Westministenders: The Beginning of Negotiations

[RedToothBrush]

Transition has a few hours left.

Then negotiations start and trade stops.

Far from being over, there are huge numbers of issues that lay unresolved.

And businesses both now in the UK and EU will cease to trade with each other just because the red tape is such a pain.

So whilst people will celebrate and think things are 'done' that just shows how much people are paying attention.

It will be interesting to see people gradually realising what has been lost...

It’s worth noting however, the large numbers of Chinese who come to the UK and US, some of whom do not have high levels of education, who manage to learn English.

English is perhaps easier to learn than vice versa but you’re still dealing with a totally unfamiliar script and structure.

The reason many educated Chinese speak excellent English is the same reason many Europeans do - they start very young and language teaching is taken seriously in schools. They do also have the impetus of wanting to take part in the dominant world culture.

Santé!

I’ve got to go and eat a delayed meal cooked by my DD. 🤞🏼

HNY all!

@AuldAlliance - But we're losing around 80 exchange places in UK universities and our Irish partners will only compensate for some of those.

Yes. We are limited in how many we can take. I will only accept erasamus students in my classes if it doesn't push me over the room capacity. Room availability is a nightmare for the larger rooms.

I mainly get German and Spanish, followed by French and Italian students, with an occasional Austrian. I find the Germans and Austrians have far and away the best English and, because of that, tend to be a great addition to the class. The other nationalities vary a lot more in their contributions but overall, it's wonderful to have different perspectives.

Dd is hoping to go on erasamus next year in Sweden but it's very competitive as it's an English speaking placement. They only have a choice of Germany, France and Sweden so her Spanish, which is pretty fluent, is no use to her. Ds went to Malta. As he is linguistically challenged, an English speaking placement was essential

FWIW my child did a pure science degree and went to a country NONE of us had ever been to before and where they did not speak the language
It was utterly life changing for all of us.
Erasmus is about so much more than language

Europe is about so much more than the shit that the ERG go on about

My Blue passport becomes worth more at the end of next month

I think it would be great for more young people to learn Mandarin or Japanese or Korean, but we have to be honest about the likely returns on investment: these are very difficult languages even for gifted learners.

It's partly been answered, but I was going to ask, why is this? Is it because they are not Indo-European languages?

In my school days language learning was very much an academic exercise of grammar and translation. Listening and speaking didn't get much of a look in. From language classes I have taken as an adult, I do think this has changed but I noticed we older students are still not very good at speaking. Younger ones are much better but in classes I have attended too dismissive of learning some grammar.

And so it begins ....
The NI position has been altered in time for tomorrow so that people can still shop
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55496099
What will happen in the next 24 hours

I know this makes me a very bad/sad person but this has genuinely made my evening. It's so totally, symbolically Brexit in a "Brexit will eat itself" kind of way.

www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet/news/sinkhole-opens-at-manston-lorry-park-240070/

Ooh Mistigri
You have just made both DH and I piss ourselves laughing
That bit of Kent is unique
and that the fact that it collapses under the weight of the modern world is classic

The reasons languages are not taken up well in Britain, or at least some of the reasons, are geography and poverty. I come from a poor northern village background, no parental support once I left, they had other kids; you did not hear other languages except at school and had no realistic chances of going abroad. I still know people now who have never been abroad, and only did myself independently for the first time at age 30. I’m happy to see Welsh return for that reason!

English is essentially a Germanic language. Other Germanic languages are the easiest to learn because they share grammar and concepts - constructions of the world in common. Dutch is very close to English. French is a combination of Germanic with a large Latin element. Spanish and Italian are Latin-based. The further away you go from those two language families the harder they will be because the grammar and concepts become different. Welsh is from the Celtic family, so different again. Learning languages is an exercise in learning how other peoples construct and categorise their worlds.

It's partly been answered, but I was going to ask, why is this? Is it because they are not Indo-European languages?

Well, for a start, teaching languages well is very resource intensive. My DD left school with a good C1 (borderline C2 written) in her specialist modern foreign language (Spanish). To get there, she had 8-10 hours of tuition by Spanish natives for her three years of senior high: language, literature, history and geography classes were all taught and assessed entirely in Spanish. She also participated in four language exchanges. That's how you teach languages well: by employing native speakers, programming a lot of hours of tuition, and providing lots of immersion.

And that's to teach a European language which shares an alphabet and much common vocabulary and grammar (don't underestimate what a big difference this makes).

