English Is the Lingua Franca of the World

monolinguan   Fri Apr 24, 2009 3:25 am GMT
<<I don't think many people here are truly monolingual. It's not expected that everyone studied linguistics in school either. This forum is getting to be a little unbalanced. >>

I guess it dpends on how you define monolingual. One definition says that you are either

- monolingual
- bilingual
- trilingual
etc.

To be something other than monolingual, you need to be completely at home in two (or more) languages, ideally with native-like proficiency in both.

Around here, in some circles, you might be regarded as less than patriotic if you're not a dyed-in-the-wool monolingual English speaker.

With that in mind: I'm monolingual, and darned proud of it, too.
Old Kanji is superior to   Fri Apr 24, 2009 3:40 am GMT
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K. T.   Fri Apr 24, 2009 5:13 am GMT
"To be something other than monolingual, you need to be completely at home in two (or more) languages, ideally with native-like proficiency in both."

Perhaps I'm semi-lingual then, in English.

Sometimes I look at greg's posts and wonder what a word means in French. I look it up and I don't know what it means in English. It's about the only time I have to use an English-English dictionary.

I would say that some people are more fully fluent in writing than I am, but I don't know how they sound.
K. T.   Fri Apr 24, 2009 5:19 am GMT
"Around here, in some circles, you might be regarded as less than patriotic if you're not a dyed-in-the-wool monolingual English speaker.

With that in mind: I'm monolingual, and darned proud of it, too."

I'm not sure where "around here" is for you, but I understand that sentiment. I can't see sitting in a class in school and learning nothing, but I did travel in Europe with a classmate (I'm not sure how that happened) who was a rich girl who couldn't speak a word of French even though it was her major in college.
miroir   Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:34 am GMT
De fait, je dois avouer que le français de Greg est un peu trop difficile pour moi aussi, meme si je parle cette langue presque parfaitement. Il utilise le plus souvent des mots et des expressions désuètes et affectées.
fraz   Fri Apr 24, 2009 9:49 am GMT
There's no doubt that English is now the major international language for business and tourism. But what don't understand is the number of English speakers who move to a country where another language is spoken and make almost zero progress learning this language, even several years down the line.
monolinguan   Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:35 am GMT
<<I'm not sure where "around here" is for you>>

US

Example of a "circle" that looks down on knowledge of Spanish is a subset of posters to this newsgroup:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.immigration/topics?hl=en


<<De fait, je dois avouer que le français de Greg est un peu trop difficile pour moi aussi>>

Is the "greg" that we have now the real "greg" that we had a year ago?
Common Sense   Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:38 pm GMT
<<There's no doubt that English is now the major international language for business and tourism. But what don't understand is the number of English speakers who move to a country where another language is spoken and make almost zero progress learning this language, even several years down the line.>>

Yeah, that's a different matter altogether. If I were to move to, let's say France, I would definitely learn French to get around better. But if I were to travel there for just a few days, I wouldn't bother learning much. Just a few phrases to be polite.
Léa   Fri Apr 24, 2009 8:45 pm GMT
"De fait, je dois avouer que le français de Greg est un peu trop difficile pour moi aussi, meme si je parle cette langue presque parfaitement. Il utilise le plus souvent des mots et des expressions désuètes et affectées. "

C'est vrai! greg "parle" comme un vieux livre.
Pourquoi? je n'en sais rien.


K. T
"Sometimes I look at greg's posts and wonder what a word means in French. I look it up and I don't know what it means in English. It's about the only time I have to use an English-English dictionary."

On est deux dans ce cas, (surtout en allemand ou en espagnol.)
Alfredo   Sun Apr 26, 2009 3:05 pm GMT
Es verdad que la unica lengua importante en todos los continentes es el ingles. Pero eso es diferente si vemos cada continente


En las Americas, el español es mas importante y mas hablado que el ingles. El español es hablado aqui por unos 400 millones y el ingles por unos 300 millones. El español es la primera lengua o segunda lengua (Estados Unidos, Brasil, etc) de todos los paises menos Canada. El español es la lengua franca de las Americas, y no el ingles.

En Europa, el ingles es la lengua franca, por ahora...El ruso es el mas hablado en el Este. El italiano, el español, el frances y el aleman son necesarios si quieres ir a zonas que no son turisticas. Vete a un pequeño pueblo de Italia o España que no sea turistico y habla en ingles...Nadie te entendera.

Segun los franceses que escriben aqui (no lo se), el frances es la lengua franca de Africa (o al menos de gran parte de Africa).

En el mundo arabe, el arabe estandar es la lengua franca, y no otra.

En Asia, la lengua franca de algunos paises empieza a ser el chino...
Invité d'honneur   Sun Apr 26, 2009 5:31 pm GMT
miroir : «[Greg] utilise le plus souvent des mots et des expressions désuètes et affectées.»

Les expressions "désuètes" et "affectées" que tu vois chez Greg, s'agirait-il des termes précis qu'il emploie lorsqu'il aborde une question linguistique ?
Si c'est le cas, j'ai envie de répondre que heureusement qu'il emploie des termes précis, non ? Et si j'entends bien que ça peut parfois être un défi de comprendre certains des mots employés, ça reste d'une difficulté surmontable. On peut trouver cette difficulté gênante, c'est une possibilité de réaction parmi d'autres. On peut aussi y voir l'occasion d'élargir son vocabulaire et de renforcer son aisance dans lecture de textes ayant trait à la linguistique.
Invité d'honneur   Sun Apr 26, 2009 5:32 pm GMT
dans lecture -> dans la lecture
Lobo   Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:54 am GMT
C'est vrai! greg "parle" comme un vieux livre.

Ha Ha Ha! Il reste à savoir s'il a l'air de son langage. Quel rigolo ce greg avec son verbiage. C'est du sensationnalisme à l'ancienne. Je pense bien connaître mon français, mais il me surprend toujours avec ses phrases à l'emporte pièce.

S.V.P. un forum sur greg.