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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?
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/Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 24/09/2010 01:37:42 PM 1305 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 01:49:32 PM 719 Views
Answering the survey myself... - 24/09/2010 02:04:39 PM 724 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:10:57 PM 712 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:20:45 PM 854 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:24:01 PM 741 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:14:52 PM 770 Views
We have a similar situation in Belgium. - 24/09/2010 02:32:25 PM 641 Views
It is all double dutch to me - 24/09/2010 02:41:41 PM 720 Views
Hah! - 24/09/2010 06:58:49 PM 800 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 03:32:09 PM 666 Views
That is rather sad to say the least. - 24/09/2010 04:15:32 PM 890 Views
Indeed - 24/09/2010 06:23:52 PM 705 Views
That's just Paris being a city of nasty people. - 24/09/2010 06:32:40 PM 850 Views
I never noticed that - 24/09/2010 07:05:18 PM 744 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 04:00:04 PM 777 Views
I didn't mean just in Sweden, or Scandinavia. - 24/09/2010 04:19:32 PM 774 Views
Well... - 24/09/2010 10:50:09 PM 673 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 05:47:09 PM 743 Views
Interesting. - 24/09/2010 06:04:30 PM 693 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 06:42:02 PM 841 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 07:05:44 PM 749 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 07:21:24 PM 862 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 08:18:30 PM 725 Views
Re: Interesting. - 25/09/2010 08:02:30 PM 797 Views
American who just got a C+ on a French quiz reporting in. - 24/09/2010 06:09:31 PM 800 Views
What was it on? - 24/09/2010 06:22:35 PM 710 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 06:16:22 PM 655 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 24/09/2010 09:38:05 PM 842 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 25/09/2010 05:49:05 AM 826 Views
Real quick - 25/09/2010 12:03:51 PM 804 Views
Self-study can be worth as much as formal classroom study, I suppose - 25/09/2010 03:43:14 PM 798 Views
Certainly it can. - 26/09/2010 12:35:56 PM 797 Views
You know, gen eds typically include a language. *NM* - 26/09/2010 07:28:57 PM 314 Views
Yes, but other things as well. - 26/09/2010 08:08:20 PM 735 Views
Interesting - 27/09/2010 03:14:00 AM 891 Views
Re: Interesting - 27/09/2010 11:04:37 AM 804 Views
You don't have to prove it's economically valid? - 27/09/2010 08:31:46 PM 819 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 25/09/2010 04:54:40 PM 936 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 25/09/2010 07:38:29 PM 860 Views
The amount of German is more surprising. - 25/09/2010 07:55:29 PM 614 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 26/09/2010 12:07:19 AM 876 Views
They should have asked about second languages rather than foreign languages. - 26/09/2010 11:34:27 AM 730 Views
Aye, they should have. - 26/09/2010 12:26:51 PM 836 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 27/09/2010 03:18:30 PM 772 Views

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