Just why are we so bad??

[HeyWayne]

We'll all be speaking Esperanto soon anyways, so it's all as one.

I did read/see something about how language will eventually end up virtually homogenised as the World becomes a 'smaller' place.

I will concede to not having the best grammar or intonation, like OWG I don't understand a lot of the theory - language just happens.

I'm much more of the 'ecoute' et repete'* school of thought.

*see?

[Nicos]

You know I was just nattering to myself whilst cutting the lawn....

When we first came out here ( holiday home) my OH was keen to try and integrate with the French locals rather than settling in with the ExPats- after all we were here on hols away from English food/speech/culture- in an effort to learn more about 'France and it's culture.

Since we've moved here we have befriended quite a few Brits- some speak superb French, others pretty impressive and some just absolute basics.
Some of the absolute basics have been here for 10-15 years and can't even pronounce their village name correctly
BUT....they are happy, well settled , have superbly renovated ruins on their own and can be depended upon 100% in an emergency.They've not died of starvation because of their lack of French and have befriended many French locals by helping them out.
And yes- they support their local shops and attend all the local events and - to be honest- have settled in better than me! ( give me time!)
Maybe they're not getting as much out of the community- but they are certainly part of it. They don't want marks out of 10 for their linguistic skills- just to have a relaxed life in a wonderful environment.
People move / work abroad for all sorts of reasons and we do need to respect that.
I was a student in Coventry - and worked in Birmingham for a few years and often had 'foreigners' as patients who had no English at all- their husbands forbade them to integrate or learn English.
I am glad I have the luxury of choice!

But I understand what you are saying Bob- most of the kids here speak at least 3 languages pretty well - it's sad that doesn't happen in the UK- it doesn't help us to understand different cultures does it???

Right now- best get back to cutting the lawns!

[binley100]

I started learning French in Primary school many moons ago , carried on with it at senior school till I passed my "O" level (showing my age there) but not haveing cause to use it until many years later when we started to go to France for hols it got very rusty through lack of use. But with a bit of dredging up each year it's coming back.
I think it would be great to start teaching languages at an early age but if they're not in regular use then they get forgotten and a lot of people would then get lazy and not make the effort.
Also .......with so many English people out there who could do with a few lessons in their native language what hope is there for a foreign language.

[janeyo]

This is interesting for me as I am a langs teacher by trade.

Certainly in my region of Britain (East Angular), there is such apathy for languages. I do not know why. They just resent being taught languages. I hav asked thousands of times and the general response from 11-16yr olds is that there is no pont as everyone speaks English. They genuinely do not believe they need a language.

I also think in the curriculum today if you can get away with choosing 'easy' subjects (and that's the students talking and NOT my view here), then the easier option is chosen.

I do find it amusing though when I meet ex-students sometimes years later and they ALWAYS say they wish they had tried harder at languages.

I used to wonder if it was a case of they hated French and German as not many children go to France or Germany for holidays these days, and therefore could not see the relevance of using the language - they all go to Ibiza or the like (stay with me here), so the school I was at switched to teaching Spanish in Yr7 and not French, and by the end of the first term they were already moaning that they wanted to do French or German! They just don't like langauges.

Some children tell me they don't like having to 'talk funny' in class in front of friends! but are happier to do reading instead, so some choose not to do it for confidence issues.

[organic]

Some children tell me they don't like having to 'talk funny' in class in front of friends! but are happier to do reading instead, so some choose not to do it for confidence issues.

A great post in general, Janeyo, but that bit in particular jumped out at me.

I was never a particularly confident kid at school (oh how I've changed!) any I absolutely hated being put on the spot in class. I'd have my hand up to answer questions in most subjects but the way the language classes were structured (I had some good teachers too) didn't work for me and I struggled endlessly.

When it came to reading aloud in English, speaking in a languages class, giving presentations and things like that I used to absolutely hate it.

I actually wanted to learn languages and love being able to communicate with people without using English (I even learned American Sign Language to use with my deaf American friend - basically useless here but it was great when we went on a road trip around France) but your comment about confidence and having to talk in front of the class brought back some memories.

I wonder if there could be a better approach to teaching foreign languages in schools that didn't leave people feeling so lost.


One thing that really hampered me... though I was in the top set for English, I never have been able to wrap my head around the theoretical side of the language. Verbs, adjectives and adverbs are still words I couldn't define for you. (I only know nouns are things because proper nouns are names)
Participles, conjugation, past pretent, perfects and all that stuff (if I've even spelled them right) are so far over my head it's untrue.

The fact that foreign language instruction is based so strongly upon the above really made my time in French (from 11 to 14) and Spanish (from 13 to 16) classes very hard.

Maybe changing that reliance on a full understanding of the English language would improve acceptance of foreign languages.

Your point about learning languages you'll never use was interesting. I thought that would be a bigger factor - apparently not.

[pigletwillie]

We go sous la manche a few times a year and must say that my French has really picked up. What really helps is the Michel Thomas cd's on my iphone as I play them for large chunks of the day and repetetive learning does work for me lol.

At school, most of us dropped languages as soon as we could, being kids we could not really see the benefits of a second language, how little did we know.

[beefy]

Beefy aged 15 -" I'm dropping French - sure I'll never be there .I'm going to be a farmer and cows don't speak French"
Beefy aged 25 and coming off the ferry in Calais for the first time - "F*** I should have learned a bit more French at school . "
I was lazy and I regretted it but having no choice I got stuck in and tried to pick up enough French, German , Spanish and Italian to get me by. It's nothing special - "Where is this at please?" "How do I get there ??" various bits and pieces that I needed to get by, get fed and find a local bar with local food.
Always found that whatever country you were in that if you tried the locals were much more helpful than if you expected them to speak English except the Italians who are just a law unto themselves..
All the reasons above are true in some way , laziness , island race, the fact the world speaks English usually better than we do , the age languages are tought in schools etc all come into it.

