Active Users:747 Time:24/12/2024 12:51:18 AM
That is rather sad to say the least. Legolas Send a noteboard - 24/09/2010 04:15:32 PM
English and Irish, although my Irish is getting rustier all the time, it's been years since I've held a conversation in Irish so I may not be even fully fluent anymore. Not to mention that I always had difficulties understanding some Munster and Connaught dialects, but that could have been more to do with accents.

I can readily imagine the difficulty of Irish dialects. Smaller languages are more inclined towards having difficult dialects, I suppose, as there are fewer influences pushing standardization and fewer foreign speakers for whose benefit one should try to speak something intelligible. It's certainly the case with Flemish.
It's not so much a question of attention being paid as much as it is a question of how it is thought. Irish is a prime example. It is mandatory for Irish students to learn Irish throughout their primary and secondary education (i.e. for 13 years) yet very few students emerge from their education with any sort of working knowledge of the language. There are constant debates here about how we can improve the situation but nothing concrete ever comes of them.

Thirteen years with so little to show for it? I'll be the first to admit that some students here emerge from secondary school after eight years of French with a rather poor command of the language, and no doubt Irish is harder than French. But if it's as general a failure as you say, that's pretty bad.

Hold on, just thought of something - are you saying they have Irish classes from the very first year of primary school? As in, they learn to read in English and Irish simultaneously? Now that's ambitious...
Foreign languages should be thought in primary schools as it is at this age that students will most easily pick up a language. This wasn't done in my day but things could very well have changed since then.

Yeah, though the really sponge-like age in terms of language absorbtion is still younger than that... but in primary schools it's also important to get the fundaments of native language and mathematics right, so that in secondary school students can take all kinds of additional subjects, including more languages. That's how it is here, anyway.
It's not really surprising and as I speak neither French nor German I guess I should be thankful.

Well, maybe if it was less strong, you'd have been forced to do more with your French and would speak it more fluently now?
Reply to message
/Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 24/09/2010 01:37:42 PM 1228 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 01:49:32 PM 659 Views
Answering the survey myself... - 24/09/2010 02:04:39 PM 656 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:10:57 PM 642 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:20:45 PM 780 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:24:01 PM 666 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:14:52 PM 698 Views
We have a similar situation in Belgium. - 24/09/2010 02:32:25 PM 566 Views
It is all double dutch to me - 24/09/2010 02:41:41 PM 643 Views
Hah! - 24/09/2010 06:58:49 PM 725 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 03:32:09 PM 595 Views
That is rather sad to say the least. - 24/09/2010 04:15:32 PM 831 Views
Indeed - 24/09/2010 06:23:52 PM 632 Views
That's just Paris being a city of nasty people. - 24/09/2010 06:32:40 PM 783 Views
I never noticed that - 24/09/2010 07:05:18 PM 669 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 04:00:04 PM 710 Views
I didn't mean just in Sweden, or Scandinavia. - 24/09/2010 04:19:32 PM 691 Views
Well... - 24/09/2010 10:50:09 PM 604 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 05:47:09 PM 670 Views
Interesting. - 24/09/2010 06:04:30 PM 622 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 06:42:02 PM 766 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 07:05:44 PM 676 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 07:21:24 PM 802 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 08:18:30 PM 656 Views
Re: Interesting. - 25/09/2010 08:02:30 PM 718 Views
American who just got a C+ on a French quiz reporting in. - 24/09/2010 06:09:31 PM 726 Views
What was it on? - 24/09/2010 06:22:35 PM 633 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 06:16:22 PM 580 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 24/09/2010 09:38:05 PM 769 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 25/09/2010 05:49:05 AM 750 Views
Real quick - 25/09/2010 12:03:51 PM 726 Views
Self-study can be worth as much as formal classroom study, I suppose - 25/09/2010 03:43:14 PM 727 Views
Certainly it can. - 26/09/2010 12:35:56 PM 727 Views
You know, gen eds typically include a language. *NM* - 26/09/2010 07:28:57 PM 284 Views
Yes, but other things as well. - 26/09/2010 08:08:20 PM 667 Views
Interesting - 27/09/2010 03:14:00 AM 829 Views
Re: Interesting - 27/09/2010 11:04:37 AM 732 Views
You don't have to prove it's economically valid? - 27/09/2010 08:31:46 PM 745 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 25/09/2010 04:54:40 PM 868 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 25/09/2010 07:38:29 PM 791 Views
The amount of German is more surprising. - 25/09/2010 07:55:29 PM 541 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 26/09/2010 12:07:19 AM 812 Views
They should have asked about second languages rather than foreign languages. - 26/09/2010 11:34:27 AM 647 Views
Aye, they should have. - 26/09/2010 12:26:51 PM 766 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 27/09/2010 03:18:30 PM 708 Views

Reply to Message