EPTSpanish has been becoming more and more important as the latin/hispanic population has been increasing. I don't think the US is "anti-language" (except for the extremists, but that is why they are extremists), there just hasn't been a need for another language.
Learning a Second Language - Page 2
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HardlyNever
United States1258 Posts
Spanish has been becoming more and more important as the latin/hispanic population has been increasing. I don't think the US is "anti-language" (except for the extremists, but that is why they are extremists), there just hasn't been a need for another language. | ||
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Beorning
United States243 Posts
There are plenty of places in America where you would never come into frequent contact with people who know another language than English. If you never come into contact with anyone like that you'd have barely any drive to learn. Saying that people who hardly ever come into contact with other languages should be pitied for their ignorance, is being ignorant of the circumstances of where they live. | ||
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Monsen
Germany2548 Posts
As far as I know, learning languages has historically always been a major part of "education" in Europe. History as in several centuries ago. Antique, Middle ages, Renaissance- whether it was Greek or Latin, and later French, German, English- depending on the time, it was always considered a valueable if not integral part of a (noble) youths education. Most of this would not really be of "use" to the pupil (namely Latin) but it was still consider to be essential to learn other languages. As far as I remember (from my education, not from being there myself :O ), once universal education started in Europe the subjects were very basic (math and reading and agriculture I assume). The common workers "did not need" to have a "higher" education. It will take someone more knowledgeable on (American) socio- historic matters to explain when/how/why American education opted for the latter paradigm for education, especially in a multicultural (-lingual) country where learning several languages should have been such an obvious advantage. Weird. Probably because MURICA (obligatory Eurohate). | ||
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ToFu.
331 Posts
On May 14 2012 02:12 Monsen wrote: I'm somewhat doubtful on some of your points. As far as I know, learning languages has historically always been a major part of "education" in Europe. History as in several centuries ago. Antique, Middle ages, Renaissance- whether it was Greek or Latin, and later French, German, English- depending on the time, it was always considered a valueable if not integral part of a (noble) youths education. Most of this would not really be of "use" to the pupil (namely Latin) but it was still consider to be essential to learn other languages. As far as I remember (from my education, not from being there myself :O ), once universal education started in Europe the subjects were very basic (math and reading and agriculture I assume). The common workers "did not need" to have a "higher" education. It will take someone more knowledgeable on (American) socio- historic matters to explain when/how/why American education opted for the latter paradigm for education, especially in a multicultural (-lingual) country where learning several languages should have been such an obvious advantage. Weird. Probably because MURICA (obligatory Eurohate). But as many other posters have mentioned, Europeans actually get a chance to use other languages frequently (e.g. at work). This is likely because European countries are much smaller, so you'd get more chances to leave your own country or come into contact with people that are moving between countries. In America, you would almost never need to speak another language besides English, except if you need to talk to the Hispanic cleaning staff or something. | ||
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ZerONine09
United Kingdom42 Posts
Learning a language is so hard if you are not immersed in it and forced to use it. I learned English in approximately two to three months almost from scratch by moving to the US. I had forgotten all my Swedish after 3 years in the US, however, it took like one month to become fluent again. | ||
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SunTurtle
156 Posts
But I can only fully speak English. Is that bad? Technically, according to those in the thread, I would only know one language, and that is a bad thing. | ||
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rad301
Canada196 Posts
TL;DR In my school district we were pretty much forced to repeat the basics of French from a young age without anyone explaining why it was important (believe me, there are reasons), only to have it become completely optional in highschool, where many people just took Spanish or something else anyway. | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
Personally, I studied Spanish for 3 years in the end of elementary school, then studied Latin and Italian in high school. That said, I'm not fluent or even decent at Spanish nor Italian, but the studies, especially latin, made a HUGE difference when I decided to learn Japanese later on, which I speak fluently now. | ||
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CPTBadAss
United States594 Posts
On May 14 2012 01:35 scintilliaSD wrote: I'll make a note here that it seems very common for Asian-American parents and families to be bilingual in their native tongue (as far as speaking and listening goes.) Many Chinese-American families send their children to Chinese school and speak Chinese around the house. This is most common when the parents are immigrants, as their English skills are usually not at fluent or near-fluent levels. As you move down the generations, this becomes less and less common. For example, my sister and I speak very little Chinese as both of our parents are fluent in English, but both of them speak Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese for my dad, Mandarin and Shanghainese for my mom) because they were enforced to learn it by their parents. I'm a second generation Chinese-American so I speak Cantonese fluently as well as English. Like scintilliaSD said in the quote, I grew up speaking mostly Cantonese at home. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same experience I had growing up. Many families encourage speaking English as a way to help both parents and children integrate into American culture. It's really hard getting by in America without learning English. That being said, my school required we learn either French or Spanish started in 5th grade. However, teaching focused on grammar and syntax rather than actual speaking, I retained very little of it. Today, I can understand written French but I cannot really hold a conversation. | ||
