Different languages involve different modes of thought.

Vague, meaningless cliche? Perhaps to some, but I have spent a lot of time over the years thinking about it from all sorts of angles. And there are philosophical, psychological, literary, linguistic, and anthropological ways of approaching this issue, which is far from as obvious to me as it is to travelgourmet.

Our brains are fascinating things, and language is a window to look in and to look out. There are many things which differentiate us from and which bind us to each other; language does both.

Padraig, I wrote that work of scholarship you don't want to undertake here as an undergraduate, where I put together my course of study around the concept of the relationship between language and thought. Fortunately, that work is lost in the mists of time or in the nests of mice in the attic, and I won't be trying to recreate it any time soon.

But thanks for reminding me about it.

Padraig wrote" On the arrogance issue: I was not setting out to insult anybody.
LOL! This is your "raison d'etre".

I see that my stalker has arrived.

You have such an anti american bias. It is so apparent and do even flatter yourself, you self loathing espece de cretin.

It is a pity that Fodor's seems to tolerate personal attacks.

Yeah but luck for you or else your sorry self would be lying in some bog in Connemarra.

Travelme:

You are not welcome on this thread unless you have something truly significant to say.

Otherwise, Raus aus dem Haus!

>Foreign language study is all about skills. It isn't about thinking.

Not really.
It is about learning how to learn. The particular language may not be of interest to you, but you learn how to proceed when learning a language. It will be very particular to you - some people learn languages better "by osmosis", others from books, some people just collect the vocabulary and ignore grammar for the beginning while others prefer structure - but you know where to start and how to proceed. By leaving out language education you lose these skills.

Other mode of thinking, OTOH, only kicks in when you are fluent in the language - as Schuler demonstrated.

schuler, I am wounded. Surely attacking me is saying something significant.

Picking up on a few points in this thread:

Padraig wrote: “Dubya also understood the idea of needing a word to enable holding an idea when he pointed out that the French have no word for "entrepreneur"

Not sure where that comes from, but if Dubya ever said that then it is no surprise that Dubya was wrong on that as he was wrong on everything else he ever said - there sure is a French word, entrepreneur (masc., fem. -euse), and a business is either une entreprise or une affaire commerciale.

On the monoglottal American:

People learn languages mainly when they have to. Americans (as in USA-Americans) on the whole don’t have to, because they have the luck and luxury of using a dialect of the world’s most global language - English.

Hence all the jokes about “what do you call someone who speaks two languages - bilingual, one language - American...etc.”. The grain of truth provides the humor, and those with a sour disposition take offense. Ah well.

The Swiss are often cited as posterboys for language diversity. They are no more virtuous than Americans - they have to learn languages, by law, and by necessity.

For example: The 60 percent of Swiss who grow up with one of the many local Swiss-German dialects in their home get a rude awakening when beginning school, they have at least one hour a day in German - the imported “high German” (Hochdeutsch) from across the border.

(That imported German is the language for all written and most official oral communications in that part of Switzerland, but it is not spoken in the home or on the street.)

And a few short years into this, they also have to learn French (the language of about 25 percent of their fellow compatriots in the western part of Switzerland).

Right now, the debate is on, about whether to also start them out very early in English (in some Cantons), either instead of French, or alongside with French. Mandatory, or elective - at what age - the Cantons and the Federation are wrestling with that right now.

I have yet to encounter a Swiss who, overall, considers him/herself superior because of language abilities. But knowing a language sure comes in handy in many situations, so when an American keeps repeating, louder and louder, the same question in English that the other party simply can’t understand, and some bystander (maybe a Swiss?) quietly translates and defuses the situation - guess who has the right to feel a bit smug? I’ve seen this happen too many times...

The point of all this: While they have that lucky luxury of linguistic “world dominance”, Americans should not close their minds to the fact that languages represent ways of thinking, provide untold riches and insights into cultures, and that learning another language to the point of fluency stimulates, as do pursuits like serious study of chess, or music, areas of the brain that will then serve the individual in other ways - enabling clearer thinking, making better decisions, seeing the big picture more easily, aside from just providing lots of fun and a healthy sense of achievement.

Dolly - i defer to your obviously vast knowledge of Swiss....

yet my impression as a casual tourist is that few Swiss Germans for instance can speak French or Italian but more often English - i note this when i try to speak French to them and they respond in English

I've seen more than one Swiss speak to each other in English - say a French and a German Swiss - i was under the impression that perhaps many young Swiss would rather study English and use that as a common language when required rather than speak German or French.

Obviously my observations are from rather ephemeral contacts and may well be wrong.

PalenQ - may I call you Polly?

Glad you asked.

The French-speakers in the western part of Switzerland have it worse than those in the Swiss-German dialect-speaking part. In school they have to learn the imported German, by law, but for them it is much harder because at home they don't speak a dialect of that German, so they don't have a head-start, and, worse, when they go to the Swiss-German parts of Switzerland, their (probably fractured school-learned) German is not what people speak in the street and in their homes, they use the local dialect.

So it may sometimes be easier for two Swiss to break into English...

