The Brits & English speakers are linguistically disabled
It's interesting to see how many foreign langauge learners are xenophobes. Somewhat ironic, isn't it?
Your generalisations about the British and English speakers in general are cringe-inducing and often wholly inaccurate. Just because people don't want to learn a language, doesn't mean they can't. Just because a man who's never been to a maths class can't add 2 and 2 now, doesn't mean that with a little education, he'd still be unable to do it.
Maybe, instead of insulting the intellects of entire nations, you should try to understand them and their backgrounds and histories instead of reverting back to playground name-calling and displaying the extent of your own intellectual maturity.
I know that this is stereotyping, but let's consider the sort of British people who might live in Spain. They are not in any sense a cross-section of British society.
Indeed.
One must also remember that in many countries, there are different languages all around you whereas most British people probably had their first run in with another language at school. That can put you off for life.
<<why ? Are you crazy ? British are not the first minority in Spain !!!!!!!! like the Latinos are in the US. Just because the Brits are stupid and Lazy! they dont deserve any help from the Spaniards.
Should Spain have Pharmacies in Mozambican, Arabic, Ukrainean, Russian, Bulgarian, Marocan, Somalian, etc ?>>
Not the pharmacies themselves, hon, the LABELS. And yes, Walgreens is happy to translate a label into Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Urdu, etc. They don't have to be big minorities, like Latinos.
Anyway most medicine labels in Europe are translated in at least 10 languages as standard, but the stuff from Pharmacies are only symptomatic medicine, without prescription. To cure something you need PRESCRIBED MEDICINE. >>
Well, in the US, pharmacies ARE where you buy prescribed medicine, as well as over-the-counter medications.
It might also be worth mentioning that the English (it's different in Scotland) education system strongly emphasises 'depth' over 'breadth'. In the final two years of school, you study only three or four subjects, and you're encouraged to choose similar subjects. And then, at university, you usually study only one large subject area for the whole three or four years you're there.
As a result, one usually finds that the more 'educated' English people tend to know a large amount about one or two subjects, instead of having a more mediocre knowledge of a lot of different subjects. For example, it is extremely unlikely that someone choosing sciences would have much knowledge of languages or history. Equally, whilst languages and religion are my main 'specialities', I know very little about maths, physics, chemistry, biology or economics.
>car on ne peut leur faire le reproche de n'avoir pas parfaitement assimilé l'ancien français et le médiolatin... <
But, like greg stated, English succesefully assimilated many languages like ancient French and Latin. So the Brits were subject to many language influences along their history, besides English is the most crossmixed European language.
Why did they give up, learning ?
I think that the Brits can only learn a language while under occupation. See the French rule, and the British motto (still in French) "Dieu et mon droit"
I think many people on here have a rather subjective view of this. As Benjamin says, the British people in Spain are probably not completely representative of the population.
I've met a number of British people in Norway who speak Norwegian quite well.
Juan — see my message above. The education system doesn't really allow for successful acquisition of foreign languages UNLESS we wish to devote all or a very large proportion of our study time to it.
That's silly, Juan from Spain. There's nothing that singles out the British. When I lived in Japan, it was unusual to find anyone who spoke English there -- most were pretty monolingual. Some might have spoken a tiny bit of English, but usually not enough to converse. Can the Japanese only learn other languages "under occupation", then?
But go ahead and have your little stereotypes, if they make you feel better...
Give me a break with your American "Walgreens", some medicine labels in Europe are already in more than 15 languages, and the European Union has 23 official languages, but this doesn't mean you have to ignore the language from the country where you are residing.
From the 1 of January 2007 the EU regulations impose the use of all EU languages on medicine and other commercial goods. So you'll have a list of 25 official languages out of 27 countries from 2007. And you'll need a different shit of instruction to cover the imposed 25 languages plus other non-EU languages. All in one you still must learn the language of your country you reside in.
« I've met a number of British people in Norway who speak Norwegian quite well. »
Precisely. The sort of British people who live in places like Norway, Sweden or Germany are very different from those who live in Spain.
Yes. What's interesting about that is that in a place like Norway or Sweden, there is no real reason to learn the local language as almost the entire population is reasonably well-versed in English.
>When I lived in Japan, it was unusual to find anyone who spoke English there -- most were pretty monolingual<
Wrong, English is not so important in Asia. Chinese is the most important language in Asia and most Japanese I know learn or speak Chinese, and many Koreans learn Chinese, and very soon we Europeans will start learning Chinese.
And many Japanese tourists are very polite and learned few Spanish words. And they always address you in Spanish (with a very difficult Asian accent) But they are trying.
I think is all about culture and the degree of civilization, mentality, etc. Japanese and Asians are well known for their civic, work, cultural and positive mentality.
Brits in Spain are knows as alcoholics, vandals and hooligans. They drink too much and then start fighting and vandalising.
>Precisely. The sort of British people who live in places like Norway, Sweden or Germany are very different from those who live in Spain.<
sure, there are 247 Brits living in Scandinavia and MILLIONS living in Spain ! lol