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?!!

Natsu: I would be interested to know which language the OP is talking about though, some are definitely on a different level.

Yes, I've already asked that.

In Scandinavia you will be expected to speak a Scandinavian language for the majority of jobs. People have an idea that if you speak English you can get a job easily as everyone speaks English, but that isn't the reality. Just because people can speak English it doesn't mean they want to do it when going about their daily lives. Outside of some specific international companies and short term hospitality jobs, employers want people who speak a Scandinavian language. Lots of English speakers move here, are surprised that employers aren't interested in them and end up in low paid jobs with no career progression until their language skills are up to scratch.

i think it is both rude and foolish. But meh. She's the one missing out.

Yes 90% (like you said some exceptions).

I meant speak English IN ADDITION to speaking the native language to native standard. I.e. if you’re Scandinavian like me, without speaking English and ideally 1-2 other languages fluently there’s effectively no jobs that you can do.

But socially you’re ok if you don’t speak Swedish etc, you’ll still be pretty integrated.

I also lived in the Middle East, and in my experience, hardly anyone learned the language and expected the locals to speak English. It's a bit off to suggest that someone is old or exaggerating because their experience was different to your husband's. I was there for years and literally know of one person who took lessons and even those were short lived. The lady in question (French) decided to learn English instead!

But if you’re talking about somewhere like Dubai, it’s a weirdly artificial situation, with 90% of the population being non-Emirati, and of those who do speak Arabic, it’s widely split between Gulf Arabic, Egyptian, Lebanese, Sudanese Arabic etc. The majority of non- nationals are from the Indian subcontinent, so more people will speak Hindi, Urdu etc than either. I did learn Arabic when I lived there, despite not needing it for work (English language newspaper), but I couldn’t find a Gulf Arabic teacher. Mine was Lebanese.

I'd think this of anyone who lives in a foreign country and chooses not to try and learn the local language - be it the Middle East or the UK. However, there is a difference in that, traditional ' ex pats 'who have moved in order to work in another country or to retire there etc, are not usually reliant on or entitled to, state resources to help with their transition and therefore, the onus is on them to make their lives easier by learning the language. If they require hospital care for instance, they must pay for the interpreter if necessary, it's not automatically on the host nation to provide . If their children opt for the local school, again it's on them to ensure their child integrates by learning the language as quickly as possible. No special provision would usually be afforded; or else they pay for international schooling.

It is more objectionable if you are expecting a country to cover the costs of the consequences of you not speaking the language, whilst not making any attempt to learn and this inability then stretches to decades thus limiting your work/ social engagement opportunities.

I actually agree with you.
However, that wasn't my pint as such. A previous poster stated that, where she lived in the Middle East, hardly anyone learned Arabic. She didn't specifiy where, and another poster told her (without clarifying which part) that she was either old or exaggerating as her husband had learned Arabic. I'm sure that people living in less commercialised, ex-pat magnet Arabic speaking countries will make more of an effort to learn the language, but my gripe was that someone was sharing her experience of the linguistic habits of the expats, and was told it either happened a very long time ago or was a tall tale. I lived in the ME (yes, one of the Gulf States) and my experience was the same- hardly anyone learned.

I used to visit areas where many of the local population didn't speak English (mainly the women). These tended to be communities that had formed such as a Bangladeshie or Indian area. Businesses would also only recruit from within their community.

My sister in law has lived in the U.K. since she was 13, when she emigrated from Pakistan. She is over 50 and still can't really speak any English (or read or write). She lives in a northern city in a fairly closed community.

My cousin has worked in Switzerland for the last decade and it slightly blows my mind that he only speaks English at work.

Very odd and I assume that puts a burden on the rest of the family as someone would have to be with her at every GP/hospital appointment and also available to help with any kind of life admin...

Rather silly and lazy I would say.

It is bizarre that she's actively dodged learning a language in a country she has been in for 2 decades, it honestly sounds like she might have a learning disability or just be very very not bright.

But why do you care?

Having been an au pair in a European country, I inevitably learned the language and was fluent in 6 months. I mean, the 4 year old couldn’t speak a word of English and the parents were pretty much monolingual. I don’t see how she hasn’t learned it in 20 years and her Dh is local!

Of course that's just an assumption, that people make no attempt to learn. Not everyone can.

Many of my patients (East London) have come from very poor backgrounds where they haven't even been taught to read or write in their own languages. For people like this, it isn't always possible to then learn those skills in a whole new language. Not being able to write is a barrier to learning a new language in itself. They are able to work in certain fields fine though: factories, tailoring, cleaning, etc. Others work in family restaurants and shops. They contribute to the economy and taxes that fund the services you mention.

I wouldn't expect expats in the Middle East to be entitled to state funded anything seeing many pay little to no tax, one of the main incentives.

