Re: French native speakers and foreign languages

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.

Why? It's not surprising that they have to learn Dutch in
Holland.Having too learn two foreign languages at school is the
standard in most of Europe, not too impressive. In Germany, it's not
unusual to teach three.


I think it is this attitude that gives the Dutch and the Swiss the big
motivation to learn foreign languages.

I disagree, the (French-speaking) Swiss I've met are not much more
fluent in German than the French living close to the German border. And
most (young) Dutch I meet don't speak another foreign language than
English.
To my mind, most young people today think that English is THE world
language and knowing it well is absolutely sufficient.
To some extent, they are right: I'm working in a scientific field and
English really is all you need to communicate. (That doesn't mean that
there are no benefits in learning other languages, but those benefits
are not a sufficient motivation for a vast majority of young people...)


Best regards,
Marc

.

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