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AccidentalDenz
Lord of Steam
I speak English (badly) and can understand bits of French and German thanks to my A level (French) and degree (German). My job has me speaking to a lot of people from various nationalities and it's frankly embarrassing how good many people can speak English while we're generally a bit useless at other languages.
Martinr36
MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
I started trying to learn French again the other year, but that went out the door at the start of the pandemic, I really must try and start learning it again
I learned French and German at school and Italian and Cantonese at evening class. I can still get by in French, but it is very rusty and can manage some German. I always try to learn a few words for any country I am visiting and can usually say hello, please, thank you and 2 beers please - Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Slovenian, Australian, American….
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Each to his own of course but I rather fancy that the following is a more eloquent way in which to tell a woman that she is beautiful than just saying "you look nice"....
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
It's part of Sonnet 18.
TonyCarter
VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
I can see both sides of the native English poor second language argument.
- Every other country speaks better English than we speak their language, so why bother for a 2 week holiday
- Any country with English as their official 2nd language starts learning it shortly after starting to school
- English schoolchildren would have to either choose a single 2nd language or a smattering of 4 or 5 2nd languages to cover the majority of their travel/work destinations. Some form of Spanish and Chinese would probably cover the majority of places that didn’t use English, but then you’d miss out on French/Portuguese/Russian-speaking countries - so which do you choose.
Depends on the circles you frequent. In many circumstances the response would be “pretentious……”. Despite many teachers and actors trying to convince me there is value in Shakespeare or poetry, they still leave me cold. Perhaps it was the hours spent trying to write pointless essays. English literature seemed to me to be the biggest waste of space in my school life (and I had to learn Latin). I didn’t need to be taught to read and I definitely didn’t need to write essays about what I had been reading.
TonyCarter
VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Spanish or German would have been best for me (of course I didn't know that then).
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
You didn't need to be taught to read? That's a neat trick, you must teach me that one.
Education is never pointless, but some seed always falls on stony ground......
I could read before I went to school. I gained nothing from English literature lessons, except a sense of boredom. I was perfectly capable of selecting what to read, without guidance from the teachers. At the time I was reading more than a book per week from a wide range of authors and genres and could have spent the lesson time doing something more useful, like another language or science.
It's not about reading it was more about how to dissect a text. Find context and meaning while trying to decipher what the author meant when they wrote what they wrote. How to contextualise and relate to a work. That was the point of English classes, at least that's how I understood it
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
The hardest thing to open is a closed mind.
I didn’t need to write pointless essays to do that and what was the point of reading or writing essays on something that was meant to be performed on stage?
Reading a writing essays you could argue are more important than ever. Most of my communication is done through texts these days and I've no doubt learning how to conceptualise and express what I want was honed through writing essays. It's an important skill to learn more so than ever these days
There are many other subjects where there is the need to write coherently, without trying to make up what the author of a novel or play was, or was not, thinking at the time of writing. History, geography, science, philosophy all have some point to them - does writing about books?
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
I'm an international man of mystery. I belong everywhere.
rouchie
Rising Star
Martinr36
MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
No surely in American it would be dmb it down, as i didn't think they had "U" in their alphabetYou mean dumb it down surely? bloody Americans
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
They don't have the word 'irony' in their dictionaries for sure......