Is English an inferior language?

Get your stats right   Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:19 pm GMT
Lux's 2.3 is not "a long way" in front of Estonia's 2.2.
Damian SW15   Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:52 pm GMT
UK 0.1% Nothing to be proud about...the % crept in when I wasn't looking...yes, it should indeed read 0.1 languages, which does mean only only one in 10 pupils in British schools learns a foreign language up to the level of fluency....or that's how I interpret those statistics contained in that Daily Telegraph article from the way it was reported.

Anyway, the top and bottom of it all is that we Brits are less likely to even attempt to learn, let alone master, any foreign language than the people of any other country in Europe, except perhaps for the Irish....I don't think they're any more bothered about it than we are. Life is SO hard for us you know.....having our native language as THE lingua franca...it breeds chronic linguistic indolence and inertia.

Just imagine how it is for us here in the UK.....people from other countries come here for whatever reason and are expected to know at least some English otherwise they really could be in a pickle because very few of the natives here are even capable let alone willing to converse in the language of the visitors....the British mindset here is this....you come to the UK, presumably of your own volition, so you'd better learn some English or else. Nasty I know, but that's how it is.

On the other hand, and this really is nasty, Brits travelling on the Continent expect the natives there to converse with them in English, as the idea of far too many Brits even bothering to learn even a handful of words in another language is a non starter I'm ashamed to say.

Is it any wonder the UK always comes last in the annual Eurovision Song contest? Le Royaume Uni: nul points....wie schade!
Damian SW15   Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:59 pm GMT
Luxembourg is bound to have the learning of foreign languages high on the schools' agenda.....it's a tiny country surrounded by much larger neighbours....so I imagine French, German and Dutch are high on the list, as well as English I suppose.

Switzerland doesn't appear in any of those statistics for obvious reasons but I'm sure they would rate pretty highly in those tables, too....there are four languages in common use there as it is.
lame   Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:04 pm GMT
<<which does mean only only one in 10 pupils in British schools learns a foreign language up to the level of fluency..>>


NO! 1 in 10 Brits do NOT become fluent in another language. If you exclude people with a non-ENglish background, probably only 1 in 200 or less would be fluent in another language.
Adam   Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:43 pm GMT
.....people from other countries come here for whatever reason and are expected to know at least some English otherwise they really could be in a pickle because very few of the natives here are even capable let alone willing to converse in the language of the visitors....the British mindset here is this....you come to the UK, presumably of your own volition, so you'd better learn some English or else. Nasty I know, but that's how it is.
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How is it nasty to expect foreigners living and working in Britain to speak English?

If people come to work in Britain they should learn English. If they want to earn wages here then it's only good manners they should speak our language. If you can't speak English, or aren't willing to learn, you shouldn't live and work here.

If I go and live and work in Poland the Poles would be expecting me to speak Polish.
Adam   Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:46 pm GMT
Is it any wonder the UK always comes last in the annual Eurovision Song contest? Le Royaume Uni: nul points....wie schade!
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The UK finished 5th this year. And the UK has won Eurovision more times than any other country except Ireland.
Guest   Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:53 pm GMT
><the UK has won Eurovision more times than any other country except><

Yes Adam, we know you can remember that. You're THAT old.
Adam   Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:58 pm GMT
Agreed....with the 'net contribution' increasing year on year with the latest UK upward hike in EU outward payments to the Europot being announced only last week, but I think it's all well worth it.....it's just inconceivable that the UK will ever withdraw from the EU, it just ain't gonna happen
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How is being in the EU worth it? The majority of our laws are created by UNELECTED foreigners in Brussels rather than ELECTED MPs in London, including the recently abolished law that made it ilegal to seel bent bananas; we have had our fishing fleet, once the largest on Earth, reduced greatly in size by those unelected foreigners in Brussels, whilst those of countries such as Spain and France have been increased, and then Brussels allows the fleets of countries such as Spain and France to sigh in BRITISH waters, and if they catch much fish they thrown the dead does back; the EU Parliament is a parliament of treehuggers dedicated to saving the polar bears, but for at least 12 times a year the parliament in Brussels, and eveything in it, has to relocate to Strasbourg, just because the French wish to have a major EU institution on their soil, at a cost of thousands to the British taxpayer, and producing what must be one of the world's largest "carbon footprints"; we are a part of an organisation in which the arrogant French and Germans abuse a Member State's government if they don't do what the French and Germans want them to do, such as when Chirac and Schroeder attacked the Baltic states such as Estonia and Latvia when they supported the Iraq War, as though these former Soviet states wouldn't mind being bossed about by larger neighbours; Britain has some of the highest food prices in the world due to the Common Agricultural Policy, a corrupt system in which countries with efficient farmers, such as Britain, has to pay subsidies to inefficient French farmers, who get paid for doing nothing.

