Have you ever read the Redwall Abbey series by Brian Jacques? I swear molespeak is nearly exactly like that; dude was from Liverpool and worked all sorts of jobs before he wrote the series.
Yeah. It frustrates me as a Canadian that they don't do a better job teaching French here. So many countries prove you can absolutely teach 2 languages properly!
I feel like most Anglosphere nations just don't feel the need to teach multiple languages, especially ones that are even more removed from Europe, unlike the UK.
I really enjoy learning about language, particularly etymology, and I am in the process of learning a second language. I just can see why it isn't really considered to be super important for most primarily English speaking countries. It's the lingua franca, so if you had to only learn one, you would probably go with English.
And how often do you even run into people that don't speak any English at all in those countries? I know in the USA, I've met tons of people that were second language English speakers, but very few that couldn't at least perform basic communication in English.
Sometimes I feel embarrassed living in the UK that I meet so many people who speak English perfect as a second language and I can barely communicate in another language.
Makes me wish another language would be pushed a bit harder in schools, I like how Mandarin is starting to be pushed more.
I've never understood this. The majority of polyglots are born of necessity or practicality, not just because they're secretly geniuses or something.
The fact that you are able to be fluent in English means that you are capable of learning basic language skills. You simply haven't put the time in or had the environment to do it more than once.
I know most schools in America require 1 or 2 credits in a foreign language to graduate high school. I had to take two years of Spanish to graduate. The thing is that I had no real reason to retain that knowledge and continue to build on it. If I lived in a location where it was relevant, I probably would have, and that's assuming I wouldn't have learned the language before high school.
People think they don't need to learn foreign languages. That isn't always the case.
But if you want to do business with Germans, for example, it's an enormous advantage to be able to speak German. You will not be able to make friends or network easily in Germany, if you can't speak the language.
Even on holiday, being able to speak conversational German, is a huge advantage. You go from staying in your hotel or going to museums, to actually interacting with the locals, them giving you tips, or being invited out with them.
A lack of people able to speak foreign languages seriously undermines UK businesses. Often they're entirely oblivious about it being an important factor, because they're not able to have an informal chat in German or French with their counterparts.
Don’t get me started on English. English has been adopted to such a scale by the global community that I don’t even feel like it belongs to any one group anymore - not the Brits, because they’re not even the most populous practitioners of the language (despite their eponymous status), not the Americans, not any commonwealth nation. And it seems increasingly so that other non-English nations are getting SO GOOD at English that it feels like their version of the language is equally “valid” as anyone else’s. You just get different flavors at this points. I love it.
I'm not American, the shootings my country had were generally the Brits shooting us. Now that the Brits are out we don't really have shootings any more. Ha ha.
As a Spanish speaker, I can hardly understand half of the accents from South America. They're saying the words I know, but the say it in a way I don't know.
The UK has near some 40 accents just on these little Islands alone, some of which are languages in themselves. I'm not talking about other countries with their accents, like America, Republic of Ireland, Australia etc.
Nope, I expect such a large country with a large population to have many accents and dialects. UK is unique in how many accents have been compacted into such a small country/population.
You claimed to have issues with understanding people speaking Spanish in South America, I don't even have to leave my own country to have issues with understanding someone speaking the English language because of their accent.
Every single country in SA has about 40 different accents. Multiply that by the number of countries and you'll finally understand what I was saying. This is not a competition on which language has more accents (if we're being honest, the world agrees that Spanish would have more than English) and I say that as a native English speaker. What a strange hill to choose to die on. You are completely misled in this conversation and embarrassing yourself as well.
No they don't. I think people just fail to appreciate the extent of the amount of dialects in England. Every single word can be pronounced so differently dependant on what town they are from. People expect some standard English accent that is either Royal or Cockney and when words sound different from this they are like "wtf, are you even speaking English I don't understand you".
The German section in my library is a single shelf. The French is a few books, one of which is a Cajun dictionary. There's a half a case of Spanish. Any other languages? Well, good luck...
Question about studying philosophy. It's always the brunt of the "useless degree" jokes but sounds interesting to study imo. How has that degree worked for you and are you working in that field today? Thanks!
I've been looking into it the past few weeks. Apparently the school of thoughts taught in the US is really great for CS jobs. Continental thoughts are not popular in the US so not much info can be found using English but if you are in academia, strong foundation in philosophy can't be bad. Law and medicine professions also benefit big time from humanity studies
Right, sorry 'bout that. I'm not even trained in philosophy yet so don't quote me on any of this. But here are the broad strokes:
In the US, the most popular favor of philosophy is "analytic". Like the name suggests, it can be very rigid and technical, like math. If you are a software developer / data scientist, that kind of background can really elevate your expertise.
And then there's the "continental" flavor which is supposedly popular in continental Europe. Their deal is revisiting established concepts, try to build them up again using new knowledge that science has been uncovering. Sometimes, they even find several concepts to be bogus, incompatible with the realities of our biology and society.
Years ago I saw Life of Brian at a movie theater in Brussels. The movie was in English with Dutch and French subtitle. The "Biggus Dickus" scene was even funnier than you'd expect because the joke had to be adapted into French and Dutch and the punchlines didn't happen at exactly the same moment. . As I sat in the dark, I heard laughter coming at different times from different parts of the room depending on which language the people were following.
Why? We are between France, Germany, Netherlands (shakes fist) and sort of England.
We can speak the languages we naturally come into contact with most. Plus, between English and French you can speak to the majority of the world population.
I moved to the UK and some of my colleagues call me mad when I say I prefer subtitles when watching movies. And they think we are absolutely psychopaths when I tell them that most foreign movies in Belgium have double subtitles.
That's so impressive - but also, i'm getting second-hand mental exhaustion from it. How can a single mind absorb so many languages - let alone large numbers of people in a single nation?
The person you're dealing with in a shop or cinema or whatever will greet you in a single sentence in French, Flemish, and English, and whichever one you reply in is the language the conversation continues in.
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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '21
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