Yeah sort of but I don't think that affected it too much. We lived in Pune where most people spoke Marathi but my parents and family spoke Telugu so I picked up both.
Ah, okay. I'm used to thinking of the Dravidian languages as being spoken in the south, but I guess in the big cities of the north you have minorities speaking them too.
Yes, absolutely. They are southerners and wanted me to learn it so they would speak in that whenever they talked to me and expected me to do the same in response. I know at least few people who do that sort of thing with their kids, if they want them to learn their language. It seems to work rather well.
Hmm, I'm not sure why you think that?
Because English is an official language in India, native language to a certain amount of Indians, and generally the lingua franca among the non-Hindi-speaking regions? At least that's how I understand it. Gives India as a whole a big edge over many other countries in terms of learning English, I would think, though of course it'll depend on the region you're in.
well, what do you mean by 'non-Hindi-speaking regions'? Places where it isn't the dominant language? In that case, usually Hindi is the back-up language of choice before English, at least when speaking to people over, say 35. Under that, you might see more people using English secondarily. But in general, people will give you a snobbish look if you talk to them in English instead of either the local language or Hindi

Plus... just because English is a national language doesn't mean people are actually any good at it

/Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
24/09/2010 01:37:42 PM
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Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 02:10:57 PM
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Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 03:32:09 PM
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That is rather sad to say the least.
24/09/2010 04:15:32 PM
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Indeed
24/09/2010 06:23:52 PM
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Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 04:00:04 PM
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Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 05:47:09 PM
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Interesting.
24/09/2010 06:04:30 PM
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Re: Interesting.
24/09/2010 06:42:02 PM
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Re: Interesting.
24/09/2010 07:05:44 PM
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Re: Interesting.
24/09/2010 07:21:24 PM
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Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
24/09/2010 09:38:05 PM
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Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 05:49:05 AM
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Self-study can be worth as much as formal classroom study, I suppose
25/09/2010 03:43:14 PM
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Certainly it can.
26/09/2010 12:35:56 PM
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Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 04:54:40 PM
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Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 07:38:29 PM
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Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
26/09/2010 12:07:19 AM
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They should have asked about second languages rather than foreign languages.
26/09/2010 11:34:27 AM
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Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
27/09/2010 03:18:30 PM
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