MayYou
Erasmus is not about languages - that is Brexiter hyperbole.
All the other EU countries realise that its about mixing and discovering
it an ERG myth that its for posh language kids
and Turing will be even narrower

my child met people doing maths, engineering, biology, chemistry, astronomy, business, taxonomy, physics
all on Erasmus
from all over the continent

Welsh is from the Celtic family, so different again.

Welsh is a different Celtic family to Irish and Scots Gaelic. We got the vowels, the welsh and the Bretons got the consonants..

..

Good evening and a happy (?) New Year to all. I’m a one-time regular poster, now occasional poster/somewhat more frequent lurker/overly sensitive Kent resident. Thank you to Red and all on these threads.

Feeling terribly down tonight. We’ve just FaceTimed my adorable 88 year old Austrian MIL who was actually weeping - completely distraught about it all. I doubt we will see the U.K. (or whatever is left of it) rejoining in my lifetime - it’s a certainty she won’t see it.

I feel quite empty inside.

I was responding more generally to the comments about why people don’t learn languages in Britain. To learn it you have to have a reason, and you have to be able to hear it regularly. Immersion is the quickest way. Also to Peregrinas query about why far Asian languages may be harder.
Brythonic Celtic v Gaelic Celtic. You can track the movement of people through the movement of language sometimes. I know a bit of ‘dark age’ British history, to pick up another bit of the last thread. Those 3 groups are all Indo-European, as Peregrina mentioned; still different enough to confuse people who expect everywhere to speak English. Non indo-European will have completely different ways of classifying the world and expressing it. So yes, much harder. And most people will not be able to visit, and we do not hear it here. English is learned, usually with an American accent incidentally, because it is heard everywhere.

@ListeningQuietly

And then we had Michael Flately.

Local folklore has it, it was the catholic church who decided banned arm movement so no touching of the opposite sex would occur.

However, I did a Google, and apparently it's the fault of the Brits (what isn't?). The British tried to establish control by attempting to stamp out aspects of Irish culture and identity, including traditional songs and dance. The Irish responded, so the theory goes, by keeping their arms still so the British would not be able to tell they were dancing if they say them through the windows of a country house, behind a hedge or behind the bar in a pub.

Alternatively, the stiff arms was a kind of protest by dancers who were forced to dance for Queen Elizabeth, who was responsible for starting the plantations of Ireland. These dancers had no choice but to dance for the Queen, so the stiff arms was their way of showing their fellow countrymen that they didn’t want to do it and weren’t enjoying the experience.

ireland-calling.com/lifestyle/irish-dancing-straight-arms/

Sorry that’s disjointed, trying to get kids into bed no matter what’s going on outside!

((( Babooshka))
It will be OK
if we MAKE it
by asking the right questions and demanding proper answers
and we are

I haven’t posted for a long time, but have never stopped following the thread. I hope it continues as I would really miss it!

Happy New Year, and thank you to you all.

twitter.com/TerryReintke/status/1344768314493587456 ❤️

and Turing will be even narrower

And calling it this utterly sickens me. For all the Brexiter's bombast about the winning the War it wouldn't have done as quickly without men like Turing, but he was outed as a homosexual and accepted chemical castration as an alternative to prison. He is thought to have committed suicide although some say it might have been an accidental death. A posthumous pardon in 2013 barely makes up for it.

Languages were quite poor in my school in late 90s. Everyone did french in years 7-8. If you were in top set french, you spent yr 9 doing french and German (same number of lessons though) then you had to do at least one language. So all the brighter kids took the easier (i.e. more similar to English) German, and the less able kids stuck doing French.

My French teacher was very good at the language, and literally wrote the text book we used, but there weren't enough lessons on the timetable to really get a decent grip. Along with a terrible curriculum which focussed on formal conversation rather than useful phrases. I can say "my hamster died" in German but I once asked a German uni friend what the German word for "arm" was. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I wish I was better at languages. I just don't have cause to use them. My brother has taken it upon himself to relearn French as an adult and does v well - he has a few french friends who he asks to talk to him in French and watches french TV. He also chats online to a French person who is learning English (they tutor each other informally)

But of a late PMK. Thanks Red et al for keeping these threads going. They have been a voice of sanity, have read from the beginning but only started posting in the last year. Happy New Year to all 🥂

@HappyWinter that link is chilling

Thanks also for the recommendation of the Richard Wilkinson/Kate Pickett book on the other thread, have reserved a copy from the library

[quote Mistigri]I know this makes me a very bad/sad person but this has genuinely made my evening. It's so totally, symbolically Brexit in a "Brexit will eat itself" kind of way.

www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet/news/sinkhole-opens-at-manston-lorry-park-240070/[/quote]
If you are a bad person so am I.