8 ms·

Very interesting article. Can't help but to think about the differences in countries educational systems. I'm Swedish, here we start studying English in second

by ique 17y ago

Very interesting article. Can't help but to think about the differences in countries educational systems. I'm Swedish, here we start studying English in second (numbers and such) and third grade (start with words and grammar). And then study it all the way up and through high-school. Pretty much every Swede of a younger generation is fluent in English. Almost all people also spend several years in grades 6-9 studying a third language (Spanish, French or German is required to take if you don't have a learning disability, then you focus on English with that time instead). It's easy for practically every country in the world to offer education in English because you can't live in a modern world without English. But it seems hard to motivate English speaking nations to study other languages. What languages would be of enough importance for, for instance, Americans, to make it obligatory education?

djm 17y ago
I'm from the UK and languages education here is (or at least was when I was at school) horrific. We didn't start learning a second language until secondary school (age 11/12) and the only options available were french and very basic german. My french teacher couldn't speak french properly - she used to look stuff up in study guides and read it, pretty badly, to us. Much of the focus was on memorising lists of words rather than learning to build sentences etc. I don't think my experience was that unusual. The argument that native english speakers shouldn't bother learning other languages because everyone else is learning english is common, but ridiculous. We all travel and migrate more than we used to and this trend will presumably increase over time. Being the odd one out in a group because you only speak english feels like a disability in many places. It's especially embarrassing when the group speaks english to include you thus highlighting the difference even more. I didn't know languages education was voluntary in the US. I would have assumed that most children, especially those in California, would be required to learn spanish. Maybe some french for those living near the border with french speaking parts of Canada. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's well established that learning a foreign language is easiest as a child. Perhaps the best way to make a monolingual nation multilingual is to adopt a policy of favouritism in hiring teachers for young children who are bi-lingual.
- garnet7 17y ago
  > I didn't know languages education was voluntary in the US. It's mandatory, but you get to choose which language to study. Choice is generally either Spanish, French, or German (and sometimes Japanese). Most kids choose Spanish (at least, that's what it seems like). You take a few years of it before graduating high school. And, as someone else posted, it's pretty universal that most people forget almost all of it as soon as they've satisified either their high school or else college requirements. I don't have any idea if colleges require foreign language credits or not.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  >The argument that native english speakers shouldn't bother learning other languages because everyone else is learning english is common I'd say that the main argument in Britain is this. That so many lack basic English skills. Thus, any advance in English language abilities that can be gained is going to outweigh any minute slither of ability a pupil might manage to get in some language they never use outside the classroom. I studied French in High School (from 11) but had already a smattering from family holidays and so realised it was useful and found it fun to some extent. Then age 13 I did a year of Russian (as I was top set for French) which was great as it was a non-European culture and uses cyrillic alphabet. German would however have been more use to me and would have given me exchange trip opportunities. My problem is that I now live in Wales. The Welsh have this perverse notion that to be properly Welsh you must speak Welsh language; also by self-selection the Welsh language schools cream off a lot of more able pupils making them aspirational for the middle-classes. Welsh medium schools appear to get more funding too. All pupils from 4-16 years have to learn Welsh language in school. Knowing some people who've been through the system confirms for me that this is a complete waste. I have no problem with choosing Welsh for study in high school but forcing those - even with little to no English ability (a lot of Urdu and Bengali first language speakers live in my city) to learn a language that is only _spoken_ by 20% of people in this country... Gah, I'm ranting. It makes me cross. tl;dr the Welsh are hobbling their children for reasons of misplaced nationalism with a language only just brought back from the brink of death.
ibsulon 17y ago
Nearly every American has two years of a foreign language in high school, and nearly every college requires two more years. I started Spanish in 7th grade and ended up with 5 years of study. However, I don't use is and as such, I've lost it.
- TheSOB88 17y ago
  If you're like most Americans, you never really had it. Were you fluent? I've "studied" it in school for 6 years (MS, HS, Univ), and I'm not even close to fluent. I don't think the school system is equipped to do that.
  - ibsulon 17y ago
    My grammar was advanced, my vocabulary intermediate. I could mostly understand Telemundo and could hold a conversation, but was nowhere near fluent. Now, I'm not much better off than a first year.
    - TheSOB88 17y ago
      Qué lástima.
- kowen 17y ago
