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?!!

But it's important to remember that a lot of these elderly people are from former British colonies. I've been told that people used to get passports that way. Not sure when the citizens test was introduced, but they possibly didn't sit it.

Oooh that is bit late. We started 8 iirc but many of us had skme exposure lessons before. There was now recent proposed change, can't remember if it passed, thattjord language would start at like 13 ratherthan 16, 17 as we had it.

Yeah UK is lacking because... Well English 🤷 Spoken everywhere. It's relatively easy language to learn

I learnt two modern languages at school, as did my husband. His Swedish is about as good as my German. And at its best my French is about the standard that his English was when we met.

I've been learning Finnish since we met and can understand quite a lot but the grammar and understanding spoken Finnish quickly enough is hard. That means, in official settings (like passport control) the conversation quickly switches to English. Which highlights another challenge for English speakers - there isn't an obvious language to learn which you can practice more or less whenever you travel or which has so much easily accessible entertainment available.

@Natsku not to derail the thread but if you have any suggestions for online Finnish grammar learning I'd appreciate it.

@Natsku "you might study really hard in languages courses but be completely unable to have a normal conversation with a Finn."
A course that leaves you in an awkward silence, barely able to string a sentence together sounds like ideal prep for a conversation with a Finn! ;-)

I've been on an international penfriend site for 10+ years and tried (and failed) to talk to some native Finns - why they are on a "social media" type site beats me - one profile I saw - their complete profile - said "Just an average person"! My friend in Finland sometimes gives me a rather witty, likely skewed view of the people and the place so I never quite know what to believe - so I thought I'd try and build some contacts there - the only ones I talk to are from other European countries and the US!

@Motheroffourdragons I'm on a 1400 day streak learning Spanish with Duolingo and I feel the same - "limited" in what I can construct on the fly in a real conversation - the Americanisms grate, the lack of direct teaching, the lack of explanations re:grammar/conjugation, etc in favour of "learning by osmosis" - learning a language has to be viewed as a lifelong commitment I think. I've realised it's like trying to learn to swim by reading a book - there's only so much you can learn that way - at some point you have to jump in the water and do it for real - so that's where I am. I've used +babbel - I cancelled by subscription to that last year but think I'll cancel my Duolingo one at Christmas and switch back to +Babbel as I've become disenchanted with the way Duolingo has gone - I feel like my progress has slowed and I no longer understand the underlying rules - I'm just guessing too much - I'd rather know the rules - I can remember rules and exceptions more than the occasions I simply guessed correctly.

@lintu I did the University of Helsinki's Open University courses, only cost about 30-45 euros per course, two zoom lessons a week (daytime option and evening option) plus homework, and used this website to help https://uusikielemme.fi/finnish-grammar (which anyone who thinks learning a language is easy, is welcome to look at! )

@larkstar Hah, pretty accurate! When I started at my school last autumn, first day and walked in, there was a room with about 20 people in it sat in complete silence, no small talk or even hello as I walked in. Was the perfect stereotypical example of the average Finn Though now we all know each other everyone chats a lot, some of them don't bloody shut up, and I've learnt so much more slang (punkku and valkkari for red and white wine, respectively. Important learning there) but the rest of my language learning has been related to my course so still not useful in day to day life.

Maybe she's resistant to the culture and people of the country - not learning the language is her way of rebelling.

I can see how it happens easily.

We also have now been in another European country for about 8 years. I speak local language now fairly fluently, but dh struggles. But a) he’s always been working full time in English (software) so day to day work wise he doesn’t speak it b) he struggles with writing and grammar in English, so I’m not exactly surprised.
He can converse with people, so socially he’s still fine with locals, but I do majority of detailed stuff.

Our 4 year old has been at local speaking kindergarten almost 2 years.
At home we read and talk in English to him, and he watches English shows. We have been recommended he does his to
make sure his English grammar and vocabulary is high, as local will follow

We know many people who have been here longer than us, who don’t speak much local language. Usually they arrived as early pensioners ie in 50s, but wife or husband is actually local, but they met and married in Uk for 20-30 years. So between them they have always spoken English at home, and locally the partner who speaks local language does all the organising and other doesn’t need to. They don’t work locally to need it, and many find other English speakers for hobbies. They are now 60-70s and can get by, but basic.

I grew up in a non-English speaking country having moved there age 7, and couldn’t learn the language. My sister became bi-lingual. I was put in a local school for six months and couldn’t understand what anyone was saying so my parents moved me to an English speaking school. Languages don’t come easily to everyone. I was very good at school other than that.

The best resistance is to leave if one is so resistant to culture and language 🤷 I say that as someone who lived in few countries

Oh wow, no excuse then. Had I been offered paid for classes during work time I would have snapped them up in an instant! I just couldn’t stand using my very limited time off for classes.
I didn’t have the risk of being alone with the kids and unable to speak the language though as there were always security guards with us! Plus the English security blanket excuse of most people in that area could speak at least basic English.

