To think it's understandable that English speaking people often aren't great at learning foreign languages?

[Treblecleff88]

When I was at school, I learned French. Do you know how many times I've been to France? 0. Do you know how many French people I know? 0. So guess how much French I remember? Pretty much nothing.

I used to a spend quite a bit of time in Germany and they are all so good at English. But they communicate with other foreigners using English as a language they have a mutual understanding of. They listen to pop songs sung in English. They are constantly exposed to English as are foreigners across Europe. It's easy to see why the stuff they learn in school seems to stick so much better. It is always being reinforced and they have a real, tangible reason for learning the English language.

I often feel we're given a hard time for our lack of knowledge with foreign languages but realistically, even if we pick one language in Europe and get to the point of being fluent, it's not going to be relevant when conversing with the vast majority of foreigners in this country. English is so widely spoken by comparison to say French, Spanish or German which seem to be the three languages which schools seem to teach in the U.K.

Interested to hear other people's views on this.

I've always wondered if we focus too much on accent? When I was learning French, Spanish etc we seemed to spend whole lessons on particular vowel/consonant sounds etc, getting the pronunciation perfect. Europeans often speak English with a strong accent (even if they've lived here for years) and we can still understand them perfectly well. I wonder if there is such an emphasis on accent in their lessons or perhaps it's more about getting a working vocab and grammar in place, then accent and pronunciation can come later?

I don't think it's an excuse for the general malaise in language skills in this country, but it's always useful to look at the reasons.

Learning doesn't stop in school. I remember one year being embarrassed at how little Spanish I knew on holiday, so I went and learned. I don't speak much of it now, but I can make myself understood at least.

Languages are an amazing thing to learn.

I fucking cringe when I see English speakers speaking slowly and loudly in English to the locals when on holiday. Not to mention bitching about how no one speaks English. You're in their country, not knowing the language is on you!

I hate it when TV documentaries here use voice-overs rather than subtitles. At least foreign language progammes and films here are subtitled. I've picked up a few Danish words too from all that Scandi noir.

It's not. Trust me.

Well maybe not by you Lweji, but my foreigner husband did judge English speakers in exactly these situations until I told him to give his head a wobble

MsJuniper

I think some sounds do need to be right just to make yourself understood. In French, ime, if you mispronounce your r sounds, people will often say "what?" until you really rev them up! I know what you mean though. I spent all my time in Paris desperately trying to replicate the accent (and occasionally the slang - I was very young and wanted to be cool). I remember overhearing an Irish woman who'd been in Paris for many years, had a french DH and dc etc and she still had a lovely, Irish accent when she spoke french. She still was easily understandable, just didn't sound ott at the same time. I think that comes with a lot of practice and confidence though.

I am on my ninth language at the moment, I am fluent in six other than my native language and can do three more but only orally. I have lived in various countries and been to school and worked in some pretty different places where English is taught, but really not spoken well by most people. I have always been able to speak to native speakers in all of my languages. Most people really appreciate the effort that I have taken to learn their language and I am probably blessed in that I can speak them as well as I do.

I've always wondered if we focus too much on accent?

Oh god yes. Specially for teenagers. Is there anything more embarrassing than having to sit and talk to your classmates while putting on a pretend French accent?

That's super impressive kitty. Genuinely! Well done to you.

I struggle when I try to switch between languages, though I expect with more practice I could do it better. If I speak a lot of Spanish I get it mixed up with French. Once I even said an English phrase in a French accent .

Spending lots of time in other countries works wonders though. I learnt so much Spanish when I was volunteering in South America. I'd never even taken so much as a gcse in it before that. I promptly forgot most of it though. Travel seems to have taken a back seat for us since having dc. But when we do travel I find my languages slowly come back though.

I definitely don't think that French should be our main SL. It's not phonetic and the French tend to be more unforgiving about mistakes as a PP said. Plus it's not as widely spoken as Spanish which along with Mandarin should be a main contender.

Shame about Esperanto really.

