To think you should speak the language after living in a country for 20 years

[Eastie77Returns]

Just back from visiting a friend abroad. We met 20 years ago as young expats in the European country she still lives in. When I lived there, she didn’t speak the language at all. In fairness she was employed as a nanny for a family who only wanted her to speak English with their children. However they also offered to pay for her to take private 1-1 classes with a tutor to learn the local language. She declined as she didn’t want to ‘study’ in her spare time. I worked for a company where English was barely spoken so I was forced to learn the language and I accept that if I was in her position I may not have become as fluent as I eventually did.

However fast forward to now. She no longer works and is married with children. She still doesn’t speak the local language beyond the bare basics. I stayed at with her family and her husband (a local) and children spoke to me in their native tongue. My friend only spoke English which is fine between the two of us but she cannot speak to her MIL who was also there but doesn’t speak English. I’m a bit baffled. The local language is hard but…20 years?!!

I think in some cases it depends on the language. For example, Spanish is easy-Polish is not.

Eek! Sorry @Motheroffourdragons ! The advantage is that the verb endings are predictable, once you know the dozen or so irregular ones.

I agree with you OP. Learning enough in 20 months would be reasonable.

One thing I would bring back is the requirement to continue a modern language to GCSE.

I struggle similarly with conjugations of masculine and feminine words because I can’t always remember which words are feminine and which are masculine.

I took three years of it in secondary except it was the Mexican dialect and the teacher left out the Spain vosotros believing we wouldn’t use it. I have never been to Mexico but have been to Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries that use the more Spanish dialect.

I can’t recall if the grammar was explained much in school tbh.

Which country was that?
I need to tell that we (and I mean European) call UK and US citizen as ignorant. As majority don't know anything about other countries (not even that they exist) and think that because English is their native language they don't need to learn any other. I'm sure your friends were called ignorants behind their back. (and probably not very bright too)

Thinking back to the week I spent in China, even I managed to start working out basic phrases and reading signs. I'm far from a genius but I'm sure even I'd have cracked the basics after a few weeks, let alone a few years.

I cannot think of any European language one cannot learn after 20 years. That's a very hmm strange attitude to one’s family and children.

I really don’t understand the point you are making. When we were out together I needed to speak in the local language because…it’s the local language. I wasn’t showing off. My friend lives in a small town and English is not widely spoken. What else am I supposed to do when speaking to people in shops, bars, restaurants and other locals?

I didn’t ask her to demonstrate anything to me. We speak to each other in English and I didn’t sit there testing her language skills. She has voluntarily told me over the years that she doesn’t speak the local language because it’s too difficult for her to learn it now.

I suggested she tried online courses because at present her life is quite limited. She defers to her DH to deal with anything ‘official’ and has few friends locally. She also told me she doesn’t enjoy family gatherings as most of her DH’s family do not (or maybe will not) speak English.

I didn’t say she shouldn’t speak to her children in English.

Like here in the UK, if people are really uninterested in learning to speak the language of the country they have chosen to live in, and rely on family to translate, then crack on. My beef though is when these people demand companies employ translators to discuss something - pay for your own bloody translators……

I said specifically that most people are able to learn a mother tongue. Therefore I believe most people are capable of learning a language.
If they are unable to an additional language maybe that's down to poor teaching methods. But if you can learn 1 language you can learn another.
Sorry but that's my view. I don't see why that's so judgemental.
Edit to add: dyslexic people still are able to speak their mother tongue. So I don't get why that excludes them from being able to speak another language. Of course teaching method matters

It doesn't say that she can't speak to her children, its likely that they are bilingual.

Learning your mother tongue as a baby/small child is quite different to learning a foreign language later on in life, especially as an adult. How many languages have you learnt as an adult to a functional level of fluency (at least B2 level)?

Quite a lot of people communicate in their mother tongue - to which they’ve been continuously exposed all their lives - on a very basic level. Such a person is highly unlikely to pick up another language, regardless of teaching method.

2 as it happens. One Asian and one European.
I didn't think this thread was about fluency. The thread was about a woman who'd lived in a country for 20 years who couldn't hardly say a word in the local language. My point was that given an appropriate teaching method most people are perfectly capable of learning another language in sufficient depth to be able to get around and make basic conversations etc.
I agree that fluency and high levels of competence/reading etc are a different matter entirely.

The woman lived in the country for 20 years. If she was 40 then that's half her life. It's not a holiday!

How is that a response to what I said?

Lots of people are like this in this country and abroad. It's their children I feel sorry for. They are often used as translators for their parents from a young age.

Would you say the same to someone "bad at reading" or "bad at maths"

You said a person can speak their mother tongue as they are exposed to this on a continuous basis for their life. And then you said that this makes it unlikelu to learn another language.
This thread and my points were in relation to a woman who has lived I a country for 20 years and not learned the local language despite being surrounded by it. I believe a person living in a country surrounded by people speaking that language is perfectly capable of picking up sufficient basics to speak some of another language over the course of 20 years which may be half their life. So it's not a small exposure but a very long one

Some of those women who don't speak English may be kept that way by their husband's or inlaws. They were specifically chosen because they arent 'westernized'

I kind of understood my friend’s predicament as she was employed to speak English and spent long days with the kids she looked after. It must have been exhausting. That said, her employers offered various options such as intensive lessons or private 1-1 tuition during the working week (they had a housekeeper who was able to step in and help with the kids). She turned it all down which I thought was a wasted opportunity.

I also thought it was a bit risky to leave very young children in the care of someone who couldn’t read or speak the language but that’s another subject!

You probably are pretty adept at learning languages then, not everyone is. Sure most people can learn some basics just from exposure (but it is still very different from a baby learning their mother tongue, as the adult brain is so different, for instance the ability to make very different sounds to those of your own language) but that's not the same as learning to speak a language properly, and not enough for proper conversations. I'm sure I could make basic conversations in French (which is a relatively easy language to learn as an English speaker) from what I've learnt on duolingo but I know it would be nowhere near enough for me to actually get by in France. I would be interested to know which language the OP is talking about though, some are definitely on a different level.