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Aye, they should have. Legolas Send a noteboard - 26/09/2010 12:26:51 PM
Irish can't be a foreign language in Ireland as it's an official language of the country. This is also why it doesn't get EU help for minority languages (even though it has few fluent speakers). It's also incorrect to call Welsh and Gaelic foreign languages in the UK as they have been spoken here longer than English has. But the study surely ought to be interested in people studying these languages at school.

I did find that fairly absurd about Ireland. In the UK I'm not sure there are enough people taking Welsh or Gaelic in their A-levels to make much of a difference in the data...
Does it include, for example, Francophone Belgians studying Dutch, or doesn't that count as a "foreign" language there either?

If you look at the data for learning languages in school, you'll see Belgium doesn't have any data at all. Possibly because Eurostat only has separate data for Flanders and Francophone Belgium, but not for the two together, or because they find it pointless to add them up. But when it comes to how many people know a foreign language, there Belgium does have data, and I'm really not sure if they consider the other national language(s) as a "foreign" language there or not. In any case, Walloons are notoriously bad at foreign languages whether it's Dutch or English or something else, as bad or even worse than the French themselves. Though there is a distinct improvement these past years - the last fifteen years or so their politicians have actually realized they need a working knowledge of their country's majority language if they don't want to look ridiculous, and that's quite new. While many of the richer Francophone families in Brussels are now sending their children to Dutch-language schools, creating an extreme overpopulation there, firstly because those schools are quite simply a ton better and secondly so their children will end up more or less bilingual.
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/Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 24/09/2010 01:37:42 PM 1212 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 01:49:32 PM 645 Views
Answering the survey myself... - 24/09/2010 02:04:39 PM 646 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:10:57 PM 633 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:20:45 PM 769 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:24:01 PM 656 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:14:52 PM 689 Views
We have a similar situation in Belgium. - 24/09/2010 02:32:25 PM 550 Views
It is all double dutch to me - 24/09/2010 02:41:41 PM 634 Views
Hah! - 24/09/2010 06:58:49 PM 716 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 623 Views
That's just Paris being a city of nasty people. - 24/09/2010 06:32:40 PM 773 Views
I never noticed that - 24/09/2010 07:05:18 PM 657 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 04:00:04 PM 702 Views
I didn't mean just in Sweden, or Scandinavia. - 24/09/2010 04:19:32 PM 676 Views
Well... - 24/09/2010 10:50:09 PM 596 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 760 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 07:05:44 PM 669 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 07:21:24 PM 796 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 08:18:30 PM 646 Views
Re: Interesting. - 25/09/2010 08:02:30 PM 710 Views
American who just got a C+ on a French quiz reporting in. - 24/09/2010 06:09:31 PM 717 Views
What was it on? - 24/09/2010 06:22:35 PM 617 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 06:16:22 PM 572 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
Real quick - 25/09/2010 12:03:51 PM 713 Views
Self-study can be worth as much as formal classroom study, I suppose - 25/09/2010 03:43:14 PM 717 Views
Certainly it can. - 26/09/2010 12:35:56 PM 722 Views
You know, gen eds typically include a language. *NM* - 26/09/2010 07:28:57 PM 277 Views
Yes, but other things as well. - 26/09/2010 08:08:20 PM 658 Views
Interesting - 27/09/2010 03:14:00 AM 819 Views
Re: Interesting - 27/09/2010 11:04:37 AM 722 Views
You don't have to prove it's economically valid? - 27/09/2010 08:31:46 PM 736 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
The amount of German is more surprising. - 25/09/2010 07:55:29 PM 535 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 26/09/2010 12:07:19 AM 803 Views
They should have asked about second languages rather than foreign languages. - 26/09/2010 11:34:27 AM 638 Views
Aye, they should have. - 26/09/2010 12:26:51 PM 758 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 27/09/2010 03:18:30 PM 694 Views

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