All in all, joining the "Common Market" in 1973 was Britain's greatest foreign policy mistake since Suez. Britain WILL leave the EU at some point, and then we'll have our SOVEREIGNTY back and have a country ruled by elected MPs in London, not by unknown, unelected and unnacountable foreign bureucrats in a foreign city.
Jasper   Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:16 pm GMT
Adam, I'm an American who knows relatively little about the dynamics of the EU, but from what little I know, I have to agree with you.

It has always seemed to me that, in a union such as the EU, the stronger countries would always have to support the weaker ones, and many countries would have to adopt practices, decided by another country, that don't necessarily meet their needs (immigration policies, for example).

I'm not sure what good the EU is doing, but I admit that I'm poorly informed on the matter.
Animateur   Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:26 pm GMT
My unmatured brain is losing the point
:-\
Civilian   Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:34 pm GMT
Well, if you just listen to the British point of view you are of course only going to hear about the very worst aspects of the EU.
Civilian   Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:42 pm GMT
I'm not necessarily pro-EU by the way, I don't know enough myself to make a judgement, but I'm just saying be skeptical about where your information come from.
Armada   Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:54 pm GMT
<<All in all, joining the "Common Market" in 1973 was Britain's greatest foreign policy mistake since Suez. Britain WILL leave the EU at some point>>

When UK leaves the EU it will join USA as a protectorate like Puerto Rico.
Animateur   Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:38 pm GMT
I don't think that UK will ever leave EU. If any member of EU leaves it will trigger chain reaction and EU will collapse as USSR did.
The fact is that UK is not fully integrated in EU and won't be (they don't even want to substitute Euro for Pounds)
Damian London SW15   Thu Sep 17, 2009 9:26 pm GMT
***When UK leaves the EU it will join USA as a protectorate like Puerto Rico***

That's about as likely as all these eventualities taking place:

Damian winning the weekly National Lottery by securing the full six numbers plus bonus ball six weeks in succession.

The Queen deciding to quit her position as British Head of State and taking a job as night duty shelf stacker at a Tesco store in Liverpool....at the statutory minimum wage rate.

A traditional White Christmas occurring on Christmas Island.

The Labour Party winning the 2010 General Election in the UK.

Poor wee Adam....as clinically xenophobic as ever. I'd like to bet he's one of Nick Griffin's henchmen....complete with shaven head and earring, sporting a Union flag tattoo on both forearms and stomps around in size twelve ex-police Magnums. Scary wary.....

What I'd like an obvious anti-European "Empire" Little Englander* zealot such as Adam to tell us all is just how he thinks an isolated, incredibly inward looking, paralytically parochial, stubbornly peripheral off-shore little island "Great" Britain would hope to survive in the wider scheme of things when a mere 22 miles away across the Channel would exist an ever expanding economic powerhouse, and probably about the most culturally diverse entity on earth.

Already the € is the world's strongest, most stable currency. In the course of time the £ Sterling will come to the end of its 1,000 years + lifespan....it will be quietly laid to rest in a special tomb in Westminster Abbey as an official British adoption of the € is inevitable, as is Britain's continued membership of the EU.

Britain will continue to maintain as friendly a relationship as possible with the United States of America, discounting the odd hiccup along the line now and then, but that's as far that one will go.

In the minds of most British people the UK holds no different a position than any other country, in Europe or anywhere else, within the estimation and respect of any American administration. Sure, we Brits speak the same Language as the Americans (more or less) but that no way guarantees any kind of "special favours" or "special treatment" towards us Brits.

In fact, quite a sizeable number of Brits genuinely believe that the USA only refers to, or purports to believe in, a "special kinship" or a "bond of blood brotherhood" with Great Britain when it is to their advantage and/or when they want something in return from the British.