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Steveling
Greece10806 Posts
Nothing more, nothing less and not something to be made fun of. | ||
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Rimstalker
Germany734 Posts
Also, there were quite a few exchange programs going on (I spent three months in Australia in grade 10) However, in my hometown, I could have also chosen a school that teaches you Latin and classical Greek from year 5, and English later on. My first hand experience in Australia was that their language skills were laughable, all the exchange students couldn't form a simple German sentence. And of course I do feel kind of superior for being fluent in two languages, having mastered Latin far enough to translate Roman poetry and understanding a lot of Spanish and bits of pieces of Czech. Nowadays however, the beginnings of English are taught in year three, in a playful way of course, with enacting the Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer song and similar things. | ||
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brachester
Australia1786 Posts
EDIT: Though most people's english ended up crap because they lack the real life application. The most optimum way is ofc, live in a foreign country at early age while still speak your parent's language at home. EDIT2: Also people must consider that learning english in non-english speaking country is so much different than learning other languages in an english speaking country. Such as in vietnam, english is such an important skill that if accompanied by any other skill, you're almost guaranteed a very very good pay. While I don't think learning vietnamese can really help your job prospect in australia or america. | ||
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xsksc
United Kingdom1044 Posts
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Fallians
Canada242 Posts
I myself was placed in this program and I am completely bilingual (English+French) | ||
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goldendwarf
Canada170 Posts
On May 14 2012 04:05 Fallians wrote: Here in Nova Scotia (not sure how immersion works in other provinces) you can take french immersion from your first year of school, when you're around 4-5. In immersion everything up until grade 10 is all in french. So math, sciences, social studies... is all in French the only thing we didn't do in French was english I myself was placed in this program and I am completely bilingual (English+French) I'm from Canada too(from British Columbia though). There are french immersion schools here, but most of the schools aren't french immersion. In elementary I saw a lot of basic french but I never learned much, In high school we saw very basic french too and learned next to nothing. Most of the students in my classes did not learn much french either, so I'm disappointed with the school system here as it is very bad to learn a second language with. I myself know english and spanish(learned it from parents), and I'm learning japanese on my own. The classes for second languages were also very bad sometimes, for example, the spanish teacher in my high school spoke spanish badly, he probably barely even knew spanish. | ||
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DKR
United Kingdom622 Posts
I think the problem is two fold. God awful language teachers who only teach language because they took a language degree and realised it's a waste of time and the only thing they could do was teach (obviously an exaggeration, but it's not far wide of the truth). The second reason is that western culture is dictated by the US at the moment, fashion, TV, films yada yada. I see no foreign films or TV shows in British television, with the exception of BBC TV 4's recent foreign film month. There's no exposure and not interest from that. On the other hand, TV shows like friends are popular right across Europe and are an accessible way of developing language skills. Oh not to mention that the opinion is that when we go on holiday to the continent, everyone speaks English so why bother? (again, certainly not my opinion) EDIT: currently at university in Wales, and they're attempting to promote a bi-lingual nation here and I know that in Scotland and NI there are pockets of Gaelic speakers. It's a nice thought but it seems to be, in the case of Wales, promoting nationalism (rejecting the UK model) and separating north from south(the populous south seems to not give a shit about Welsh). | ||
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dAPhREAk
Nauru12397 Posts
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MrEko
Canada37 Posts
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hypercube
Hungary2735 Posts
On May 14 2012 00:01 micronesia wrote: Knowing two, or more languages is known to be very good for you! I won't go into the reasons why, as I don't think there will be much disagreement there. What I have noticed is that citizens of the USA are much less likely to be bilingual+ than residents of most other countries. Most Europeans other than in the UK speak English as a second or third language. This also shouldn't be much of a surprise for most of you reading this. The thing I do want to go into a bit is how Americans are treated for this. I often see lots of hate because many, if not most Americans only speak one language fluently. Most of this hate, I find (not all) comes from people who don't really have a right to complain. I've never really seen this. What I have seen is when native English speakers make fun of someone else's English they get shut down pretty harshly. But even then it's not hate. It's more like ridicule. I don't think it's very common though. Maybe a little more common from Americans than in the UK. But some native accents from Britain are harder to understand than bad English so I guess they just have higher tolerance. | ||
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
For example, it's taking me forever to learn Japanese in Tokyo because I can get by perfect fine with just English and Chinese, there is no need for me to learn the language. Whereas I learned Japanese much better when I studied in a little rural town middle of nowhere because no one spoke English. | ||
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