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English as the universal language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5264 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 201 of 206 19 March 2010 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You won't get around the entire world, but both Spanish and French are spoken in more than 14 countries. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6250 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 202 of 206 20 March 2010 at 3:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Some people have done that with Esperanto. I know one who did 14 countries (but over more than 5 months); I've heard of several others. I've done 4 countries with it. You can do it with every major language, I'd think. Between expat communities, companies aimed at helping tourists, and so forth, I don't see any reason why traveling 14 countries with only one language would be impossible. Not speaking a local language occasionally leads to problems, but those can be surprisingly rare, especially if you're spending time with a community of people who speak both your language and that of the local community. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6771 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 203 of 206 20 March 2010 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It depends where you go. English is the official languages of about 80 countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_English _is_an_official_language with your French you can be understood in 30 countries or more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language With your sSanish you can go without problems in 20 countries or more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_Spanish _is_an_official_language then with Arabic you can be understood in more than 15 countries in Africa and Asia , also Russian is widely spoken in eastern Europe and ex.Ussr countries . 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6771 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 204 of 206 20 March 2010 at 12:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Some people have done that with Esperanto. I know one who did 14 countries (but over more than 5 months); . /QUOTE] Of course you can do it with Esperanto , but you need to go to the esperanto clubs. Or you can do it with Latin if you speak only with almost all catholic priests ... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6250 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 205 of 206 20 March 2010 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You need to find speakers, not clubs. I've only been to clubs in two countries, and neither were a major part of my experience. But, as I said, what the official language of a country is is surprisingly unimportant. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| PaulLambeth Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5184 days ago 244 posts - 315 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Hindi, Irish | Message 206 of 206 21 March 2010 at 10:21am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Speaking as a Brit* who doesn't have a love for the majority of his region and gracefully admires those regions that still speak Irish and Scottish Gaelic and Welsh, Thankyou very much for bringing this up. I've spent about one and a half hours reading all the way up to page 12, seeing more and more arguments come in and out and feeling as guilty as I always have. There's a general aura of blissful ignorance in the UK and America that actually disgusts me. Our language courses at school that you made reference to do almost nothing unless students actually take a liking towards generally poor quality teaching of a language that most don't take pleasure in learning (I for one at school hated French and German lessons and was allowed to give up both after just 3 years of 2 lessons a week in each, tragically in hindsight...). It's so easy to give up language learning at the point when many foreigners are at an intermediate stage. People as a consequence don't know how to learn languages and may see it as just the unenjoyable chore that our school language programs demonstrate it as. Even at 19 at university, I'm quite unusual in my social group for wanting to learn another language. Seeing downright ignorance of other cultures (not in my social group but just around me) helped me to decide that I wanted to learn another language. The argument for us Brits is about the need to learn the language. Due to colonialism (I won't expand further) and neocolonialism, amongst other reasons, Brits now are brought up into a society that's able to walk into others without much difficulty (except notable chunks) and tend to encounter foreigners learning their language and integrating with the community. Most foreign-based businesses that Brits encounter also generally can communicate easily in English. This argument is strong but this is continuously leading to Brits getting an easy ride with languages. However I do feel that in many developed countries the need to learn English is not significantly there (i.e. those not employed in multinational corporations or in tourism). Often there is a desire for other reasons - one being to learn a language that is recognised in many other countries. Why then do they not learn Spanish? It is recognised in considerably less countries than English is. I read somewhere else on this thread that a lot of English speakers find it impressive when foreigners** can speak English to anything approaching native fluency. I totally agree. I've foreign friends who can speak it in this way and with one in particular it strikes me as absurd how good their English is. I admire them. Whenever I travel to other countries I don't expect to be understood by the locals but it's clear that tourist companies apply particular effort, for obvious reasons. I hope that got my points across. British attitudes tend to annoy me. Being a native English speaker, and probably exceptionally in most natively English communities, I would prefer that everyone, including myself, learns another language for international communication. Of course it won't happen like that as it'd involve the removal of so much money invested into teaching people English for exactly the same purpose. *The use of Brit here expands to the UK, Northern Ireland and N.America. I can't speak for Canada, Australia or New Zealand as I rarely have contact with people from those regions and Canada has a high population of French speakers. **Those whose first language is not English; I'm making no reference to citizenship. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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