Kiitos @Natsku - that website should keep me busy!

I wonder if all these people who think there's no excuse for not learning the language also think that there's no excuse for kids who don't get a good mark in their modern languages GCSEs? Like the whole population should be capable of getting an A or B by that reasoning, and yet they don't. Becoming an immigrant doesn't magically make you good at languages - sometimes people who are shit at languages find themselves living in a foreign country and they just have to get on with it. I speak German to about C1 level after about 10 years in the country and 5 years of on and off language classes before that, so I know what an investment of time and effort it is to actually learn a language to the point where you can respond in any conversation, rather than just being able to parrot the phrases fro the half a dozen conversation topics you learn in the GCSE. So I would not judge someone who hasn't managed it. It's always women as well isn't it? "They come here and they never learn to speak a word of the language" = in reality they can understand and probably speak but not at the rate required to be able to have a fluent conversation in the supermarket or the doctors, and they'll have been dealing with culture shock and social isolation while looking after a family. Did everyone here have such an easy time when their kids were little that they would have been able to pick up a new language at the same time? I bloody didn't.

There is difference to learning at school and learning while living somewhere. It's not comparable. Plus no one here talks about fluent level or A grade. Some communication skills are achievable for 99% of people. And if you live somewhere, you should learn at least basics.

It's disrespectful to move to a country and not learn the language.

I sympathise woth her to some extent. i'm certainly no linguist. we've had Ukrainians living with is nearly 2 years now and when they speak with each other I'm still only able to pick out the odd word.. good night, dog, cat, breakfast, yes, no, good, car, potato, bread, tomato, chicken and badger are about the full extent of my ukranian vocabulary!!

DP on the other hand can have quite involved conversations with them. however he's always been very good at picking up languages which makes me a but lazy because wherever we go he has usually done what's needed while i'm still formulating my first sentence un my head.

however if actually had to go and live in Ukraine and I was there for 20 years I I'd pick up a slightly wider vocabulary or id be liv8ng on a very restricted diet and surrounded by cats dogs and badgers!

Yeah it's easier in school. The language you hear from the teacher is grammatically correct, accent free, slow enough to understand and doesn't use any terms that would be considered racist or outdated, not true of the full immersion that everyone on here is so enthusiastic about. You have time to practice and study, and all the kids in the class will have roughly the same experiences with the language and experience of learning too. And yet many kids still struggle.

I learned most by immersion rather than few hours a week at school. When you have it constantly, rather than few times a week, it makes a difference

Agreed. More shockingly, I have met people BORN IN THE UK who are my age and cannot speak English. Without it becoming a race/religious issue, I think this is appalling

To those who asked, the language is French so nowhere as difficult as some of you who’ve had to grapple with Finnish or Arabic. It makes the situation all the more bizarre because although French grammar is tricky it’s really not that hard to learn to speak it.

@TallulahBetty that sounds bizarre. I can’t imagine a scenario where you are born in the U.K. and grow up here but cannot speak a word of English. Did these people not attend school?

One of my close friends is of Chinese origin. Her parents came here in 1970s and do not speak any English after living here for 50 years. When their restaurant burned down she had to deal with the insurance paperwork. She was 11 years old. A few years later it was discovered that her parents didn’t receive the payout they should have because my friend didn’t fill in a form properly. To this day, 30 odd years later, they still blame her (and both still refuse to learn English).

Why did she go there in the first place if she had no intention of learning the language?

Totally agree. I once dated a man who was from an African country originally,he'd been over here for 20 years,and although he could get by in English,he certainly wasn't anywhere near fluent. I put it down to the fact that he spent so much of his time socialising only with people who were from his home country.

French?? Mine is pretty appalling but I can sort of make myself understood and I think I could pick it up after 20 years

I'd assumed it was something like Thai or Chinese or Finnish or Mongolian... French is actually comparatively accessible - we share their script and a lot of their words. Can she at least manage to read it?

Actually, it may not be that unusual as my mum's lived in French speaking countries for many years and her French is rudimentary. She worked in English and we spoke English at home.

My parents have lived in Spain for 20 years and never progressed beyond the basics. I think one reason is they never did lessons, but also the expat community has people from many different countries and so English is the common language.

I went to classes at our local Adult college and then kept it up with Duo Lingo/Drops so I could speak it a bit when I went there. Don't get me wrong I'm not fluent, but able to communicate in Spanish better than them. They are always very impressed with my Spanish, although I don't know that much! They say that it is harder for them to learn at their age. They moved there in their mid 50s so not sure I'm buying that!

The strangest thing is they claim often the Spanish pretend to not understand them when they insist they are speaking Spanish correctly but they really aren't! My DC ask them how to say things in Spanish and I often have to step in to correct what they say 😂

@Eastie77Returns I would never guessed it’s French! It’s one of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers. I was one of those that thought it’s Finnish when you mentioned Europe in the OP. Finnish is difficult for English speakers.