I know quite a few people with grandparents that live here and don't speak English. Mainly females. I guess some people think why go to the bother if you don't have to. But it does cause issues. One friends GM is now in a care home unable to communicate staff.

I don’t think you have to be very bright (or have a learning disability !!) to be multilingual, it’s usually necessity. Millions of immigrants manage, as do their dc. We have multiple students annually who take a GCSe in their home language. Free GCSE!

The only situation I’ve encountered a lot where people haven’t learned the language is mums/grandmas who don’t work and stay within the community. I used to find it common for the kids I taught to be taken out of school very frequently to translate for mum. I was the translator in meetings for the Colombian parents when I worked in a certain area of London.

When I lived in Aldershot I got quite frustrated with a lot of the first gen migrant community. What do you mean you've lived in the UK for 40 years and don't speak the language? How do you read food labels or even know what you're buying?

Kinda wish I'd stayed and found myself a nice Nepalese boyfriend instead of returning to my East Anglian car-crash miserable life.

@Anameisaname

you learn the sounds of the language you're growing up in. It's very difficult to learn the correct sounds after about 7, very few people can speak fluently in a vastly different sounding language.

I'm exposed to a fair amount of standard mandarin, but no matter how hard I try, I simply cannot make the correct sounds. Living in China might help a tiny bit, but no way would I ever be fluent.

I learned 2 at school and improved my skills later in life. Learned 1 by myself to B2. I'm learning 2 more (one is my husband's) and another one. Still a beginner though. And English is actually my 4th. My toddler is 2 and trilingual.
I'm European. We always tend to learn more languages then English natives, beside we need to learn English too.

When we were in France for a week we were picking up one or two words a day by looking at signs and watching French TV . I can't believe that there are some women in this county who have been here over 40 years and can't speak English. 40 years ago there were on 3 channels and surely they would hear their kids speaking English. I don't buy it .

I don't think we can put people in boxes this easily though; of course some people can't learn due to aforementioned reasons, but equally there are some whom CHOOSE not to and this is what many find objectionable, especially when it leads to the financial burden on the state. When I worked in public services, ESOL provision was offered free of charge through local training providers but the uptake was always poor, even though It was to their own benefit and wouldn't financially cost them anything. If you want to learn a language abroad - usually you have to pay.

I'm surprised your non English speaking patients have managed to find work within the cleaning/ manufacturing industries etc - h&s mandates alone usually dictate a minimum level of written/ verbal English. It's always an added concern that they're not being exploited -some unscrupulous employers will overlook language barriers by paying below nmw or cash in hand, fully aware that the worker will not know their rights and have no access to legal representation.

Its easier to learn more languages when you already know more than one (and especially if they are related languages), and in many European countries they start teaching other languages at a much younger age than in the UK, so Brits miss out on that early exposure to other languages. There's still people who struggle to learn any despite that, I've met Finns who can't speak anything but Finnish and the foreign language teaching is much better here and starts so much younger.

My children are both bilingual and language learning is so much easier for them, my DD is learning Swedish now at school with ease, and my DS has been picking up French just from watching me doing duolingo, whereas I barely learnt any Finnish from my mum while one of my adopted (so didn't get the very early exposure like I did) brothers picked up a whole lot. People are different, and some just aren't as good at languages (I mean I did fine with languages at secondary school but that was hardly learning a language, just required a decent memory for the small amount you needed to learn for the exams, very different from learning an entire, very complex, grammatical system, that is completely different from your own language)

What age does second language start at schools in UK?

I'm an European, though living in UK for nearly 9 years. If I want to apply for a citizenship, I will have to do a language test and life in UK test. (I don't need to mention that majority of UK born don't know all that history that we need to know) but as well I will need to prove my language skills.
I couldn't be surprised more when working in Customer service on Heathrow and been approached from an Asian passenger, who wasn't even able to say Good Morning, but pushed her passport into my hands. UK passport of course. With no word!!! (and no, she was not having a speech disability, I heard her talking to the rest of the party she was with) sooo... What will we say on that. And yes, she was elderly.

It was year 7 when I was in school, so 11 years old, though I later moved to an area with middle schools and they started earlier (but frankly weren't any ahead of me and I had only been doing French from the start of year 8 so I expect it they had a very slow start)

This is the problem in the UK really.

Because English is so prevalent, we just don't put the same weight in learning other languages some other countries do. The time to be learning a second language is while you are learning your first, i.e. as soon as you start talking, so aside from children growing up in multilingual households, nearly everyone misses that opportunity. Ideally it should start ASAP, but instead of beginning at 4 or 5, we wait until 11 or 12, the point when kids are first introduced to a multitude of other learning topics, and even then it's possible to dispense with learning languages entirely by 15 or 16. It's almost an afterthought.