  I studied German for 4 years in school, and am far from fluent. I can painfully pick out details in a newspaper article, and can usually figure out if people are talking about soccer or food or whatever. On the other hand, I'm fluent in French, and learned that in France, not in school. In my experience, school wasn't a very efficient medium for learning languages.
  - lmkg 17y ago
    The best (possibly only) way to learn a language on a functional level, is to use it. In my second-year Spanish class in high school, our teacher let us chat during class, so long as we chatted in Spanish and not English. In practice, we talked Spanglish, but nonetheless, that experience made me far better at Spanish than all my other studying before and after. She also taught all of her lessons entirely in Spanish, and required questions be asked in Spanish. While traditional lecturing is not an efficient medium for learning languages, schools can teach language skills very effectively by using alternative methods. There are also Hawaiian Language Immersion schools available in Hawaii, which I hear very good things about.
patio11 17y ago
I'm a big fan of bilingualism but if you're living in America and inclined to do business primarily in America, then the advantages of it are not so great next to the prodigious effort required to learn another language. Most Americans study Spanish, but then a) countries and people who speak only Spanish are not typically great economic prospects (compared to, say, Japan or Germany or what have you) and b) supposing one were to study Spanish and use it for one's career, one would be competing with American native speakers of Spanish who probably speak better Spanish than you. If a country like, e.g., Japan/China/South Korea were a skip over the border instead of a 10+ hour plane ride away, I'd recommend every single person to study Japanese/Chinese/Korean. In Sweden, even if English weren't the lingua franca for Europe, you'd still be close physically and economically to multiple English-speaking countries.
- yannis 17y ago
  There is one other advantage, being able to read in another language opens up a literary world that is hidden and even a technical world which is difficult to extract with translations.
  - rjurney 17y ago
    And one great way to learn a second language is to get a bilingual book, or two copies of your favorite book in two languages :)
    - yannis 17y ago
      I watch TED videos with sub-titles!
nfnaaron 17y ago
It's not much of a perceived advantage to study a 2nd language as an American, because no matter where you go there's probably someone who speaks English, and chances are that wherever you go few if any speak the 2nd language that you studied as a kid. There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language. There's large payoff for people from non-English speaking countries to study English; it must be true or perceived as such, because it's such a widespread practice. We already know English. I'd like to see Spanish mandatory or commonly studied to fluency, given the demographic changes in America. It might also encourage us to have closer relations with Central and South America. I doubt it will happen. Note: I understand there are many benefits to studying any 2nd language.
- wallflower 17y ago
  > There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language. If you are only looking at economic payoff. I've been to countries/cultures (Latin America) where I feel that if you don't have a grasp of the language - you can only be a tourist. Reusing cliches but not being able to speak a language - you lack the passport to truly immerse yourself - you'll only be a tourist if you can't speak (to a point) the language. I'm really looking for an app that will find Spanish texts for me to read that have words that I don't already know (e.g. smart enough to learn what your working vocabulary set is). Since I'm starting out - almost every text will have words I don't know. Anyone know of an app geared towards reading and vocabulary building (and possibly reading material discovery)? Or do we have to build one (it will be a little harder because of the conjugations, m/f variants of words)
  - nfnaaron 17y ago
    I don't have an app, but here's a book that I've been liking: Easy Spanish Reader: http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-William-Tardy/dp/0071428062 http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-William-Tardy/dp/0... same, with CD: http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-CD-ROM-Three-Part/dp/0071603387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264097113&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-CD-ROM-Three-Part/... It's for beginners. You just read, simple stories. Some words are defined in the margins, some in the glossary, and some you just get from context. I like it a lot.
rabidgnat 17y ago
"What languages would be of enough importance for, for instance, Americans, to make it obligatory education?" My aunt forced her young children to learn conversational Spanish because she was convinced that "they're taking over." It was extremely misguided, but her children actually benefited from it, gaining both a language and some cultural understanding. How many misguided parents actually pull that off? On a more general note, an internationalization of Americans probably won't occur until a few things happen: 1) The ridiculous taxes+fees on international plane tickets are lifted 2) It becomes en vogue to go to <country or Continent X> for vacation 3) Some famous people move to X and bring reality TV with them or.. 1) America enters a position where it is obviously no longer economically dominant BECAUSE of a lack of worldliness. 2) (1) becomes common knowledge Until either of those scenarios occur, there's absolutely no reason for Americans to learn another language. Most Americans work and think locally. They're at least 500 miles away from another country, and they're not about to get any closer

