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The future doesn’t speak French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6953 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 25 of 33 26 October 2006 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
It certainly does. I heard that London is the most multilingual city in the English-speaking world and it does attract a lot of people from everywhere in the world, be they visitors, refugees or immigrants. One of my Polish friends recently complained that she heard so much Polish in London that she couldn't work on her English as much as she would have liked. Edited by Chung on 26 October 2006 at 4:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| easyboy82 Pentaglot Groupie Italy Joined 6627 days ago 72 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Italian*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Greek | Message 26 of 33 28 October 2006 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Too many people make the association "important economy= important language". The power of attraction of a language and its importance derive from other elements too,such as its cultural production (cinema,scientific studies available in that language,music and so on...). Otherwise there would be no reason to learn German for example (we could speak English in business with Germany),but German is for example very important for classical studies so it is not only taught for an economic purpose. And so on..also considering the languages of regional relevance: I always think that in Europe studying a foreign language is above all a way to be closer to our neighbours .
Do you think English would be so widespread without the cultural products of the English speaking world? Chinese or Arabic will not be widespread languages only because the countries they're spoken in will be economically powerful,but only if they will be able to produce cultural products of relevance. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6565 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 27 of 33 29 October 2006 at 6:27am | IP Logged | |||||
Interesting point. Instruction in the Arabic language is practically mandatory for Muslims, and Islam has over 1 billion adherents worldwide. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| easyboy82 Pentaglot Groupie Italy Joined 6627 days ago 72 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Italian*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Greek | Message 28 of 33 30 October 2006 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't want to be misunderstood, when i said "products of cultural relevance" I obviously meant at worldwide and popular level (cinema ,music , etc ) : it is clear the languages I mentioned already have rich cultures in the countries they're spoken in...
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| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6565 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 29 of 33 31 October 2006 at 2:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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^^^
Well, most Muslims do not live in Arabic-speaking countries but study the language for cultural and religious reasons. As a result, there could be hundreds of millions of people worldwide with second-language Arabic knowledge. As for pop culture, the Chinese have an edge — they've been producing some amazing films lately. However, movie distributors are pretty good at adapting their product to the audience (dubbing, subtitles, etc.), so aside from aspiring actors and actresses, I don't see movies being a huge impetus for language spread. True, there are anime fans who learn Japanese to enjoy the latest releases, but such people are a rarity. Literature probably has a greater influence on language learning, but here the European languages continue to dominate (French, German, Russian, &c). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| easyboy82 Pentaglot Groupie Italy Joined 6627 days ago 72 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Italian*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Greek | Message 30 of 33 01 November 2006 at 2:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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It is not a matter of need to learn a language to watch a film (in Italy for example every film is dubbed),but a rich film production make the language fashionable. I continue to think that economic relevance is only one,and not the most important,factor of a language importance and power of attraction.
PS: you are speaking of muslims living outside of Arabic countries not of non-muslim people... Edited by easyboy82 on 01 November 2006 at 2:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| alcina Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6494 days ago 51 posts - 54 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Italian | Message 31 of 33 01 November 2006 at 6:19am | IP Logged | |||||
I agree and disagree :) I like French films (even some bad ones!) and even though my French is not at the stage yet where I can watch a film without subtitles there is still a hugh difference in experience watching the film in its original French and watching it dubbed into English. For me one of my goals in learning French is to be able to watch "sans sous-titres". It's more than being fashionable, it's to do with experiencing the culture, and the language is an integral part of that. I also am a long time fan of Hong Kong movies and again to watch them dubbed into English is just...well..."wrong"! Hearing English words and colloquialisms whilst watching "foreign" films is, for me, a culture jar that's just horrible! Alcina 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6456 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 32 of 33 02 November 2006 at 8:48am | IP Logged | |||||
I agree wholeheartedly. At the same time, I recognize that it is a challenge to determine which languages are truly important. The question is probably not "Is X an important language, but is X an important language to me? What are the benefits of learning X--not just economic, but intellectual and cultural and social? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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