Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So does that mean that these societies become bilingual societies in the sense of speaking the local language among yourselves and English (which is the international lingua franca these days) is used exclusively to communicate with foreigners. I guess people learn early on that is the only reason to learn English and why everyone learns it.
In the case of the Nordics and the Dutch, they don't typically use English in everyday life in between themselves. But in my experience the switch is made effortlessly as soon as the national language cannot be used.
There are likely a number of factors for this high level of bilingualism. Friends from that part of the world will quip that it's because all American/British TV shows and movies (aside from those for very young kids) are subtitled as opposed to dubbed in these countries. Which means that by the time you're around 20 years old you've heard lots of English in your life accompanied by subtitles in your own language. After hearing "yes" thousands of times and seeing "ja" on the screen, after a while you figure it out.
Of course, there are surely other factors that are more important like their education system, but what I said above likely plays a big role too.
So does that mean that these societies become bilingual societies in the sense of speaking the local language among yourselves and English (which is the international lingua franca these days) is used exclusively to communicate with foreigners. I guess people learn early on that is the only reason to learn English and why everyone learns it.
Yes, kids usually start to learn English in third grade, sometimes in second.
I am interested to know if there are any monolingual speakers of Dutch/Nordic languages between the ages of 15 to 40. Would be interesting to find out...
I have met some Norwegians who are in their 30s and 40s whose English skills are somewhat lacking (compared to the stereotype). I assume they have good reading/listening knowledge, but the speaking ability is far from fluent. I am talking stilted speech and preferring to converse in Norwegian.
Like they learned enough to pass in school and/or read in university, but never got much into English media or communicating with English speakers.
On the other hand, the majority of all generations range from able to close to fluent.
I have met some Norwegian old-timers, rural people who are in their 60s and 70s, who basically do not or will not speak anything but their rural dialect and will scoff at your Oslo-American accent.
I have met some Norwegians who are in their 30s and 40s whose English skills are somewhat lacking (compared to the stereotype). I assume they have good reading/listening knowledge, but the speaking ability is far from fluent. I am talking stilted speech and preferring to converse in Norwegian.
Like they learned enough to pass in school and/or read in university, but never got much into English media or communicating with English speakers.
On the other hand, the majority of all generations range from able to close to fluent.
I have met some Norwegian old-timers, rural people who are in their 60s and 70s, who basically do not or will not speak anything but their rural dialect and will scoff at your Oslo-American accent.
The English proficiency here is pretty decent, but nothing to be proud of. I think the average Norwegian would score around 4-5/10 on a standard test (listening, reading and writing). The younger ones, 15-30, are slightly better than this. Maybe 6.5/10.
English as second language has been a German curriculum since the 70s. People decide not to speak it or understand it - their decision. I sometimes decide not to speak/understand other languages.
People learn it due to trading reasons, and also most academic material around is in English language. Also for so many jobs now English speaking skills are important.
I went to Paris a decade ago and remember that it was one of the most difficult places to be because absolutely no one knew English. I recently just came back and the difference is staggering. The majority of service workers in Paris know English and I found that to be true all over Europe as well. Even in places as far off as Ukraine, all the restaurants had menus in English and at least one staff member spoke it.
Did Europe learn English because of America's culture exports or was it because of England's presence on the continent?
Europe has become America lite in a lot of ways over the past 10-15 years. It is pretty unfortunate. I travel in Asia and Latin America now because Europe has become too generic and similar to home.
Europe has become America lite in a lot of ways over the past 10-15 years. It is pretty unfortunate. I travel in Asia and Latin America now because Europe has become too generic and similar to home.
A lot of people say this, I get what they mean by this, but this is not true. Europe is unmistakably European.
I was in Turin only last December, tried to ask questions twice to young people because I thought they would speak better English and both times they didn't seem to understand what I said and was even nervous
I believe in the restaurants it is usually ok, but a random Italian speaking decent English is still not that common.
Yes, everyone studied English but that doesn't translate into communicable skills. It is like everyone takes French lessons in Canada but few would be able to communicate in French outside Quebec.
I think the main problem with English is the large difference between written english and spoken english. Spoken english varies a lot. You may be good at reading english, that does not mean you will understand everything a native speaker will tell you. I personally have trouble understanding some Italian people speaking in English and usually Italians have trouble understanding French people speaking english because the accents are different. I am cool with general American / Canadian (the easiest for me) / Southern british but send me to the midlands of England and I'm sure everyone up there will think I can not understand English at all.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
