why won´t French people speak English?
"I know that they don´t want their culture to be eradicated by English culture"
This concern exists, mainly among elite cirlces. The rest of us don't mess around wondering if our language is in danger, we just speak it.
"I hate English influence on the Norwegian language, and I still don´t want to use words like "computer", "milkshake" and "date" when I speak Norwegian"
There isn't that much English borrowing in French, so again, it's not that big a deal here.
"but I want to speak English 100%"
Yes, but you don't want to expect everybody to feel the same urge. You'd be disapointed.
I'm french. And I want to say that french learn to speak english at school. English is a part of the main subject at school with mathematics, french, and history. We must speak english to pass our exam or to have a job. So, all french people who work or go at school speak english.
I grant, that sometimes it's a bad english. And I grant, a lot of adults forget what they learnt at school because they don't often speak english.
And less people want to learn english because of the situation between french and american. When american waste wine or say "after Irak, France". French are always respected the american ( with WW1 & WW2), ans US was a model. And we are very sad about the 11 september.
But if the country of liberty doesn't like french because we're don't with us for the war in Irak, it's certainly not a country for the liberty of opinion.
Lora: "We must speak english to pass our exam or to have a job"
That's taking things a little far, I think. Most jobs don't require English in France.
"And less people want to learn english because of the situation between french and american"
I don't see many students dropping their English classes for resentment-over-French-bashing reason over here. Nothing, in fact, has really changed: we still repeat the mantra that learning English is "very important" although actually we don't need to speak it all that much in real life, which gives us little incentive to get serious about learning it. So we attend the four-hours-weekly English lessons, but you don't get anywhere near fluent that way. French bashing in America doesn't factor into it all, really.
Eric, "That's taking things a little far, I think. Most jobs don't require English in France. "
In france, we defenitly have to know how to speak english if we wanna have a quite good job.
Few years later, french people were not used to speak english, but now everybody in france try to develope this language and more and more people speak english.
While the subject of Americans and the english language has came up, i am living in Northern Spain and i know no Spanish or of the native tongue (basque) and there are so little people who speak English only within the young people because for them it is easier to get a job knowing English. I admit i was one of these people who 'expected' people to speak English but that wan't the case, anyway my point is that American English is considerably different to 'real' English, i was recently having conversational classes with a company director who actually learnt American English in Washington and a lot of the words he used we don't use in English but only in American English. Also i consider English a lazy language, the people are not lazy at all but where is the need to learn another language when the majority of the world speak the same. I am learning Spanish and it is VERY difficult for me, in school i did German which was easy (easier than french) but Spanish is very hard and similar to French which may be the downfall, i can understand a lot but the speaking it in the right order with the mass of verbs conjugated this way and that way is proving to be very difficult. Some of my work colleagues speak English but never speak to me in the language and each one has said it is a very easy language to learn, anyway i may have gone off the point here.....
jade :
« Eric, "That's taking things a little far, I think. Most jobs don't require English in France. "
In france, we defenitly have to know how to speak english if we wanna have a quite good job.
Few years later, french people were not used to speak english, but now everybody in france try to develope this language and more and more people speak english. »
Non, la "maîtrise" de l'anglais n'est pas une nécessité pour travailler en France. Même pour une activité lié à l'international, le niveau d'anglais requis est **TRÈS FAIBLE**. Les mentions du type « bilingue exigé » ou « très bon niveau d'anglais » qu'on voit parfois mentionnées sur les annonces de recrutement cachent mal le résultat à l'arrivée : du baragouin.
De mon point de vue, le niveau d'anglais (quand il existe) dans les entreprises françaises est en général catastrophique et au mieux rudimentaire.
>>In france, we defenitly have to know how to speak english if we wanna have a quite good job. <<
So true. In France, when I worked there, I remember all the business execs and workers in computing at the higher levels of the hierarchy whose level of English was excellent. They admitted they could only go so far with basic English skills. Of course English isn't necessary in France if you don't mind an average sort of job.