danon

"Swedish NHL player speak? The vast majority of them speak "better" English than their Canadian counterparts. "


What "kind of" English do Canadians speak? ( unless you are talking about Russian, or French speaking players
from Quebec. )

travelgourmet

<i>But for most Americans, the study of a foreign language is a great deal of effort with only a small practical payback.
</i>

Truer words never spoken. I live abroad and travel a lot and hardly ever use what little foreign language skills I have. I lived in Denmark for 2 years and never learned anything more than "tak", simply because it was completely and utterly unnecessary. The wife learned a decent amount and can even read the newspaper, but even her Danish is pretty much "stuck" from lack of use, despite living and working in Copenhagen.

Even now, living in Switzerland, where the English language skills are probably 30% of what they were in Denmark, I don't speak German. I keep telling myself that I should learn, but I get by quite easily without it, so haven't had much need.

crefloors

I always forget my French and then try to brush up before my trip. It's frustrating because I never get any better.

My neice was required to take Danish the year she was in school there, and she said it's very difficult, plus she was 22 years old so certainly didn't pick it up like a young kid. She had tried to get lodging with a Danish family, to help with the language, but all the families were taken so she was in the dorm and was with americans mostly. She learned it well enough to pass her class and get the credit, but it wasn't that fun for her because she really struggled.

danon

"But for most Americans, the study of a foreign language is a great deal of effort with only a small practical payback.'


Believe it or not , it gives some people a great deal of satisfaction to be able to read foreign press, understand a foreign film, etc .
There is a sense of accomplishment in mastering a language - " practical payback" is not the only worthwhile outcome .
Does the fact that American presidents , mostly highly educated people, don't speak foreign languages (wasn't John Kerry ridiculed because he speaks OMG - French!) say something about country's mentality?

justretired

danon, I agree with you (I originally made the comment you quoted). I get <b>enormous</b> satisfaction out of speaking French, Spanish, Italian, and a bit of German.

I was just pointing out <i>why</i> English speakers have much less motivation to learn other languages than, say, a Finnish speaker. I <i>adore</i> being able to speak other languages, but I'm not going to criticize anyone else if it's not his or her priority.

Now, to criticize someone for having a skill you don't is another matter - there indeed does seem to be a streak of anti-intellectualism in certain segments of our country.

Larry

travelgourmet

<i>Does the fact that American presidents , mostly highly educated people, don't speak foreign languages (wasn't John Kerry ridiculed because he speaks OMG - French!) say something about country's mentality?</i>

Well, it might say something (though probably very, very little) about the country's mentality if it were actually a fact.

Obama speaks Indonesian at a conversational level, as well as basic Spanish. W speaks Spanish at a basic level. His father spoke fluent French. And Carter speaks Spanish. I've seen conflicting reports about whether Clinton speaks German or not.

Going back a bit, I think it was Hoover that spoke Mandarin, Wilson spoke German, Teddy Roosevelt spoke French and German, John Quincy Adams spoke 7 languages, Martin van Buren was a native Dutch speaker, Garfield could (allegedly) write in Greek with one hand and Latin with the other, at the same time. FDR spoke both German and French. Jefferson spoke, at least, French. Washington spoke limited French.

But, it doesn't really matter, does it? Foreign language ability is probably not something that will help a president do his job any better. Perhaps it would help them "understand" a country better, but there are a lot of countries out there. Speaking French would hardly give you insight into Saudi culture, for instance. They may get personal satisfaction from speaking a foreign language, but they might get personal satisfaction from studying calculus. Would it say something about the mentality of the US if a president isn't fluent in non-linear partial differential equations?

As an aside, what does it say about the French that Sarkozy failed to graduate from Sciences Po, because of insufficient English skills? I'd contend it says pretty much nothing, but feel free to disagree.

Nikki

Of course it gives some people great satisfaction to learn foreign languages. But this isn't why everyone in Sweden speaks English, as an example. Everyone in Sweden speaks English because it is mandatory in school, and because it is required to get a job, and because almost nobody outside Sweden speaks Swedish.

I think it is very important to expose everybody to the intellectual and aesthetic exercise of learning language, but I do not find it surprising that in the US, only those for whom language learning is truly something they enjoy have the motivation to keep it up to the point where they can read, converse, and write in the second language.

As a previous poster indicates, there are a lot of languages out there. How many would a native English speaker have to learn in order to have the verbal mobility that most other people can gain by learning just one: English?

travelgourmet

<i>Of course it gives some people great satisfaction to learn foreign languages. But this isn't why everyone in Sweden speaks English, as an example. Everyone in Sweden speaks English because it is mandatory in school, and because it is required to get a job, and because almost nobody outside Sweden speaks Swedish.</i>

Exactly. That the Scandinavians and Dutch speak English isn't because they are "better" or more culturally sensitive or value learning (languages, in particular) more than Americans, but simply because it is practical, if not a necessity. If it were about the emphasis a culture places on learning, then wouldn't one think that the Koreans or Japanese, for example, would be more bilingual? And how does such a theory explain the relatively widespread knowledge of conversational English in relatively underdeveloped countries like Egypt, Thailand, Cambodia, or Indonesia? And how would intellectual curiosity explain the fact that, across Scandinavia and Holland, that it is English which is the primary secondary language of virtually everyone? Wouldn't one think there would be a broader representation of languages, if it were about preference?

I have no problem with the idea that one can gain satisfaction from learning a language, but I do have a problem with trying to turn the relative lack of foreign language knowledge in the US (or Japan or France or the UK) into some indictment of those cultures.