As to few Swiss being able to speak French - most of those in the Swiss-German region come out of school with a working knowledge of French, they can certainly read it and understand the news bulletins on the radio etc., but like with everything else, some are shy about their accent, others rarely use it and get rusty.

But if you want to get ahead in the Swiss-German parts, you need to brush up and get good at it - hence the tradition of spending a school year somewhere in the Romandie (the Swiss name for the French-speaking region) as an immersion.

POLLY sez: "yet my impression as a casual tourist is that few Swiss Germans for instance can speak French or Italian but more often English - i note this when i try to speak French to them and they respond in English"

To this I reply in asking: How good is your French? If it sounds belabored, halting, heavily accented, coming from an English-speaker, the Swiss simply switch to English because of expediency. To them all this trying out a few words here or there that Fodorites talk about being fun to try, that's not amusing to them, they simply switch to the language that gets the job done, period.

If you persist in speaking a fractured and halting and heavily accented French, a polite person might humor you for a minute, but will probably do it while cringing on the inside.

Here's where you come in: As a tourist, you have to realize that you deal with a lot of people in the service industries, and many of these people may be foreigners themselves - one in five in Switzerland comes from elsewhere!

For them the language problems are even more immense. Imagine a Turkish or Polish or Portuguese or Tamil (Sri Lanka) "guest worker" having to learn German (because everything that is written down is in German), plus the local Swiss-German dialect (because that is how all the Swiss customers will address them, and which can be hugely different between, say, St. Gallen, Basel, Meiringen, and Zermatt...), some French, and some English for those darned tourists, all to serve you your Cervelat mit Kartoffelsalat at minimum wages...

And you walk away thinking s/he was a Swiss lacking the reputed language skills...

You mentioned Italian, that is a bit different. Only about ten percent of Swiss, those down south of the St. Gotthard, speak it - they sound a bit like the Milanese south of the border in their accent.

The Ticinesi learn either German or French or both, and English if they want to get ahead. If a Swiss north of the alps learns Italian it is not because of these 10 percent of compatriots. If a Swiss north of the alps learns Italian it is because of a personal choice and reason. Some do, but by no means all.

Now don't get me started on Rumantsch, the fourth official language of Switzerland...

Used to speak fluent french, but not any more!

As long as you can say please, thankyou, hello, two beers, two coffees and where is the toilet, you know enough to go anywhere!

Sculer: Vete freir esparragos!

Dolly, I consider your feable attempt at humor, "what do you call someone who speaks one language ..." to be offensive. Do you live in the U.S.? I don't think you so, because you have a total lack of understanding of the situation. In American, about 250 million people speak English as a mother tongue. In Europe 250 million people speak one of four languages (German, French, Italian, or Spanish) as native. I doubt that, in Europe, 1% of the people speak all four of those languages, let alone a fifth language used by those around them. And yet you expect an American, most of whom will never travel to a non-English speaking country, to learn a "fifth" language, which probably won't be used by those around him.

As for your pathetic attempt at a "joke", the last time I heard that I was in Europe. I was in a room with five other Europeans. I speak some of their language. One was also fluent in Canadian. The other four, like half of all Europeans, spoke only their mother tongue. The one bilingual European started to tell the joke, but quit when she realized how dumb it sounded.

Usually, the langange barrier is exciting. It's not as fun going to a place and not have to brush up on the langauge. And it's thrilling when someone actually understands me. (My life is dull)

I speak above average toursit Spanish and can understand a lot more than I speak.

I speak below average tourist German but Deutchlanders tell me I speak it fairly well but I think they are just exceedingly nice. I would love to live in Germany and become fluent.

I know 25 words in French but apparently can't pronounce them very well.

I have just browsed through the thread titled "A Footy Q for CW..." Therein lie several examples of foreign language. I think it was quite humorous -- if only I had been able to understand it!

Lolly-in-Colorado took offense. That's sad. Sorry you didn't read the entire post and couldn't comprehend the context.

Lolly, ahem, Larry didn't read where it said "People learn languages mainly when they have to. Americans (as in USA-Americans) on the whole don’t have to, because they have the luck and luxury of using a dialect of the world’s most global language - English" - which is pretty much a free pass for Americans not to learn a language, is it not?

And because they don't have to, most of them don't learn another language, which is a source of humor to those who do speak more than one.

It also said in that post that offended Lolly: "The grain of truth provides the humor, and those with a sour disposition take offense. Ah well."

So. Lolly-in-Colorado, examine your disposition and have another Coors. No harm no foul.

Enough "travel" Spanish to get by, but just with a few words, not proper sentances.

And some Italian-----Gucci, Feragamo, Armani, Fendi, etc.

The country we travel most in is France, and I speak very little French.

It's never been a problem in any country. Basically most people are kind to you, if you are polite, and try and help you in any language.

Just learning a few phrases is helpful and shows respect for the culture and people--here are a couple of sources of some phrases that go beyond the usual "hello," "how much," and "where's the WC."

This site gives you something interesting to say in numerous languages:

http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/useful.htm

This one provides French, Spanish, and German phrases--other languages available, too:

http://www.zompist.com/phrases.html