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It is good because it makes us more cultural and bi-lingual.
For example, if the "official" language was Spanish we would probably be monolingual and it is boring in my opinion. Although we are not well know for being good at languages (I know) it is always better than travelling around Europe and pray and hope that people there speak my language, otherwise I am lost. That is not cool.
I have sort of a mixed opinion about that.
On the one hand, it's very convenient. You can go anywhere, speak to people from different countries in English. If someone doesn't speak it you can always find another person who does. That makes life easier.
On the other hand, subconsciously I fear that this big English monster will swallow all other languages in future, and it will endanger the very concept of countries and nations, which (in my opinion) makes the world a more interesting place.
Then I comfort myself by thinking that anyway it's not gonna happen anytime soon, and I won't live to see it
Yes English has conquered the world through a sort of cultural imperialism through pop music and movies and TV and internet things. Aside from K-pop and a few other region things, the vast majority of globally popular pop music has been in English.
This! I can easily communicate in English, but I often don't really understand the lyrics when I listen to songs. The pronunciation is way too indistinct, and often too much slang is used.
the best and the fastest way to learn a language is through music,any english,german of french class will start their courses with songs.
Yes English has conquered the world through a sort of cultural imperialism through pop music and movies and TV and internet things. Aside from K-pop and a few other region things, the vast majority of globally popular pop music has been in English.
I disagree. English conquered the world because the USA were the main diplomatic/military/economical power in the West by far. In Europe during the 50's people were learning as much Russian as English. Old French people have low level of English because Russian and German were seen as important language as well. German language quickly fell out of fashion, and Russian became obsolete during the 80's. Now only English is left..
People are learning a language because of business opportunities, because its a common language in your daily life or because its the official language of your country. English spreads because of business only. And that's why by the way, French didn't really spread in Europe, only intellectuals spoke French.
Movies were dubbed. You don't need to understand English to enjoy English songs.. And by the way, you can't learn English with music, and even when you did learn, it's still a bit hard to understand the lyrics. Books are translated too.
Greek were the Mediterranean language once. Then Latin conquered Europe. French became quite popular. Now it's English. English will leave a mark in all languages no matter what (like previous languages did) but nothing say it will be the main language forever. Turkish and Chinese language roots spread for the same reasons.
Be careful, the Asian population (half the world) may replace English with Mandarin if China continue its rise, and it could quickly follow with the rest of world. Like some people say, in our daily life we don't use English. In one generation, the second language trend can change. It's not likely to happen soon, the US is still very powerful and China is not. But it may be. As long as English is only a second language and not the first, it can loses its dominance.
And do I feel bothered by English ? No. It's a fun language in my opinion, and flexible enough. The only thing which could bother me about English is the fact it looks like it becomes more and more a casual language. But because I'm not a native English speaker I don't care.
The world is linked together like never before in the history of humanity, so it's to be expected.
A colleague, who isn't very proficient in English, enjoys songs such as this one. I don't think he'd enjoy them more if his English was better.
Yep, the mass media is merely a vehicle for the spread of language...while it seems that English will last forever (maybe till the end of this cycle of civilisation) i think the sun will one day set on it like it did the British Empire (well you could argue the British Empire still exists just not in name).
Last edited by Rozenn; 02-27-2014 at 12:02 PM..
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I heard in some countries young people are even speaking English among themselves, is there a lot of fear that some might even start speaking English instead of say Dutch or German or Swedish?
Never heard of it and no fear at all. English is a nice international language for us to turn to, and we learn it in school from an early age, but it is what it is - something to use abroad. English is a supplement, not a possible replacement for what we already have. I fear more the future of nynorsk (New-Norwegian), our other written form of Norwegian besides the standard bokmål.
Never heard of it and no fear at all. English is a nice international language for us to turn to, and we learn it in school from an early age, but it is what it is - something to use abroad. English is a supplement, not a possible replacement for what we already have. I fear more the future of nynorsk (New-Norwegian), our other written form of Norwegian besides the standard bokmål.
That's good. I used to be a bit of an English snob, but sometimes I resent it's ubiquity (I'm a monoglot English speaker). Sometimes I also wish I was fluent in another language and maybe had another language to sort of tie me to a place/culture, although I suppose my accent does that too.
Last edited by Rozenn; 02-27-2014 at 12:03 PM..
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