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English as the universal language

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skeeterses
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United States
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 Message 89 of 206
13 November 2009 at 9:05pm | IP Logged 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33911114/ns/travel-destinations/
Quote:
Brits say no to foreign language on holiday
More than half polled refuse to embrace local tongues, survey finds

I would say this is good news for the people who believe that English should be the universal language.

Quote:
More than one in 10 of the 2,012 respondents said that they felt there was no point in learning foreign languages as everyone speaks English anyway.


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cordelia0507
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United Kingdom
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 Message 90 of 206
13 November 2009 at 10:27pm | IP Logged 
In response to the survey.. (ps - is Msnbc English? I thought it was American)

The average English person takes some kind of twisted pride in the fact that he can't speak any foreign languages.
Those we meet here are very much the exceptions to that rule.

Some more or less normal people have managed to learn decent French in school and occassionally somebody can get by in German.
That's it.

The UK makes a lot of the "special relationship" with America which I am not going to say anything about.. A lot of people value that higher than they value EU membership.
The average Brit does not watch films in any language other than English, same with music.

Several people actually have the cheek to complain about the bad English skills of French or German people. Despite the fact that both these languages are bigger in the EU and despite the fact that they are IN the other country while making the complaint, Also despite the fact that the person complaining cannot himself speak any foreign language at all. (I know all this because I travel with Brits for work)

As much as I like Britain: Frankly, I don't know what Brits have done to deserve the "free ride" they get from being native speakers of English.

Esperanto, now, please!

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Sennin
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Bulgaria
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 Message 91 of 206
13 November 2009 at 10:45pm | IP Logged 
In any case, whether it would be English or Mandarin Chinese or any other language, the status of a lingua franca is not a permanent one. It is something that changes with the political and economic situation. It is only natural that the dominance of English will come to an end at some point in the future, then we will have a new global language, then another one, and another one....

Economics can change completely in 10-20 years, unlike languages, which change at a much slower pace. There's not enough time for the lingua franca to displace other languages. I think this discussion is too strongly opinionated, people attacking each other on the basis of political arguments. What's the point? No one can predict the future with certainty, we can only guess.

cordelia0507 wrote:
The average English person takes some kind of twisted pride in the fact that he can't speak any foreign languages.
Those we meet here are very much the exceptions to that rule.

Some more or less normal people have managed to learn decent French in school and occassionally somebody can get by in German.
That's it.

The UK makes a lot of the "special relationship" with America which I am not going to say anything about.. A lot of people value that higher than they value EU membership.
The average Brit does not watch films in any language other than English, same with music.


Let's not make a British thing out of this, it's an attitude that exists in every country. Most monolingual people can't appreciate the challenge of learning a foreign language, and for the lack of anything else to be proud of are proud of being monolingual. Maybe its a bit more prominent in the UK but by no means unique. I know some British people who are very passionate and curious about languages, and for their sake I'm against generalizing in this way.



Edited by Sennin on 13 November 2009 at 11:03pm
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Lindsay19
Diglot
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United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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Speaks: English*, GermanC1
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 Message 92 of 206
13 November 2009 at 10:54pm | IP Logged 
cordelia0507 wrote:
In response to the survey.. (ps - is Msnbc English? I thought it was American)

The average English person takes some kind of twisted pride in the fact that he can't speak any foreign languages.
Those we meet here are very much the exceptions to that rule.

Some more or less normal people have managed to learn decent French in school and occassionally somebody can get by in German.
That's it.

The UK makes a lot of the "special relationship" with America which I am not going to say anything about.. A lot of people value that higher than they value EU membership.
The average Brit does not watch films in any language other than English, same with music.

Several people actually have the cheek to complain about the bad English skills of French or German people. Despite the fact that both these languages are bigger in the EU and despite the fact that they are IN the other country while making the complaint, Also despite the fact that the person complaining cannot himself speak any foreign language at all. (I know all this because I travel with Brits for work)

As much as I like Britain: Frankly, I don't know what Brits have done to deserve the "free ride" they get from being native speakers of English.

