish forum members if you feel this is true. Edited by Lemus on 20 July 2010 at 7:55am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5328 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 2 of 33 20 July 2010 at 8:24am | IP Logged | ||
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It doesn't help that our spelling and grammar has rules that are never followed :P
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| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 3 of 33 20 July 2010 at 8:31am | IP Logged | ||
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I think the Spanish-speaking world is simply so large and diverse, like English speakers most of them see little need
to learn another language. In fact, I think Spanish is as good a candidate as Mandarin for replacing English as the world's most influential language one day. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5575 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 33 20 July 2010 at 8:54am | IP Logged | ||
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Dubbing is a huge problem, no matter what country it occurs in. Almost universally, countries which dub TV shows and movies have high rates of monolingualism, and vice versa.
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| nuriayasmin Senior Member Germany Joined 5244 days ago 155 posts - 210 votes | Message 5 of 33 20 July 2010 at 9:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Spain isn't the only European country where American movies and tv series are dubbed, this is done in Germany, too.
However, I understand that English is difficult for people who speak Spanish as their native language - not only in Spain but also in Latin America, in my opinion. I'm not surprised that it's difficult for them to differenciate between ship and sheep. Although I speak English better than Spanish, I always stumble over words where I'm not sure how to pronounce them. That problem doesn't exist in Spanish as there are quite strict rules concerning pronunciation. I once did a Mandarin course but gave up after a couple of months because to me the five ways in which a syllable could be pronounced sounded all the same. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7104 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 6 of 33 20 July 2010 at 9:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting article.
However, I think the Spanish still fail to plumb the depths of our own personal incompetence here in the UK. I live in Portsmouth, we get piles of tourists from Europe but you'd struggle to find a living soul working in the tourist industry here that spoke a word of a foreign language. Contrast that with visiting spots popular with the Brits in Spain. One thing that confused me: la incorporación reciente a nuestra enseñanza de la lengua de Shakespeare is cited as one of the reasons the Spanish don't do as well as others when learning English in the article summary. This wasn't expanded on at all. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 7 of 33 20 July 2010 at 9:46am | IP Logged | ||
So very true - I can't really imagine many Brits speaking several languages down the local Swaffham tourist office. In contrast however, I met a Pakistani waiter in a small restaurant in Stiges who spoke 7 languages fluently and thought nothing of it, my hotel receptionist spoke 6, and most of the people I ended up chatting with in Spain last week had a good conversational level in 3 or more languages. I felt indeed quite ashamed... I think it has a lot to do with education as well as travel within mainland Europe. This is even more so now that foreign languages are no longer compulsory for GCSE in UK, and even, as I discovered only recently on the forum, actively discouraged by teachers to steer pupils towards easiers grades. It's also tougher when everyone insists on speaking English with you abroad, no matter how well you speak and how hard you try to bring the conversation back to their native language. As one French girl in Barcelona explained it to me - she initially learnt English, German and Italian over many years at school to a good level, all compulsory subjects. Then she worked over in Italy for 2 years for a French company and became fluent in Italian, before moving to Spain and doing pretty much the same with Spanish (the similarities with Italian coming in very helpful and leading to swift progress). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5982 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 8 of 33 20 July 2010 at 10:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, the article doesn't talk about Spanish people in general. It refers to the well-
known inability of Spaniards to learn foreign languages. We are arguably among the worst Western European countries in this respect, probably along with the UK. Apart from the given reasons, I would add the following: - Many people over 30 never took English at school, as French used to be a much more popular language. - Most people don't need English in their lives at all. - Traditionally, language teaching in Spanish schools have been orientated towards the written form. - A lot of adults think that English might be useful and decide to do something about it, but they take a curious approach: they treat English as though it was a scholar subject, not something you can incorporate to your daily live. For example, it never occurs to them that they could watch a movie in the original version, instead of the one with the absurd Castillian voices talking with this ugly leísmo all the time. All that might be changing with younger people, who are growing up with cable TV, not- dubbed commercials and downloaded American TV series, so who knows? Edited by Javi on 20 July 2010 at 10:09am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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