Multi-lingualism

[The Hierophant]

Heya.

I've noticed that alot of people from Irownworks are able to write (well, type... same thing) pretty-much fluent English despite being from parts of the world where English is not the primary language, such as Spain, The Netherlands, The Philippines......Australia [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Now, for all of the multi-linguists out there, I'm wondering if this is due to your upbringing and education system (ie: is English mandatory in schools and do parents encourage their children to learn it?) or if it is more to do with personal effort and motivation? Were you raised to be bi/multi lingual, or is it something you have taken on yourself?

In New Zealand, English is the primary language yet children are also taught (VERY) rudimentary Te Reo Maori (Maori language) in primary school (age 5-11). Yet after primary school there is no further mandatory learning of second languages. Thus there are very few fluently bilingual people in NZ unless they have immigrated from non-English speaking countries and learned English as their second language. Not something to be proud of, and maybe our education system could stand a little reform in terms of multi-lingualism...

[ 10-09-2003, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

[dplax]

I speak/write good english since my dad is english.

The educational system in Hungary does enforce multi-lingualism, from the age of 8 to 18 in primary and secondary school. Most of the time people start one foreign language at the age of 8 and then another one at the ae of 10, and usually by the end of secondary school speak acceptable english and french or german or sometimes even spanish, italian or russian instead. But since english is the most spoken language in the world most ofthe people in Hungary can at least get themselves understood in english. And I think its the same case for several other countries also, where their language is'nt spoken throughout the world, that they are obliged to learn foreign languages.

[Deejax]

English is a mandatory course during a significant part of the school carreer in the netherlands. Also German and french were mandatory for two (three?) years in my days (ouch).

That said, it does not mean that all dutch people speak fluent english. [img]graemlins/nono.gif[/img] Especially the accent and pronounciation can, sometimes, be terribly dutch.
I learned a lot of english due to my computer and sf/ff books addiction. And somhow i like the english language better when it comes to stories. It just sounds better to me than dutch.

[dplax]

Originally posted by Deejax: It just sounds better to me than dutch.

Add hungarian instead of dutch and you are still right. Who in his right mind would translate hobbit as "babo" (add an accent on the o since I can't find it on the french keyboard).

edit: of course typing mistakes

[ 10-09-2003, 08:38 AM: Message edited by: dplax ]

[JrKASperov]

English is a fare more expressive language for me. Often I find myself lost with a good word in dutch while I know a word in English for it that describes it very well...

[Zuvio]

What they said!

Personally, I've alwys been into english, since I got a nintendo at the age of 7. All the games were in english, so from that point on, I learned english just as well as dutch. Furthermore, there is english and english and the same goes for dutch. I can say that I'm proud to have reached a very advanced level of both languages (dutch can be a wonderful language when you want to say very little with a lot of words , but that level came at a cost: I suck at german and I'm a total n00b when it comes to french. Merde! and siel-foo-pleh are the only real french words I know. Oh yeah, and that one sentence from lady marmalade offcourse [img]graemlins/1drunk.gif[/img]

[Loudhy]

Hi,

I've learned english in school for 5 or 6 years (can't remember exactly). There were also 2 years with french.
After my school days english was a forgotten language for more than 10 years.
Then I bought my first C64 in 1986 and started playing adventures and RPG's mostly in the original english language. In this time my german-english dictionary was my closest friend.
Now I can translate most of the text and speech of the games ( also your posts )
into german ( with the exception of some special jokes ), but because my school-days are LONG gone now I have some problems with the english grammar [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img] .
But I hope I'll be better in the future [img]smile.gif[/img] .

Greetings

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by Loudhy: Hi, I've learned english in school for 5 or 6 years (can't remember exactly). There were also 2 years with french. After my school days english was a forgotten language for more than 10 years. Then I bought my first C64 in 1986 and started playing adventures and RPG's mostly in the original english language. In this time my german-english dictionary was my closest friend. Now I can translate most of the text and speech of the games ( also your posts ) into german ( with the exception of some special jokes ), but because my school-days are LONG gone now I have some problems with the english grammar [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img] . But I hope I'll be better in the future [img]smile.gif[/img] . Greetings

Your English looks fine to me. If your ident didn't say you were from Germany you could very well have passed for a person from an English-speaking country [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

And considering I can't even write a single complete sentence in German at all I think you're doing exceptionally well [img]smile.gif[/img]

The same goes for everyone else. Your communication skills in English are very impressive. Well done [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[ 10-09-2003, 09:33 AM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

[philip]

Originally posted by Deejax: English is a mandatory course during a significant part of the school carreer in the netherlands. Also German and french were mandatory for two (three?) years in my days (ouch).

from what i've heard french and german are mandatory for at least 4 years at most schools now. luckily i only had 3 years german and 4 years french. english is much more useful and fun to speak, listen and read IMO.

I learned a lot of english due to my computer and sf/ff books addiction. And somhow i like the english language better when it comes to stories. It just sounds better to me than dutch.

and you didn't even mention awful translations from english to dutch. i read the first 4 harry potter novels in dutch and the 5th in english and i like the english one much more. the translations are not so awful for the first 4 imo, but the computer game sounded really stupid when i played in dutch, i immediately restarted in english.
also with translating some english puns or funny manners to say things are lost, which is quite a shame.

english is a great language and i can learn it even though my english teacher doesn't seem to care about his students and even the subject. we knew he wasn't very enthousiastic but he seems to have a strange way to teach english by forbidding us to do english in the lessons, because we have to learn english at home and not at school, where we should be making assignments. i still don't see the difference in learning words or grammar instead of making exercises to understand/learn grammar and words better.

[Stormymystic]

I hate to say this, but our countries education system is on the lowest for of the totem pole, we have many nantioailties moving here, and yet, we do not learn their language, instead, we force ours on them, here in Arkansas, we have a lot of Hispanics, but our schools do not theach this until high school, 7th-12th here and then it is an optional class