It is indeed. For example the main opposition party just appointed someone as their spokesperson for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht (including Irish language) affairs who doesn't even speak Irish The problem is that the vast majority of people will never speak a word of Irish outside of school so it's hard to develop your ability. Also many of the principal promoters of the language come across as having a holier than thou attitude which does Irish no favours.
That's fairly embarrassing, alright. But yeah, Irish is quite limited in daily use of course... but you would think nationalism and pride in the Irish culture would've made it more popular in the past, so that it wouldn't have come this far.
The fact that it is compulsory also seems to cause a build up of resentment in a lot of people who dislike the fact that they are forced to learn it when they are never going to use it.
Yeah, heard that before. I hardly find it unreasonable to make people learn the second language of the country and the language of its cultural heritage, though...
Yup, once you enter formal education (at age four or five) you are thought both English and Irish
That's just awesome. Instead of one language that is impossible to spell, you get two at the same time, with sounds pronounced totally differently in the two of them. How does anyone in Ireland manage to learn either language properly, never mind both?
Perhaps, but my experience of trying to use my French in Paris once fairly much put me off. I still use it when I go on holidays and I generally have good enough French to ask for stuff in a shop or restaurant but I wouldn't be up to holding a full conversation.
That's Paris for you. But yeah, the French in general are chauvinistic enough that some of them don't really appreciate tourists speaking intermediate or fluent but accented French. There's a lot of bad things one can say about Americans in terms of languages, but they're more welcoming of foreigners speaking their language than anyone else. Then again, they'd have to be.
/Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 24/09/2010 01:37:42 PM
1211 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
- 24/09/2010 02:10:57 PM
632 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
- 24/09/2010 03:32:09 PM
585 Views
That is rather sad to say the least.
- 24/09/2010 04:15:32 PM
821 Views
Indeed
- 24/09/2010 06:23:52 PM
622 Views
That's just Paris being a city of nasty people. 
- 24/09/2010 06:32:40 PM
773 Views
- 24/09/2010 06:32:40 PM
773 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
- 24/09/2010 04:00:04 PM
702 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
- 24/09/2010 05:47:09 PM
658 Views
Interesting.
- 24/09/2010 06:04:30 PM
614 Views
Re: Interesting.
- 24/09/2010 06:42:02 PM
759 Views
Re: Interesting.
- 24/09/2010 07:05:44 PM
669 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 24/09/2010 09:38:05 PM
760 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 25/09/2010 05:49:05 AM
739 Views
Self-study can be worth as much as formal classroom study, I suppose
- 25/09/2010 03:43:14 PM
716 Views
Certainly it can.
- 26/09/2010 12:35:56 PM
721 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 25/09/2010 04:54:40 PM
859 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 25/09/2010 07:38:29 PM
784 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 26/09/2010 12:07:19 AM
801 Views
They should have asked about second languages rather than foreign languages.
- 26/09/2010 11:34:27 AM
638 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
- 27/09/2010 03:18:30 PM
694 Views