Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]My own observation from living and working in several countries is that the bigger the country the worse the language skills. The worst countries in terms of foreign language skills are the US and the UK (and probably other English-speaking countries) simply because their own language is the world's lingua franca and they expect people in the countries they visit to speak it. Likewise, in France and French-speaking Belgium the ability to speak other languages is spotty, as is also the case in Spain. I work part of my time in Seville; out of the 25 or so people in that office, perhaps 3-4 speak good English, and a few of the others understand it with some effort. Germany is a bit better nowadays, particularly among the younger generation. Here in the Netherlands, on the other hand, just about everyone speaks at least a couple of foreign languages. But then again--this is necessary for the Dutch, the Danes, etc. since nobody else speaks those languages. When I was at university in Denmark, 95% of my textbooks were in English--it simply was not economically possible to translate books like Samuelson's "Economics" into Danish. It was automatically assumed that by the time you got to university you spoke and read English well enough to follow an English textbook or a lecture in English (since professors are recruited internationally). On the other hand, those same English and American textbooks can be found in French, German or Spanish translations (since the market is big enough to justify it). So even educated people in the countries in question do not acquire the language skills that we who come from small countries simply need to have to survive in today's world. Nathan Ian Watts wrote: > I would imagine there a few small towns in Pennsylvania where German is > fairly widely spoken but I'm not sure what the above point proves - English > speaking countries have always been a bit lazy about second languages. The > point about the lack of English language speakers at Solms is interesting. I > was in Berlin (hardly a small town) earlier this week and was surprised > (like I was when I was there before) how little English is spoken by those > in the general service industry. Even the person at the 'information point' > at Schonefeld Airport railway station spoke virtually no English. I am not > being critical - my own foreign language skills are hopeless - but I don't > think it is unfair to make these observations. In Copenhagen or Amsterdam it > is difficult to find anybody serving the public (or indeed anybody) who > doesn't speak English as good as my neighbours here in the UK. > > Ian Watts. > > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html - -- Nathan Wajsman Almere, The Netherlands e-mail: n.wajsman@chello.nl Mobile: +31 630 868 671 Photo site: http://www.wajsmanphoto.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html