Incidentally I really do feel for foreigners learning English when it comes to our appalling spelling system.

The best thing we could do is phoneticise English IMO. It'd take a generation or so but it'd make it easier all round.

I took French throughout school as far as I could go (Advanced Higher - Scottish school) and DH and I visit Paris at least once a year so I try my best to use it then. However, despite my best efforts people generally reply in English. In fact, only one person in the last five trips has held a conversation with me in French and I was only asking where the nearest cash machine was so it was hardly deep and meaningful!

Thanks decaf, all of my teachers thought I would end up at the UN and so did I for many years.

I am in the UK right now and learning Greek on my own. My dentist is Greek, I think I am her only patient who enjoys going to the dentist so she can speak Greek! it took me forever to find a dentist who was good at dealing with special needs, and all of my teeth have problems, so I think she is extra willing To get me into her chair.

I'm multilingual & British. I used to live in Belgium, where 37% of the locals speak 3 languages (usually French, Dutch and English), and even the bin men can speak English! Are Belgians exceptionally gifted in learning languages? I don't think so, but you'd struggle to get a job there if you're monolingual. This is why I don't buy the "Brits aren't good at languages" rubbish; while some people are obviously more gifted than others, the majority of people CAN learn a foreign language proficiently.

I also don't agree with the "everyone speaks English so it's not necessary" argument. I've been in business meetings across Europe where although the language of the meeting is English, the language of the small talk in coffee breaks etc is not. Always useful to know what people are really thinking .

My foreign language skills have repeatedly proved useful in work and on holiday. I also watch French, Italian, German, Spanish language films in their original versions and read French literature. Culture is embedded in language, so you learn more about other people when you speak their language. Monolingual English speakers in such situations, miss out on a lot!

hellokitty

If you can get out a sentence in any language while at the dentist, you're putting in a lot of effort to do so ! Good for you .

I took French throughout school as far as I could go (Advanced Higher - Scottish school) and DH and I visit Paris at least once a year so I try my best to use it then. However, despite my best efforts people generally reply in English.

Oh bloody Paris. Once I was in Paris with DH who speaks OKish French and is a native Swiss German speaker and just to see what would happen I made him go into a boulangerie and order stuff while I stayed totally silent, and when he spoke French they replied in English. WTAF? He is from a French speaking country! He started learning French in school at 10, and he heard it his whole life! He doesn't have a Parisian accent, sure, but he doesn't have an English one... and his French is perfectly acceptable. Why do they switch to English?
He blamed me. He said I just look English. They just know

My sister and I as teenagers wanted to be trilingual in French, German and English. I don't think today's teenagers are the same. I did German A level and am pretty good and even my O level French is probably today's AS level. I use both but usually just on h olidays abroad, occasionally for work things (I do EU law). The European Commission cannot get enough UK staff because it requires fluency in 3 languages. More importantly it helped me understand grammar, it helped me understand different mindsets - if you can read novels in other languages you just seem to get under the skin of other people better and I suspect it massively exercises your brain for the good.

However we are now in our bit of London where 60 - 80% of people are from abroad are surrounded by bilingual people from all over the place so it's hard to compete!

I think that desire for us int he 60s and 70s to learn French and German was about wanting that closeness to Europe, wanting to ensure nothing ilke World War II ever happened again between we main close European nations.

4 of my chidren did French GCSE and one did German instead so I hope we can keep the language tradition going a bit as it does foster understanding with others.

I learnt french at school and spent a couple of months in Paris living with french people when 18 which was massively helpful. I was near fluent in spoken French at one point. I then didnt speak french for 20 years until i went to Cassablanca for a work assignment i found it mich harder to adapt. The OP is correect its not too much of an embarassement as in most of the rest of the world English music , films all help to embedd english into peoples mind. The internet has the best content in English. With apps such as google translate having to speak other languages will pretty much not be an issue in the future.

