Re: French native speakers and foreign languages

"Marc" == Marc Frisch <marcfrisch@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Marc> Personally, I usually find it much more difficult to
Marc> communicate with a Spaniard in English than with a
Marc> Frenchman. I don't think that people from Germany, Sweden,
Marc> Norway, or Holland are more talented than others when it
Marc> comes to foreign languages (as is often claimed):

I think it's a matter of mindset.

I remember that 10 years ago, when I travelled to Holland, I dined at
a Chinese restaurant. My group had a chat with the owner in
Cantonese. She told us that her children are learning many languages:
Dutch, English, French. We were amazed. She explained: "Our country
[the Netherlands] is very small. We need to learn more languages in
order to have a better future prospect. Knowing these languages
enables us to find job in other countries, not just Holland."

I think it is this attitude that gives the Dutch and the Swiss the big
motivation to learn foreign languages. Further, since the older
generations are also multilingual, this builds up confidence in the
society, because they know that learning a few languages is possible
and commonplace. I believe it is due to the same mindset that most
people in eastern Europe have mastered a few languages and speak
English very well.

OTOH, the opposite mindset "All foreigners will learn my language.
Why should I bother to learn theirs?" prevails in the USA. That
should explain why the Americans are so bad at foreign languages.


I'm not sure about Scandinavia. But I think those people and the
Germans simply enjoy an advantage when learning English (but not
French or Italian, for instance) because they speak a Germanic
language natively. The similarity gives a big help.


Marc> By the way, it's obvious that French have more problems with
Marc> basic English vocabulary, which is largely of Germanic
Marc> origin.

Does English have more cognates with French or
Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese? Come on. That's just an excuse.


Marc> PS: "Viele Sprachen lernen füllt das Gedächtniss mit Worten,
Marc> statt mit Thatsachen und Gedanken, aus." - Friedrich
Marc> Nietzsche

Oh! "Tatsache" was spelt like that?


--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
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