The British. Multilingual Failures

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Es verdad.
 

WHAT ?!?



Back in my day (oh, somehow I now feel very old), we started learning English in Grade 4. Although I watched Sesame's Street and old Muppet Show episodes on CBC when I was 4 or 5... And could still understand them ! Go figure !

Now they are learning it in Grade 1... And I think you now have an optional class of Spanish in high school.

The weird thing is, kids now can barely write/speak proper French, and still can not hold a chat in English. And now they are trying to introduce Spanish ?

I was at the drugstore the other day, was waiting in line to pay my stuff when I noticed an American customer right ahead of me. The man looked at the cashier and said : "Hi. How are you ?" The girl (about 16 years old) was screwed up and couldn't answer. Hah ! Way to go !
 
Sadly we've now reached a stage in state education where English children grow up unable to either speak English correctly or write it with any style or panache.

It's all "text talk" these days.

Fkwits!
 
Maximowitz said:
-cut-
So to all multilinguists here. Rejoice and be proud! Mangle a few verbs and prepositions, you'll still be understood.
Click to expand...

Zankjuu ferry ferry mutsj, it is can be måtsj appresiatet.
Ju may ki...er, no...ju may zpeak ænglis tu all årf uz.
Ænglis iz maj bæst - yes!

In a more straightforward and civilised manner, though:
Thanks, I think that people (- myself included) put too much emphasis on trying to write properly, when it comes to spelling, grammar and punctuation.
Forget it - most people understand what we're trying to say, and if we don't understand the meaning of what's being said, it doesn't hurt to ask one more time.
 
I took 2 years of German in High School, forgot some over the years and then had to re-learn as I immersed myself in the history of the Luftwaffe. I can get by.

But as for English in America. I live in Southern New Jersey, below Philadelphia. There is a stigmatism about folks from New Jersey who have an accent akin to New York speak. But in this area of Jersey, being close to Philly, its more southern drawl without the New York murder of the vowels. I'm sure Timshatz can back me up on that. And every time I tell someone I'm from New Jersey, they ask where my accent is or did I move to NJ. Thats why my avatar location says "South Jersey". A whole different state.
 
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Boy am I glad the Yanks adopted English as their official language! They taught use German and French at school, but I was hopeless at both. Just couldn't get my head around it!
 
Well I'm English and having travelled and worked outside the UK for most of my life I speak French and can get by in German,Spanish and Italian. I have found that if you make the effort to communicate with people in their language they will usually try to teach you the 30,000 other words in common usage that they feel you should know! I find people from the smaller nations tend to speak excellent English, something I am very happy about and for which I have the utmost respect. An Icelander once explained this to me saying there's not many people in Iceland and noone else speaks Icelandic!
Incidentally the "World" in world series does not refer to a world championship but to the original sponsor.
Steve
 
I never had to take a foreign language until I lived in Germany (2nd grade). Once I got back to the States I did not have to take another until High School. My daughter starts Kindergarten next week and has to take Spanish - which I think is great.
 
Heh. My Dad was stationed on Guam (two different 3-year accompanied-tours). I remember having a Chomorro class in the 1st grade. Because, ya know, EVERYONE speaks Chomorro! It did help a bit in Spanish, since there's alot of commonalities between the two. Guess the Spanish stopped by the island at some point.
 
I have a fair shot at "King's English" because I had an actual English tutor when I was much younger, thanks to severe dyslexia. And by saying "English", I mean he was a retired linguistics professor from the University of Oxford and was British.

If that wasn't bad enough, I spent alot of time with my Great Aunt Hanke, who was "old school" Prussian, and being stuck in the old ways, insisted that in the home, "we speak our native tongue" unless company was present.

So now, not only was my English hard enough to handle, I was struggling with a language that would eventually (in a few decades) be officially classified as "dead". The Prussian language is to modern German, as Olde Englishe is to modern English. The syntax, phrases and words themselves are all wrong! Oh yeah, and did I meantion I was already dyslexic? The I and E thing (except with a C) was a lost cause...seriously...

I took German in school, because I thought it would be a breeze! I mean, I already spoke it, right? Oh how wrong I was! When I went to work with it on tests and such, the teacher thought I was jerking her around, since I had a flawless "oberdeutche" accent. SO...she flunked me! (I hated her anyway - when you see "Sac De Douche" below, this is why I learned the phrase...)

So I took French...boy did that suck. The teacher looked like Joan Collin's older French Aunt, and she held her cigarettes funny, and she was short tempred. All I remember from that class, is how to say "Ferme La Bouche", "Sac de Douche" and I can count to three. That's the better part of a year of my life that I'll never get back

Since I grew up in Southern California, Spanish history and it's language was a way of life. Not so much because of the Mexican culture there, but because that area used to belong to Spain and the history reaches back to the late 16th century, so it's just a natural for the locals. So I can speak enough Spanish to get around in Mexico (and a carniceria in downtown Santa Ana) and I know enough "good" Spanish to get my face slapped

And, I am totally fluent in local surf lingo, like...SoCal, way.
 
I was raised on both English and German. Both languages were spoken in my house hold and I can switch between both languages without thinking about it (except for translations, that can take some time because I want to make sure it is correct).

When I was in school, I took a bit of French (but did not like it, so I quit), then learned a lil bit of Italian (which I have now forgotten), learned a little bit of Spanish (of which I have forgotten most), and started to learn Russian, which also did not do very well in.

In the end I just stuck with German and English, but I do know a little bit from a lot of languages.
 
I believe you mean Stigma. Astigmatism is an eye problem. Stigmata is a catholic crucifixion wound problem.
 
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Well....wish I was fluent in a second language (I dont count Squaddie (Army) as a language but its very easy to pick up....just make sure every second word you speak is the F word )

I'm working on my Cypriot but its a struggle as spookliy enough, there aint exactly an awfull lot of Greek / Cypriot guys 'n' gals in deepest darkest Wiltshire !
 
Yeah, it is really useful that most foreigners speak English enough to get by abroad. I did French at school and having been going to France every year on holiday it was easy enough and I was almost fluent (both my parents are) but now having not been for a couple of years I have forgotten most of it. Picked up bits of various languages on my travels, I used to have conversational Kiswahili but haven't used it enough in the last couple of years for it too of stuck. I can pretty much understand Afrikaans now although I can't say a lot (I can speak and understand South African English though). Then I have various bits of languages that I picked up from friends/travels, so I have a bit of Malagasy, Italian, German and Spanish but not enough to be useful (mostly swear words).
 
Thanks, the compliment is appriciated.

Here in the NL, almost all people have to learn Dutch, English, French and German at school for a few years. Most of us just stick with English and Dutch later. I myself original come from Groningen. The language there is very similar to platt Deutsch, so German isn't difficult for me as well.
 
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