Re: French native speakers and foreign languages

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

Marc> I disagree, the (French-speaking) Swiss I've met are not
Marc> much more fluent in German than the French living close to
Marc> the German border.

Such as the Alsatians? Hey, Alsatians speaks a German dialect. It's
not surprising that they can pick up German easily. They learn French
because French is the language of administration there.


Marc> And most (young) Dutch I meet don't speak another foreign
Marc> language than English. To my mind, most young people today
Marc> think that English is THE world language and knowing it well
Marc> is absolutely sufficient.

Necessary but not sufficient. Why is Mandarin gaining popularity as a
L2?


Marc> To some extent, they are right: I'm working in a scientific
Marc> field and English really is all you need to
Marc> communicate.

That's true. But as a scientist, you always want to learn more and
quickly. Learning one more language exposes you to one more
repertoire of information. Doesn't that sound attractive?



--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

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