Esperanto, now, please!


I know many people (monolingual friends - native English speakers) with this additude. It especially gets my goat when they make fun of someone else's English if it isn't perfect, while of course, not knowing a word of another foriegn language other than a few phrases in Spanish. Which is why I'm sometimes embarressed to be American..
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Gusutafu
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Sweden
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 Message 93 of 206
13 November 2009 at 11:27pm | IP Logged 
Sennin wrote:

Let's not make a British thing out of this, it's an attitude that exists in every country. Most monolingual people can't appreciate the challenge of learning a foreign language, and for the lack of anything else to be proud of are proud of being monolingual. Maybe its a bit more prominent in the UK but by no means unique. I know some British people who are very passionate and curious about languages, and for their sake I'm against generalizing in this way.


Well, expecting foreigners to speak your language IS pretty unique to anglophones. It's very seldom you hear Bulgarian or Swedes, or even Chinese, complain that the locals at the beach resort in Thailand don't speak Swedish/Bulgarian/Chinese. Even the other attitude, about be a proud monolingual, is hard to find in countries where no-one but those who skipped classes for 8 years in school would be completely monolingual.
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Sennin
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5845 days ago
1457 posts - 1759 votes 
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 Message 94 of 206
13 November 2009 at 11:38pm | IP Logged 
Gusutafu wrote:
Sennin wrote:

Let's not make a British thing out of this, it's an attitude that exists in every country. Most monolingual people can't appreciate the challenge of learning a foreign language, and for the lack of anything else to be proud of are proud of being monolingual. Maybe its a bit more prominent in the UK but by no means unique. I know some British people who are very passionate and curious about languages, and for their sake I'm against generalizing in this way.


Well, expecting foreigners to speak your language IS pretty unique to anglophones. It's very seldom you hear Bulgarian or Swedes, or even Chinese, complain that the locals at the beach resort in Thailand don't speak Swedish/Bulgarian/Chinese. Even the other attitude, about be a proud monolingual, is hard to find in countries where no-one but those who skipped classes for 8 years in school would be completely monolingual.


Yeah, I agree but Cordelia's comment was more about the air of superiority around monolinguals, not the expectation that everybody should know English. We should make a difference here, some people expect you to speak English (the result of its global dominance + a touch of arrogance ) but are not considering you an inferior because you have to learn it as a 2nd language. And then, there are others... I don't want to qualify them, that would lead the thread in the wrong direction. My point was, there are people with extreme views in every country.


Edited by Sennin on 14 November 2009 at 12:48am
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Gusutafu
Senior Member
Sweden
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Speaks: Swedish*

 
 Message 96 of 206
14 November 2009 at 11:51am | IP Logged 
Buttons wrote:
cordelia0507 wrote:
In response to the survey.. (ps - is Msnbc English? I thought it was American)

The average English person takes some kind of twisted pride in the fact that he can't speak any foreign languages.
Those we meet here are very much the exceptions to that rule.

Some more or less normal people have managed to learn decent French in school and occassionally somebody can get by in German.
That's it.

The UK makes a lot of the "special relationship" with America which I am not going to say anything about.. A lot of people value that higher than they value EU membership.
The average Brit does not watch films in any language other than English, same with music.



There is also the aspect that in the UK, we have people from so many different countries that choosing a foreign language to learn in order for it to be useful is pretty difficult to decide.

For example, in school, German and French are the most commonly taught languages. But the number of speakers living in the UK from French speaking and/or German speaking countries seem to be a smaller number than those who speak hindi, urdu, polish, arabic etc etc etc.

On the other hand, what all these people with their different native languages have in common, is that usually, they can speak some sort of English.

I really don't think this situation encourages people from the UK to learn languages either.



Using that logic, why would non-Brits study languages other than English?


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