General Chat

A body of acedemics ( from schools/uni ) claim that OfQual is killing off language teaching in schools by marking the A level & GCSE exams too harshly. Do they? Back in the day an O level minimum pass did not really cut the mustard for chatting up the demoiselles or bargaining at the flea market. A level French was more a study of Fournier, Proust and Flaubert than anything practical.

If the UK is to embark on a new Elizabethan adventure of more trading in far off lands then it might be helpful to be able to talk to cients and customers especially as we are discouraging native speakers to work here.

How did you get on with languages at school? What about today?

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/may/11/modern-language-teaching-under-threat-from-tough-exams

Latin, French and German at school. Lived in Germany so used and improved skills.

Moved to Spain, attended a Spanish language school, all lessons were oral.

Moved to Wales, attended Welsh lessons and had to work really hard!!! I used age as an excuse.

Grandkids are bilingual, Welsh/English, French offered as an extra age 8. Yet to see what is compulsory when they move up.

Oral lessons far more useful as the most difficult skill is to follow conversations with multiple participants.

The one and only country where I struggled was Hungary. Portugal wasn't much better lol. Had to resort to taxis in Hungary as I couldn't figure out the trains or bus routes. So I can get by in most countries, as long as I can find my way around a menu I'm happy



:-D :-D

Given the lamentations from the corporate and state sectors deploring our poor record in acquiring foreign languages, it would be interesting to hear how many of the European Parliament election candidates would be capable of conducting business abroad at any level in languages other than English.

had A level French (1951) but when temporarily posted to Cambodia in 1957 after a long journey I was unable to ask for a boiled egg or get my clothes ironed! Oeuf a la coq" and "repasser" I had to find out)

I was quite good at French at school but wasn't inspired to do A level. Ditto English - I would have liked to have done creative writing rather than criticism, plus I hated the teacher! I can generally get the gist of French conversation, when spoken slowly, but not the level and speed of the Parisian uttered in 'Spiral' :-)

My French improved a lot when living in in Lebanon! so many people were tri-lingual and local newspapers were in French anyway

I loved Spirals (Engrenages - wheels within wheels) .

The Paris slang was not especially recondite just the sort of thing you will hear any day in the Ile de France. The actors were real Parisiens. The series made my OH (born and bred in Paris) homesick. In the end we bought the boxset so she could watch without subtitles. The backstories, settings and so on were right on the money. fwiw the translations to Engish subtitles were fairly good though they often simplified the conversations and def toned down some of the argot which was well beyond what is ok in the UK before the witching hour.

Here are your favorites season 7:
http://www.allocine.fr/series/ficheserie-538/saison-32964/

There are tens of thousands of working Brits in France most of whom speak quite good French and more often than not other languages as well. I have a noticable English estuary accent which bothers me none though OH would prefer the dulcet tones of the XVI arrondissement.

I took French at A level simply because I learned it as a child and thus not much effort as I liked French lit anyway. I also scraped O levels in Latin and Russian. The Russian turned out to be v useful.

The good old days are all v well but the brutal truth is that foreign language ability in the UK is poor and thanks to lack of will and funding in schools it is getting worse. Ability in Arabic , Hindi and east Asian languages is near zero.

Despite what Liam Fox thinks trade in goods and especially services demands language skills on top of professional ability. It is of little use to shout louder.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I find it difficult sometimes to follow or understand a few commentators on Irish radio. One of them was a classmate.

We both claim English as our language of choice. :-S

"English" as spoken in Eire tends to follow Gaelic rules of grammar and pronunciation which can make it very difficult to understand. "English" as spoken by those whose father's wore a sash in the 6 counties tends to follow Ulster Scots.

Those who spend a few years at Queens or Trinity can usually make themselves understood to the wider world while for the others it varies. Arlene Foster for instance could not be understood in London regardless of her chosen idiom.

Given that these issues are at the heart of restarting Stormont and DUP support for May's C&U Brexit Party not a trivial matter.

My GGM was born and raised in Dublin. She never really got the hang of English though she could read and write having trained at the Rotunda.

What a series of wonderful general assumptions!
From what you've assumed, then, Rollo, the English speaking Scots should be able to understand the English speaking from Eire very easily, as they both have Gaelic rules of grammar - except you've omitted local dialect/accent from the equation.

Arlene Foster is perfectly understandable - you may not like what she says, but your thread is surely, not about politics is it?

School French, a very little Welsh, ( at least I can pronounce place names without too much embarrassment :-) ), enough German to ask for a drink and directions to the station.

Re accents, having moved around England I can grasp most quite quickly, but it always amuses me when a friend in on the Wirral says she can't understand someone with a thick Liverpool accent :-)

The faculty of any language is uniquely human.

I understand that Thamsanqa Jantjie is still looking for employment.

"The faculty of any language is uniquely human."

No, not at all it is an ability which has evolved from brain structures present in other mammals, birds and reptiles. Has Dermot not got around to reading his NewScientist?

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24232280-500-the-origins-of-language-discovered-in-music-mime-and-mimicry/

However this thread was mainly about the poor and worsening ability of Brits capable of talking to potential clients and customers in their own language. Liam Fox rarely mentions this as a problem nor the weak / non existent teaching of modern languages at universities and colleges thanks to "austerity cuts". Fox assumes that either the target markets will learn English or we shall just have to shout louder.

I practice a little Wenglish now & then using the lovely CD by John Edwards. :-D

"Talk Tidy"!

My wife talks a lot of rubbish!