Multilingual Europeans (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Multilingual Europeans
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neo
Diglot
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Speaks: Hindi*, English
Studies: German, Italian

Message 1 of 40

11 August 2006 at 11:35pm | IP Logged

I have read much about Europeans being fluent in minimum three languages and I hope my queries in this regard can be solved by europeans on this board.

I have read that europeans,specially young people applying for jobs have to be almost always fluent in 2-3 languages.

Struggling with German myself,I wonder how is that europeans manage to become fluent in 3-4 languages ??

Is it their geographical proximity to other countries that aid their language learning ?

Or is it that they have so much cross-cultural travel going on that it immenslely helps in language learning ?

I am from India and despite being landlocked with china or middle eastern nations ,we asians hardly benefit from the geographical proximity in language learning that apparently benefits europeans so much.

Or is it because that asian languages are all from different language families whereas european languages have common roots viz.,Romance family ??

It would be helpful for me if any member here or europeans in particular could shed more light on this.

Thanks.
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lady_skywalker
Triglot
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Netherlands
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Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin
Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian

Message 2 of 40

11 August 2006 at 11:53pm | IP Logged

I think it might be a bit of an exaggeration to say Europeans are fluent in 3 or 4 languages as many do tend to consider themselves more fluent than they actually are. Some are under the impression that having studied French, German and (usually) English at school means that they are fluent in those languages but the reality is that some of them (not all) are barely past the low-intermediate stage.

Many may know enough of the language to deal with everyday life and work, in which case they are 'fluent' enough to meet a job's demands. I think employers can be equally clueless as to what exactly constitutes 'fluency'. I'd be more assured of companies that ask for a 'working knowledge' of several languages than complete fluency as I personally think it's much harder to become fluent than the average person thinks.

Generally speaking, Europeans probably have a lot more opportunities to learn other languages because of :

+ The relative freedom of movement and small size of Europe (in some cases, it takes less time to go to another country than it is to travel to another state in the USA). This allows more interaction with people from other countries and language backgrounds.

+ The fact that most European schools teach at least 1 foreign language for several years. Some teach 2 or 3.

+ The existence of the EU probably has a lot to do with the importance of French, German and English as these are the 3 most important languages for communication in a union where over 20 different languages are given 'official' status.

+ Most good jobs in Europe ask for a minimum of 2 foreign languages plus your own native language. This gives young Europeans an incentive to learn languages as monolingualism will not get you very far in this day and age.

I'm sure there are many other reasons but these are just some of the more important ones.

Despite the above, I do want to say that you'd be surprised at how many monolingual people there still are in Europe. As I said above, fluency is something that people don't always understand so some people do credit themselves with more than they are due. My partner, for instance, learned 3 foreign languages at school but he is barely conversational in these, although he is practically fluent in English.

I am also very reluctant to claim fluency in anything other than my mother tongue (and possibly Spanish) as I know full well that I cannot write a thesis in French or give a long extended business presentation in Mandarin. I know my limits but I am sure there are many who don't.
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lengua
Senior Member
United States
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Joined 6686 days ago
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Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German

Message 3 of 40

12 August 2006 at 12:30am | IP Logged

Quote:

I am also very reluctant to claim fluency in anything other than my mother tongue (and possibly Spanish) as I know full well that I cannot write a thesis in French or give a long extended business presentation in Mandarin.

It's worth remembering though, that fluency and formal education are quite different things. No illiterate human being on Earth would be able to write a thesis in his or her native tongue, nevermind in that of another language - but we wouldn't say the >3 billion people (or however many illiterate people there are on Earth) weren't fluent in their native languages. In the same way, you would be hard-pressed to find *any person not in business* capable of giving extended business presentations or what have you in *any* language, regardless of how literate they were. Yet we wouldn't call 99.99999999999999% of the world not fluent. Similar examples would include defining fluency as the ability to teach quantum physics to college students, or the ability to lead an operating room full of heart surgeons. Such activities, naturally, have infinitely more to do with someone's time spent specializing in said field than with someone's capacity for fluency.

Personally, I don't see the need to ascribe a "holy grail" type quality to fluency for the purpose of implying fewer people are fluent than they actually might be. Very few people who learn multiple languages will find themselves tackling challenges in their target languages that they would never have tackled in their native languages - like a native French computer programmar suddenly delivering Martin Luther Kingesque speeches in Maori - therefore, creating artificially difficult thresholds for proficiency seems unnecessary. In my opinion, if a person (person A) can communicate fluidly with another person without searching for words, pausing in self-doubt, or making a native speaker slow down or use simple/non-idiomatic expressions for the benefit of the non-native person, then person A is, for all practical purposes, fluent in the language. I think the term was defined very nicely by Captlemuel in the last post on this page.

Captlemuel wrote:

