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How do the Swedish learn English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 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 57 of 61 27 March 2013 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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The classical definition of Europe is that it ends with a screech at the Ural mountains. According to one article in Wikipedia there are 144 mio native speakers of Russian in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, plus some in other places like the Baltic countries. But according to another Wikipedia article there are 40 mio. inhabitants in Siberia, most of whom are native Russian native speakers, so the actual number of native Russophones in Europe could be somewhere around 110 mio. speakers, slightly more than the number of native German speakers which is estimated to 90-100 mio speakers.
But this doesn't take into account the number of second language speakers, and here English is certainly more widespread than Russian - and the tendency is that even people in Eastern Europe nowadays learn English rather than Russian so this tendency will be steadily increasing. Other languages like German, French, Spanish, Italian and Polish have lots of native speakers, but they have not nearly as many second language learners as English, and those who study these languages will generally be at a lower level in them because they started out with English and added a third or fourth language several years later. And the area where English is the most important foreign language now covers most of the world including Europe. The other languages are generally more popular in specific parts of Europe or among certain groups - like the workers from the former Yugoslavia who have had jobs in Germany and herefore now speak the language. That being said, Russian may have lost ground in Eastern Europe, but it has become more common in the tourist industry with the rising number of Russian visitors. We have read a lot about Cyprus lately, but one of things that I have noticed is that that island apparently has had a lot of Russian guests. And I have also been in the airport of Chambéry in France, waiting for my flight which was no. 4 in the row. The three flights before mine were all for destinations in Russia.... Edited by Iversen on 27 March 2013 at 3:03pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 58 of 61 27 March 2013 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oh, okay. I just came to the conclusion that that the difference is probably not "most
widespread in Europe" but "Most widespread in the EU" and then it's probably German. Or not? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 59 of 61 27 March 2013 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | ||
Or not, according to this Wikipedia entry for the EU27: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Union There are more first German speakers than English in the EU (though English 13%, German 16%, French 12% and Italian 12% are pretty close for first language learning - the next most common 1st languages Spanish and Polish both trail behind at 8%), but way more 2nd language learners learn English 38% than German 11%, French 12%, Italian 3%, Spanish 7%, and Polish 1%. According to this 51% of EU citizens speak English (in some form), compared to those who know German 27%, French 24%, Italian 16%, Spanish 15%, and Polish 9%. Edited by patrickwilken on 28 March 2013 at 7:05pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 60 of 61 27 March 2013 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | ||
The number of native Russian speakers is usually underestimated. Being asked people usually can name only one native language. And the choice is usually made due to political reasons. For example, in Belarus По данным переписи 2009 года, родным для 60 % населения является белорусский язык, но дома большинство жителей страны (70 %)[31] разговаривают на русском. http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BB% D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0 %91%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8 And even the rest 30 % of people might be more proficient in Russian than in Belorussian or they speak a language which is very close to Standard Russian. And Russian isn't really foreign to anyone in Belarus. A similar thing happens in Ukraine: a person who is equally proficient in Ukrainian and Russian would call Ukrainian his native language if he considers himself ethnic Ukrainian. He might do it even if his Ukrainian is worse than Russian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 61 of 61 28 March 2013 at 2:07am | IP Logged | ||
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The numbers for Belarusian are really weird. Actually nowadays it's only in families of true enthusiasts that Belarusian native speakers are born.
I think most of those 60% who consider themselves Belarusian native speakers actually speak Trasjanka. I wish the terms Ukrainian Russian and Belarusian Russian were recognized the way American English is. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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