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I've noticed this fact always I've travelled... in fact I know a very very very few English native speakers who learn another language.
I was living in the UK and I met many people, smart people with lots of studies and who have travelled a lot but they were monolingual... more or less happened in USA, where the multiculture is everywhere.
Any reason? Is not compulsory at school the study of a second language?
Well I am exception to the rule as I am native English speaker who does speaks some other languages (at varying levels). But I agree that many native English speakers assume that others will speak English. So they don't think it is important to learn another languages. I personally disagree with this as learning another language opens one up to another culture and is a great learning experience. Also for older people it is said that learning another language helps keep one's brain functioning well.
Saying English speakers don't like to learn other languages is like saying people who don't own automobile don't like to learn to ride horses.
The fact is, English speakers are not presented with as much opportunity to learn other languages. Pity them.
Hate to sound harsh but this is only part of the answer, and it also has a lot to do with laziness, hegemonism and triumphalism as well. Perhaps a bit of a superiority complex as well.
I mean, there are places in the world where English speakers do have close contact with other languages, and they don't necessarily learn the other language that they are exposed to.
For example, in places in the U.S. where hispanics are the majority like El Paso, Miami, the Rio Grande Valley, and where Spanish has a significant presence (thought not official I realize), the vast, vast majority of anglos are still monolingual in English and can't speak much Spanish beyond si, no, buenos dias, por favor and adios.
Most of the British who lived in Hong Kong prior to the handover in 1997 spoke little to no Chinese (well, Cantonese) even though they lived in a city where 97% of the millions of people around them spoke that language.
It is actually quite a challenge learning a language. There is no point in learning a language and hoping to excel at it without speaking it everyday and living in a country that speaks that language.
Not quite true. I learned to speak Spanish about 20 years. I don't like anywhere near a Spanish-speaking country, don't holiday in Spanish-speaking countries, have no family or friends who are native Spanish speakers and the Spanish-speaking community in my city is tiny and fairly invisible.
Hate to sound harsh but this is only part of the answer, and it also has a lot to do with laziness, hegemonism and triumphalism as well. Perhaps a bit of a superiority complex as well.
I mean, there are places in the world where English speakers do have close contact with other languages, and they don't necessarily learn the other language that they are exposed to.
For example, in places in the U.S. where hispanics are the majority like El Paso, Miami, the Rio Grande Valley, and where Spanish has a significant presence (thought not official I realize), the vast, vast majority of anglos are still monolingual in English and can't speak much Spanish beyond si, no, buenos dias, por favor and adios.
Most of the British who lived in Hong Kong prior to the handover in 1997 spoke little to no Chinese (well, Cantonese) even though they lived in a city where 97% of the millions of people around them spoke that language.
their are thousands of brits living on the costa del sol in spain who continue to speak the language of blighty
I've noticed this fact always I've travelled... in fact I know a very very very few English native speakers who learn another language.
I was living in the UK and I met many people, smart people with lots of studies and who have travelled a lot but they were monolingual... more or less happened in USA, where the multiculture is everywhere.
Any reason? Is not compulsory at school the study of a second language?
Laziness, and maybe a bit of arrogance. The assumption that it's not necessary to become proficient at a 2nd (let alone a 3rd) language, because English the rest of the world has to learn English to deal with the dominance of English speakers in international markets and tourism. Well, and India is up-and-coming, as well.
Any reason? Is not compulsory at school the study of a second language?
in order to become fluent in a language, you need someone to speak it with routinely. in the U.S. that's not available like it is in most of europe.
i "studied" spanish for years, but i can't really speak it, because i never had anyone to converse with. french is even worse; many americans learn it in a classroom for 3 or 4 years and then never use it again.
Let's say you live in the Netherlands. Drive 100 miles in one direction and they're all speaking German. Drive 100 miles in another direction and they're all speaking French. Sail 100 miles in another direction and they're speaking English. Extend that circle outwards a bit, and suddenly you have Danish, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian and Czech.
Drive 500 miles in the United States and, often, the dialect doesn't even change. The average American gets two weeks of vacation a year, a least a week of which typically gets spent visiting family, etc. So we have a grand total of one week a year to get somewhere a foreign language is spoken. Even then, that involves thousands of dollars in travel expense while, in Europe, it simply entails hopping a train.
Hey, I learned both German and Russian. I could speak both fairly well. Even got to use both languages a couple of times. But without constant exposure to those languages, it became impossible to keep up. So I didn't.
in order to become fluent in a language, you need someone to speak it with routinely. in the U.S. that's not available like it is in most of europe.
This is a really good point. Not only is there not much proximity with foreign lang. speakers (except for Hispanics, and a few Russian and Asian enclaves), but there are very few foreign films, and no foreign TV shows except for BBC. Most of the foreign films, and newsclips or documentaries with foreign-lang. interviews, are dubbed, rather than subtitled, as is the practice in Europe, so you can't use them to practice or acquire a foreign language. I met quite a few Europeans in Europe who learned English just by watching Eng.-language TV. You can't do that in the US. Unless maybe you have cable and watch the Spanish language channels, or subscribe to foreign channels.
Let's say you live in the Netherlands. Drive 100 miles in one direction and they're all speaking German. Drive 100 miles in another direction and they're all speaking French. Sail 100 miles in another direction and they're speaking English. Extend that circle outwards a bit, and suddenly you have Danish, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian and Czech.
Well, I don't think it's that simple. Yeah, you don't have to drive far to get to another country with a completely different language. But it's not an everyday thing to do. I think I'm rather well travelled by Austrian standards, but still... I've only been to France a couple times in my life. I didn't really get the opportunity to learn the language fluently by going there.
Same thing for Slovakia. I only live about 50km from Bratislava, but I've never actually been there. Even the German speaking population of South Tyrol sometimes is hardly able to speak Italian. And they are part of Italy.
And learning languages from television? Well... At least here in Austria we only have CNN, BBC and the English Al-Jazeera. Everything else is dubbed in German. But with the internet there are always ways to see foreign tv shows.
I'm definitely not blaming Americans or other English speaking folks for not learning a second language. Seriously, it's just too convenient to speak English fluently. In most countries at least someone will be able to understand you. But I don't think that it's too hard to get somewhat fluent in Spanish with that many Mexican immigrants and the proximity to Mexico.
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