If a person were to tell me that he is fluent in French, I would think that by fluent he means that in most situations he speaks it quickly, easily, accurately, gracefully, and (perhaps) idiomatically; that he almost always has enough words on the tip of his tongue to carry on a conversation with a cultivated Parisian. If in most situations he in fact speaks as indicated, I would acknowledge him fluent and to have achieved mastery. Indeed, I do take fluency to imply mastery. But I do not take mastery to imply fluency... On the other hand, a person who has practiced his French enough to be able to chat in it with a patient Frenchman, but who cannot speak it easily and accurately in most situations; who in common conversation often pauses to search for common words that he knows but does not yet have at his command, is, in my opinion, neither fluent nor 'basically fluent'. I say he is not fluent and not 'basically fluent' because in most situations his expressions do not flow out of his mouth easily, accurately, etc. And of course I would not consider him to have achieved mastery. But I think he may be said to be competent in French; for he can engage a Frenchman in conversation.
   Fluent means flowing; readiness in speech. It is defined as such by every good dictionary. We do still consult English dictionaries, right? And incidentally, fluent pertains to speaking, not to reading. If you read easily a book written in your second language, and understand what is conveyed, you do not read fluently; you read well, just as you read well, not fluently, when you read a book in your native language.
   It is entirely possible (and is probably quite common) that a person whose second language is, say, Italian, who has an active vocabulary of twenty thousand words, and a thorough understanding of sentence structure, may be less fluent in Italian than a person whose second language is also Italian, who has an active vocabulary of ten thousand words, and a good understanding of sentence structure. For fluency--a smooth and rapid and steady flow of accurate speech--is also determined by personality, by how fast the mind processes information, by how carefully one speaks, and probably by other things.
   So, to me, fluency does imply mastery; but mastery does not imply fluency. Fluency implies mastery and a ready tongue. To me mastery of a second language implies a thorough understanding of sentence structure, a large active vocabulary, and ability to speak accurately (unless the language is 'dead').

To the OP, I am not European, but from what I've seen and read, it's definitely got to do with the close proximity of many European nations (necessitating abilities with multiple languages for effective communication with one's neighbors), job opportunities, and mandatory schooling in foreign languages. But basically, it comes down to need. In regions where people are able to live without the need to communicate in multiple languages, generally, such people will not learn multiple languages. If a European couple had a child in Australia, for example, it's quite possible the child would grow up monolingual, depending on his or her education, and the language(s) the parents chose to use when addressing each other and the child at home. But if that child grew up and traveled to Europe (and got married and had a child of his/her own), the child would have a good chance of growing up polylingual, depending on the area in which the child was raised (higher if on mainland Europe, much less if in England).

Edited by lengua on 12 August 2006 at 12:38am
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lady_skywalker
Triglot
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Netherlands
aspiringpolyglotblog
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Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin
Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian

Message 4 of 40

12 August 2006 at 12:47am | IP Logged

lengua wrote:

I never said that *everyone* had to be capable of writing a thesis. I, however, *have* written a thesis in English and therefore feel that for me to be just as fluent in another language as I am in English, I'd also have to be able to write one in the languages I have studied. Fluency is subjective and, in my humble opinion, absolute fluency not only covers oral fluency (being able to speak fluidly without hesitation) but also being able to do pretty much anything in that foreign language that you can do in English. Perhaps I have set the bar a little too high but this is just my personal opinion. I certainly wouldn't expect an illiterate to ever be able to read in a foreign language but this shouldn't detract from the fact they're orally fluent in at least one language.

lengua wrote:

Personally, I don't see the need to ascribe a "holy grail" type quality to fluency for the purpose of implying fewer people are fluent than they actually might be. In my opinion, if a person (person A) can communicate fluidly with another person without searching for words, pausing in self-doubt, or making a native speaker slow down or use simple/non-idiomatic expressions for the benefit of the non-native person, then person A is, for all practical purposes, fluent in the language.

Yes, I understand that, but you miss my point. My point is that not everyone *is* capable of speaking another language fluently. I have seen way too many people who claim to be 'fluent' in Language X but who can't even get the basics right. I've even seen people back home in bilingual Gibraltar who can't speak either English or Spanish fluently (I'm not refering to our local patois here but English and Spanish proper) but who would no doubt claim fluency in both in an instant. Likewise, I think there are many out there who claim to be fluent but who are certainly not. This isn't me being arrogant; I'm just stating something I have seen (and heard) for myself.

Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with not being fluent in the foreign language(s) you're learning. Fluency is a hard enough goal to attain and you'd have to be very gifted (or very hard-working) to ever be fluent in more than 2 or 3 languages.
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lengua
Senior Member
United States
polyglottery.wordpre
Joined 6686 days ago
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Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German

Message 5 of 40

12 August 2006 at 12:57am | IP Logged

lady_skywalker wrote:

My point is that not everyone *is* capable of speaking another language fluently. I have seen way too many people who claim to be 'fluent' in Language X but who can't even get the basics right. I've even seen people back home in bilingual Gibraltar who can't speak either English or Spanish fluently (I'm not refering to our local patois here but English and Spanish proper) but who would no doubt claim fluency in both in an instant. Likewise, I think there are many out there who claim to be fluent but who are certainly not. This isn't me being arrogant; I'm just stating something I have seen (and heard) for myself.

Ah, I see where you're coming from now. :^)

Edited by lengua on 12 August 2006 at 1:08am
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delectric
Diglot
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China
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Speaks: English*, Mandarin
Studies: German

Message 6 of 40

12 August 2006 at 3:23am | IP Logged

I have family in Belgium and I certainly envy the language skills of many in my family. It seems quite common for many of them to speak Dutch, English and French and then on top of that perhaps Spanish for some of them.

Though there are just monolingual Dutch speakers too (usually older though). I think Belgium has a unique situation though. It has Brussels as its capital, it's a small relatively unimportant country (Dutch won't take you too far in Europe) surrounded by major European powers, it's a bilingual state and they seem to teach foreign languages much earlier there than in say the UK.

However, go to France and you won't find too many people speaking three or four languages.

Edited by delectric on 12 August 2006 at 1:25pm
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patuco
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Message 7 of 40

12 August 2006 at 3:44am | IP Logged

I think it depends on where you go in Europe. As delectric mentioned, most French people aren't too comfortable in other languages. This is also true for most British and Spanish people. Perhaps the more obsucure the language is, the more likely a citizen of that country will speak at least one other language.
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Andy_Liu
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Message 8 of 40

12 August 2006 at 4:36am | IP Logged

patuco wrote:

Obscure? Do you mean those with less native speakers?

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