by ique 17y ago

djm 17y ago

I'm from the UK and languages education here is (or at least was when I was at school) horrific. We didn't start learning a second language until secondary school (age 11/12) and the only options available were french and very basic german. My french teacher couldn't speak french properly - she used to look stuff up in study guides and read it, pretty badly, to us. Much of the focus was on memorising lists of words rather than learning to build sentences etc. I don't think my experience was that unusual. The argument that native english speakers shouldn't bother learning other languages because everyone else is learning english is common, but ridiculous. We all travel and migrate more than we used to and this trend will presumably increase over time. Being the odd one out in a group because you only speak english feels like a disability in many places. It's especially embarrassing when the group speaks english to include you thus highlighting the difference even more. I didn't know languages education was voluntary in the US. I would have assumed that most children, especially those in California, would be required to learn spanish. Maybe some french for those living near the border with french speaking parts of Canada. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's well established that learning a foreign language is easiest as a child. Perhaps the best way to make a monolingual nation multilingual is to adopt a policy of favouritism in hiring teachers for young children who are bi-lingual.

garnet7 17y ago
> I didn't know languages education was voluntary in the US. It's mandatory, but you get to choose which language to study. Choice is generally either Spanish, French, or German (and sometimes Japanese). Most kids choose Spanish (at least, that's what it seems like). You take a few years of it before graduating high school. And, as someone else posted, it's pretty universal that most people forget almost all of it as soon as they've satisified either their high school or else college requirements. I don't have any idea if colleges require foreign language credits or not.
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
>The argument that native english speakers shouldn't bother learning other languages because everyone else is learning english is common I'd say that the main argument in Britain is this. That so many lack basic English skills. Thus, any advance in English language abilities that can be gained is going to outweigh any minute slither of ability a pupil might manage to get in some language they never use outside the classroom. I studied French in High School (from 11) but had already a smattering from family holidays and so realised it was useful and found it fun to some extent. Then age 13 I did a year of Russian (as I was top set for French) which was great as it was a non-European culture and uses cyrillic alphabet. German would however have been more use to me and would have given me exchange trip opportunities. My problem is that I now live in Wales. The Welsh have this perverse notion that to be properly Welsh you must speak Welsh language; also by self-selection the Welsh language schools cream off a lot of more able pupils making them aspirational for the middle-classes. Welsh medium schools appear to get more funding too. All pupils from 4-16 years have to learn Welsh language in school. Knowing some people who've been through the system confirms for me that this is a complete waste. I have no problem with choosing Welsh for study in high school but forcing those - even with little to no English ability (a lot of Urdu and Bengali first language speakers live in my city) to learn a language that is only _spoken_ by 20% of people in this country... Gah, I'm ranting. It makes me cross. tl;dr the Welsh are hobbling their children for reasons of misplaced nationalism with a language only just brought back from the brink of death.

ibsulon 17y ago

Nearly every American has two years of a foreign language in high school, and nearly every college requires two more years. I started Spanish in 7th grade and ended up with 5 years of study. However, I don't use is and as such, I've lost it.

TheSOB88 17y ago
If you're like most Americans, you never really had it. Were you fluent? I've "studied" it in school for 6 years (MS, HS, Univ), and I'm not even close to fluent. I don't think the school system is equipped to do that.
- ibsulon 17y ago
  My grammar was advanced, my vocabulary intermediate. I could mostly understand Telemundo and could hold a conversation, but was nowhere near fluent. Now, I'm not much better off than a first year.
  - TheSOB88 17y ago
    Qué lástima.
kowen 17y ago
I studied German for 4 years in school, and am far from fluent. I can painfully pick out details in a newspaper article, and can usually figure out if people are talking about soccer or food or whatever. On the other hand, I'm fluent in French, and learned that in France, not in school. In my experience, school wasn't a very efficient medium for learning languages.
- lmkg 17y ago
  The best (possibly only) way to learn a language on a functional level, is to use it. In my second-year Spanish class in high school, our teacher let us chat during class, so long as we chatted in Spanish and not English. In practice, we talked Spanglish, but nonetheless, that experience made me far better at Spanish than all my other studying before and after. She also taught all of her lessons entirely in Spanish, and required questions be asked in Spanish. While traditional lecturing is not an efficient medium for learning languages, schools can teach language skills very effectively by using alternative methods. There are also Hawaiian Language Immersion schools available in Hawaii, which I hear very good things about.