[Liza]

Personally I think kids should concentrate on English at school, some of them cant even get that right !

I am sick and tired of my sons Spanish teacher who says hes not trying enough when he HAS to take a foreign language at school and is more into science, so we would both prefer to have extra science lessons and quit foreign languages.

I totally agree that if you move to another country you should make an effort to use that language, my mum ( lives in Spain) who is disabled and sixty three gets involved with all the locals and even goes to keep fit with them. none of which speak English. She lives in a small village with few Brits about and loves practising her Spanish.

I personally speak Arabic ,Spanish,German,french and Greek.

[di]

I think the age they start to properly teach kiddies a second language in this country is far too late.My aim for the next few months is to get our school putting more time aside for it.I do think that caught young,learning a foreign language can become pretty natural.
I also think/agree though,that a huge disadvantage we have is that in this country we rarely have the need for it,unless going abroad.When I lived in Turkey for a while I was amazed at how many languages most of the locals spoke....fluently...but then they needed to in order to stay in business,they relied on the tourists buying their wares or eating in their Restaurants so on a daily basis got to practice a number of different languages.
It did annoy(and embarass)me how many English Reps,having lived out there for a few years,found it funny that they'd still not leant how to order a pint of beer.
Having not been there for several years I've forgotten most of it,but I'm sure if I went back that it wouldn't take long for me to pick it up again.

[zazen999]

I learnt quite a bit of Spanish as a youngster as I was born in Canada and it was 'around and about', and I did French at school and I took a year's evening course in Japanese. Now, that was hard going....with 3 different 'languages' and I was chuffed to bits when I could read a page of writing; and that took all year to work up to.

I know a few stock phrases but even with all the work involved, if I don't use it regularly - then it disappears from my brain never to be used again.

I often [when trying to kick start learning French again] listen to French Radio and have French TV on [and have a CD in the car] - but I think you'd have to do this for months and months [years and years?] and get completely absorbed in it - and as the French Ex-pats here are saying, even living in France, some just can't [or won't] pick up more than the basics.

It's the same old story, you don't know until you know, and often by then - it's too late.

[Liza]

To learn new languages you need to have the chance to use them almost immediately so you have them in your short term memory. Otherwise the memory doesn't bother to store it.
Three things help here - recency (heard or seen the word a short while ago) and frequency (word appears several times) - and relevancy - the word is necessary for you to do something. All of which make learning languages in a classroom rather difficult as it is the most artificial environment.
I don't blame the Brits as, being an island race, they really don't have to make an effort to speak another language most of the time. So language learning is not really part of the culture.
Interestingly though, the English language is made up of so many words from many other languages - so much so that the English lexicon is the largest I think - so it would make learning a new language that bit easier since one would have some common words to hook one's new language onto.
On continental Europe - and many other parts of the world - travel between different countries and linguistic communities happens easily - across land - and the idea of being multilingual seems to be much more the cultural norm.

Totally agree

[Nicos]

What I have found over here which is sad- is that kids of French/English parents are often only brought up with French if the father is English.
Such a loss of potential natural bilingual ability

[lizzylemon]

For me it's part education / part nerves / expense.

At school we were taught French for 2 years and IF we were deemed intelligent enough (based on our math capabilities of all things) we would get a shot at German too.

Aged 14 we had the choice of whether we would take it further (providing you had the right scores). Being someone who massively struggled with education I dumped french language asap (took french culture instead) and never got a shot at German. (I was also written off when it came to nearly every other subject too and was told I'd be pregnant before I'd even left - yes really and no I wasn't.)

I lived a year in the Valencia region of Spain where they speak Valenciano, a local dialect and had no idea how to start speaking it and neither did anyone else, including another Spaniards from outside the Valencia region.

I tried very hard but it was just noise and then I started to get brain freeze and panic so it only got worse. I lost all confidence and ended up using one phrase: I'm sorry Im English I dont speak Spanish. I tried '...I'm English please speak slowly' but it made no difference so it got changed to 'dont'.

Just before we left Spain we went to Barcelona and it was a total revelation - they understood us and we understood them. It's been 5 years and most of its gone and I'm not very sad about it.

But to suggest people who aren't bilingual (which includes me) are lazy or zenaphobic is quite far off the mark for most I should imagine.

Sadly for me I don't get the chance to leave this country very often (6 times in 36 years but I'd love to do it fr more often) and I can't afford evening classes / lessons only for me to forget it all because I'm not using it.

So if anyone wants to teach me foc and then send me to France to practice I'm your lady!

[di]

I was a nanny for a while in Valencia Lizzy and I really struggled,although there were a few that appreciated I was doing my best to learn their language I found the majority of shopkeepers and such were fairly impatient with my inadequacies speaking their language....about the only Spanish I can remember is...'I've got a cow in my suitcase'...obviously comes in pretty handy

[janeyo]

Beefy aged 15 -" I'm dropping French - sure I'll never be there .I'm going to be a farmer and cows don't speak French"
Beefy aged 25 and coming off the ferry in Calais for the first time - "F*** I should have learned a bit more French at school . "

I have taught so many beefys!!

Languages are COOL and they ROCK!

What we need is a famous role model, like the latest WAG, or x factor contestant etc... to openly say that they loved languages at school and hey presto everyone will want to learn them

Simples