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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 learned French for so many years all the way up to grade 10, then I forgot everything since I stopped learning it.
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English speaking people should learn broken english as second language... while it's not much of an issue anymore i remember when i was younger it was a lot easier understanding non-native english speakers than the native ones because the natives would speak so fast and often use hard words
edit: oh and +1 criticizing english speaking people for only knowing 1 language is ridiculous, learning a language you don't have any use of is extremely hard for most people and i doubt all that time while somewhat beneficial could probably be spent on a lot more useful stuff.
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I agree americans and others shouldn't be ridiculed for being monolingual. However, I think it's something worth discussing, because if language education is bad in the US (and other countries), I think it's a good thing to work to make it better. Learning a second language shouldn't be mandatory, but should be heavily encouraged and supported, because it's definitely a mind-opening experience.
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I learned other languages out of pure coincidence.When I was young(like 6-7 years old) I watched a lot of German tv because they had all the cartoons that Croatian tv did not have and since Germans synchronize pretty much every tv show/cartoon/movie that isn't German,I think Pokemon pretty much taught me the basic German words and vocabulary.Pokemon is so visual and the moves that they do is basically what the pokemon are made off(kinda) so it was really easy to learn.For instance,if a geodude(a rock pokemon that is pretty much a floating boulder with arms) used rock throw I learned that its called steinwurf.
English was even simpler because all the nintendo/sega/snes games were in the English language and later on I just carried it over to the PC and playstation and always selected english by default instead of German or something because I gotten used to it so much.
We had different language classes in school as well but my German and English was so far ahead by that time that I was usually napping during the classes or doing something else.This hurt me a bit because I literally have no idea about German or English grammer definitions and the rules(well I do actually but far less than I should with the level of vocabulary that I posses) of how you construct sentences because everything I ever learned was by ear and it all came natural.
In retrospect I understand where the OP is coming from because if I had not learned these languages without even thinking about it and by just doing what I liked than I'm pretty sure I would not have learned it later on.
I tried learning french for a while but it was incredibly tedious to do it the old fashion way in a classroom.I didn't like it and I was bored so I gave it up.
I'm not saying that the way I learned languages was good,because it did leave me with a lot of holes especially as far as grammer is concerned,but than again compared with other people from my country my vocabulary far exceeds that of an average person that speaks these languages.
To the Germans out there,I know it's hard to believe that RTL has taught anyone anything but here I am
Although now that I think about it,the program wasn't so god awful as it is now,at least that's how I have it in my memory,I don't watch tv anymore really.
I remember back when Galileo(a show on ProSieben) actually taught you something about how things are made,animals etc.Nowadays they go around and test water slides with naked chicks rofl,at least that's what I saw last time I watched,must be like 2-3 years since than.O boy.
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If you can communicate with anyone you need to communicate with, who cares how many languages you know. Learning a second language in the united states is really not necessary, I speak english and french but my knowledge of french has pretty much gone to waste because I have no use for it, and knowing two languages does not make me feel smarter or more worldly like some of the people in this thread seem to be implying.
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I started learning English when I was 8 I believe. Afaik they just got it in to the schools from this very young age(I think kids learn it from 6 now, since that's the year they go to the school now). Anyway, I kept learning only English till pretty much now, 16(now 17 because I was born in March). Now I am learning French and Latin. I have two 45-minute lessons of French per week and one 45-minute lesson of Latin per week. I could pick German instead of French. I am really happy I am learning more languages because I am quite a fast learner and I like different languages. My knowledge of English was mostly based on good guesses and A LOT of INTERNET and GAMES! I'd gladly learn more languages, like Ukrainian or Japanese, but I'd need to do it myself/get money out of nowhere.
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Funny thing for me, I learnt English before my mother tongue.
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Hmm, does knowing multiple programming languages count?
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On May 14 2012 07:53 phantaxx wrote:
If you can communicate with anyone you need to communicate with, who cares how many languages you know. Learning a second language in the united states is really not necessary, I speak english and french but my knowledge of french has pretty much gone to waste because I have no use for it, and knowing two languages does not make me feel smarter or more worldly like some of the people in this thread seem to be implying.
Probably because you thought it would be uselesss anyway when you were still in the process of learning it. Knowing a foreign language is not just about communication, it opens up a whole new world for literature, news source etc. You get to know an entire country/culture through it's language (I agree this can be boring for some - but not all).
For me German is a secondary language, I very rarely have to write anything in German. But I always get to read or listen something - even if it's just the German wikipedia articles or a simple news report on TV (though I find those terrible and brainwashing lol). French and German language areas are large enough to stay relevant even in these English dominated times, given you live in the Western world.
In my opinion not everyone can find a meaningful purpose to foreign languages, but in the times of the internet, we can put any language skill to use, be it for learning or for entertainment.
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It's really how often you are exposed to other languages, rather than the education system per se. For example, here in Taiwan pretty much everyone nowadays starts learning English from a fairly young age, and by the time they reach college most are *somewhat* literate - much better at reading than writing - but in general cannot speak or understand spoken English to save their lives.
As some of the European posters here have indicated, the language of the pop culture you consume plays a large role here - while many Germans may grow up listening to English-language music, watching American movies and TV series, here in Taiwan, the Japanese and Korean pop influence is a bit stronger, and while people still love to much American/English stuff, it's not nearly the same as it is in Europe.
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On May 14 2012 05:39 Tobberoth wrote:
I agree americans and others shouldn't be ridiculed for being monolingual. However, I think it's something worth discussing, because if language education is bad in the US (and other countries), I think it's a good thing to work to make it better. Learning a second language shouldn't be mandatory, but should be heavily encouraged and supported, because it's definitely a mind-opening experience.
True and I agree 100% but the problem is, there is no go-to second language to focus on. Even in my own studies, I tried to determine the most useful second language, and it really just comes down to where I personally want to go in my life. No other language comes even close to the universal utility of the English language. Maybe in 20 years if China (or any other country for that matter) becomes the world's next superpower we will all start learning that country's language as our second language.
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EPT