patio11 17y ago

I'm a big fan of bilingualism but if you're living in America and inclined to do business primarily in America, then the advantages of it are not so great next to the prodigious effort required to learn another language. Most Americans study Spanish, but then a) countries and people who speak only Spanish are not typically great economic prospects (compared to, say, Japan or Germany or what have you) and b) supposing one were to study Spanish and use it for one's career, one would be competing with American native speakers of Spanish who probably speak better Spanish than you. If a country like, e.g., Japan/China/South Korea were a skip over the border instead of a 10+ hour plane ride away, I'd recommend every single person to study Japanese/Chinese/Korean. In Sweden, even if English weren't the lingua franca for Europe, you'd still be close physically and economically to multiple English-speaking countries.

yannis 17y ago
There is one other advantage, being able to read in another language opens up a literary world that is hidden and even a technical world which is difficult to extract with translations.
- rjurney 17y ago
  And one great way to learn a second language is to get a bilingual book, or two copies of your favorite book in two languages :)
  - yannis 17y ago
    I watch TED videos with sub-titles!

nfnaaron 17y ago

It's not much of a perceived advantage to study a 2nd language as an American, because no matter where you go there's probably someone who speaks English, and chances are that wherever you go few if any speak the 2nd language that you studied as a kid. There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language. There's large payoff for people from non-English speaking countries to study English; it must be true or perceived as such, because it's such a widespread practice. We already know English. I'd like to see Spanish mandatory or commonly studied to fluency, given the demographic changes in America. It might also encourage us to have closer relations with Central and South America. I doubt it will happen. Note: I understand there are many benefits to studying any 2nd language.

wallflower 17y ago
> There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language. If you are only looking at economic payoff. I've been to countries/cultures (Latin America) where I feel that if you don't have a grasp of the language - you can only be a tourist. Reusing cliches but not being able to speak a language - you lack the passport to truly immerse yourself - you'll only be a tourist if you can't speak (to a point) the language. I'm really looking for an app that will find Spanish texts for me to read that have words that I don't already know (e.g. smart enough to learn what your working vocabulary set is). Since I'm starting out - almost every text will have words I don't know. Anyone know of an app geared towards reading and vocabulary building (and possibly reading material discovery)? Or do we have to build one (it will be a little harder because of the conjugations, m/f variants of words)
- nfnaaron 17y ago
  I don't have an app, but here's a book that I've been liking: Easy Spanish Reader: http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-William-Tardy/dp/0071428062 http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-William-Tardy/dp/0... same, with CD: http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-CD-ROM-Three-Part/dp/0071603387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264097113&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-CD-ROM-Three-Part/... It's for beginners. You just read, simple stories. Some words are defined in the margins, some in the glossary, and some you just get from context. I like it a lot.

rabidgnat 17y ago

"What languages would be of enough importance for, for instance, Americans, to make it obligatory education?" My aunt forced her young children to learn conversational Spanish because she was convinced that "they're taking over." It was extremely misguided, but her children actually benefited from it, gaining both a language and some cultural understanding. How many misguided parents actually pull that off? On a more general note, an internationalization of Americans probably won't occur until a few things happen: 1) The ridiculous taxes+fees on international plane tickets are lifted 2) It becomes en vogue to go to <country or Continent X> for vacation 3) Some famous people move to X and bring reality TV with them or.. 1) America enters a position where it is obviously no longer economically dominant BECAUSE of a lack of worldliness. 2) (1) becomes common knowledge Until either of those scenarios occur, there's absolutely no reason for Americans to learn another language. Most Americans work and think locally. They're at least 500 miles away from another country, and they're not about to get any closer