He blamed me. He said I just look English. They just know

I think there might be something to that! DH and I are spoken to in English before we even open our mouths whenever we're abroad. Last time we were in Paris we played Spot the Brit and there's a definite British "look", usually determined by what they're wearing or their haircut (in men. That short back and sides with the quiff is a dead giveaway - even DH has that hairstyle )

I was speaking with my German whose over for a visit this morning. Her fluency in English, especially the vernacular is a wonder to behold, I was late as per usual and she referred to me as a 'tardy wee shite!' she lived in Scotland for about 5 years, but has moved back to Germany now, but was totally fluent by the time she moved here.

Anyway,we got talking about language-learning and asked if she spoke French to which her response was 'no why would I bother?' She'd studied it at school until her late teens and had never bothered to keep it up, but can remember the odd word of phrase. She didn't consider it useful (or not useful as English) plus you're not saturated with French language TV, music and film in the same way as you are with the English language, so without regular visits to France she saw no point in keeping it up. So our command of French was roughly on a par with mine.

Whereas she considered learning English as essential for postdoctoral jobs and to progress in academia (in Germany) and to contribute to international journals which are all in English. So in her case it wasn't that she was 'good at learning and teaching languages' for their own sakes, as her French teaching was every bit as half arsed as mine, it was just that fluency in English was a prerequisite for the jobs she wanted,So it wasn't for the joy of language learning or a spirit of internationalism that led to her learning English.

I also work in academia, but the same incentive to learn German don't exist. Thanks to the pervasive nature of the English I can function as a monoglot whilst working at a British university, whereas she couldn't function as a German speaking monoglot at a German university.

I definitely don't think that French should be our main SL. It's not phonetic and the French tend to be more unforgiving about mistakes as a PP said. Plus it's not as widely spoken as Spanish which along with Mandarin should be a main contender

I think the problem is a self perpetuating one as you can't magic up a generation of Spanish and Mandarin teachers, but there's comparatively more French-speaking modern language teachers, which in turn begats another generation of predominantly French speaking modern language teachers.

Boys, well quite. And when they tried to extend MFL to primary (an excellent idea) the standard of the teachers wasn't deemed as important so essentially you have children entering secondary with bad accents.

I think one of the best ways to go is to teach language for the sake of grammar and the skills of logic and deduction that it brings.

So offer a type of basic Linguistics as a subject instead. Looking at different languages on an elementary level, how they're structured: differing word orders, identifying parts of speech, syntax etc. The different language families.

It would help students no end with English IMO because the only time I ever learnt grammar was when I studied other languages.

Those who put this down to British insularity should know that Australia and NZ are also firmly monolingual. Despite the enormous levels of immigration both countries have experienced (proportionally much greater than the UK) modern language teaching in schools is poor, and not emphasised. I suspect north America is the same. One would expect Canadians to be firmly bilingual. All the Canadians I've met in recent years have shit French. So, I go for the view that English speakers worldwide have worked out that it simply isn't worth the effort. It's most certainly not a phenomenon restricted to the British. DW had a second language to native speaker level (Afrikaans); she can't hold a conversation in it now due to lack of use.

Agree with op broadly.

I like learning languages.

Being an English mother tongue learner reduces your chances of actually having a basic conversation in the target language. I've noticed this changing even over just 30 years of travelling abroad.

I cannot persuade my kids that language learning beyond pleasantries is any use at all. They are intelligent and logical, their attitudes could be interpreted as lazy or strategic!

So offer a type of basic Linguistics as a subject instead. Looking at different languages on an elementary level, how they're structured: differing word orders, identifying parts of speech, syntax etc. The different language families.

That's a flipping amazing idea. I'd love for my kids to be taught this.

It is very hard for most monolingual adults to learn other languages so if they don't learn at least one other as a child, it doesn't happen.

I don't think that children consciously don't try to learn other languages. However, it is hard for them to do so when the teaching of foreign languages at school is very limited compared with many other countries and usually only really starts at secondary school. In addition, they can't pick up other languages from films/TV as they are almost always in English.