Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Britain and foreign languages

Matt N

Matt N

CF Legend
Hi guys. Sorry if this seems like a bit of a random topic, but as many of you know, I went to Germany last week to visit Europa Park for the first time. I had a brilliant time, but that’s besides the point of this thread.

I made this thread because I made a very interesting cultural observation while in Germany. And that is how much more tolerant of and knowledgeable about foreign languages they appeared than Britain.

For example; as someone who knows very little German (I attempted to get some basic grasp before going, but I couldn’t have a fluent conversation in German), I was able to get by fine in Baden-Baden airport. They had fantastic English signage, many of the employees spoke impeccable English or at very least made a commendable effort at speaking English; I had absolutely no struggles there, and I think very few English people would. And they also had a selection of signage catering to other languages, such as French and Dutch. And this isn’t exactly a huge, popular airport compared to some other German airports.

By comparison, London Stansted had very little to aid foreign tourists. All signage was in English, I heard no employees speaking other languages, and I can imagine it being a very intimidating environment for foreign tourists who don’t speak English.

Also, every EP employee we encountered spoke phenomenal English, even when they didn’t have English on their badge. I felt frankly ashamed at how little German I knew by comparison; I know a few very basic phrases, and I was able to understand things like numbers (for ride rows and such) over my time in Germany, but as I said above, I definitely couldn’t have a fluent conversation in German. And that made me feel absolutely appalled with myself; when these people are trying incredibly hard to speak English, why shouldn’t I be doing the same with German?

I can speak GCSE level Spanish, and I know some French (although not that much), so I do have some grasp of other languages, but I would certainly say that my only fluent language is English; I’m certainly not making myself out to be a saint in terms of foreign language knowledge, because I’m not. I think in future, I will aim to try and learn a fair amount of the language of the country I’m going to if ever I travel abroad, as I did feel quite bad at how little German I knew aside from basic phrases.

So I just wanted to make this thread to ask; why do you think it is that Britain seemingly has a much lower tolerance of foreign languages than other countries, and do you think it’s right that we don’t cater as much to foreign countries as they do to us?
 
Honestly, it's an amazing thesis/dissertation question if you were studying the history of languages because you really could dive into it.
But there is a plain and simple timeline of things.

Historically, Britons have marched across the globe, planted their flag, and spoken what they already did. Because of the UK's imperialism which stretched right up to the world wars (I think?), it was generally accepted that if you were in a position as a Brit to travel abroad, you could do so without having to change tongue.

Now that's the historical foundation, but then there's a couple of other elements which apply to places like the larger body of Europe, specifically in the West. It's really not uncommon to travel across borders for work. The EU functions, largely, as a kind of mega country, which means that lots of people cross borders for their 9-5. Working at Europa I had colleagues that were french and Swiss, as well as of course the Germans. I think culturally its accepted that putting your neighbouring countries languages about for directional information is a norm. Their culture has always been decades ahead of English speaking cultures in being at least bi-lingual, to ensure you're not out in the sticks when travelling abroad.

English is the most commonly spoken second language in the world. Now you could argue that's because of the historical elements, or the fact that between the USA & UK we have 2 of the wealthiest countries in the world both speaking english, and injecting money into other places where people will have to be able to communicate with the fat cats. But also, on basic linguistic terms, English is largely gender neutral, which makes it quite an easy language to pick up on a fundamental level.

The long and short of it, however, is that because of all the accommodation that has taken place over the years for other countries to use English, native English speakers are often (at least perceived as being) too stubborn to learn another language when they know they'll get by with a sentence or 2 here or there. Simply being able to say 'Sorry, I don't speak _____, English?' is the universal get out of jail free card when it comes to conversation. You can be half way round the world; in a place where you can't even name their alphabet, yet they will likely have signs in English... but it just is never the other way round.
 
Last edited:
English is an international language - So all the signage etc you see isn't just for British (and American) people - but because many people in the world have English as a second or third language - they can communicate between themselves using English as 2nd option!

A good example of this is :- I know a couple one is Greek one is Italian, neither really know the others language - they met in London through both speaking English, and now that's the main language they converse in, thats the language they experience their relationship in, as that was both their 2nd language, they now have kids being brought up here leaning English as a first Language!

So aside from the Why's of how it became an international language (the history etc) - it's now pretty established. Think of how many languages there are in Europe - most mainland Europeans know maybe between 2 to 4 languages (better than us for sure), they don't know the 30+, so international languages are useful for everyone - we however are VERY privileged we have it as our first and main language.

I've attempted learning languages to be polite - but often they will be respond to me in English, or frown at me as in 'don't bother/what are you on about' lol
so I never really made a concerted effort to learn languages as I'm dyslexic and even find english after 40 years hard enough -my brain isn't made for linguistics and 'codes' (reading music was an impossibility). Also some europeans really enjoy practicing their English with actual English people, and have a few times being enthusiastically asked 'is that how you say that? did i get that bit right' etc.

One thing we mustn't do as Brits abroad is ASSUME everyone can speak english or as well as us, and be as mindful and polite about that fact as you can.
 
It’s because (for no other reason than being ‘matter of fact’) English is the language of global business and is therefore globally known.

So long as you are well-mannered, courteous (and if necessary apologetic) I would not feel overly ashamed of not speaking any other language beyond “hello”, “sorry” and “thank you”.
 
Matt N said:
By comparison, London Stansted had very little to aid foreign tourists. All signage was in English, I heard no employees speaking other languages, and I can imagine it being a very intimidating environment for foreign tourists who don’t speak English.
Click to expand...

Just as a rhetorical question, if Stansted was to offer signage in a second language, what language should they choose? What's the next most 'universal' language they could go with?
If you go with the most spoken languages, English is first, and Mandarin is second. So should they go with Mandarin? You could make an argument for that. But equally, one reason Mandarin is the second most spoken language is because of the large population of China, and that might not be the most logical choice.

You could look at where flights come from into Stansted, and choose the language which represents the highest proportion of arrivals. So say a quarter of planes from non-English speaking countries come from Spanish speaking countries, you could put alternative signs in Spanish. But that then still ignores 3/4 of the other arrivals from non-English speaking countries. So it's a loosing battle.

I think as a country, Britain needs to do better at teaching foreign languages. The trouble is, what one(s) do you choose to teach. French and Spanish are presumably the most common (and Spanish makes some logical sense due to the large number of native speakers in the world). But then, you could make an argument that learning a 'Romance language' is harder as a native English speaking than, say, learning a Germanic language (such as German, Dutch, Afrikaans). So it might make more sense to teach a Germanic language to try and encourage younger students that learning languages is achievable and fun. The downside there is non-English Germanic languages are spoken by much fewer people.

So yeah, that in itself is an interesting and deep topic of discussion!
 
I think there is somewhat inverse relationship between the number of speakers of your native language, and English proficiency as a 2nd language.

The less speakers, the better they are at English.



So for example in the Nordic countries, Netherlands etc, there is a relatively few speakers of their native languages, so you kind of have to learn English to have broader access to media and literature and converse with more than 6-8 million locals.

Whereas if you are in China, Japan, Spanish, Arabic speaking countries etc you don’t have that same pressure because you have hundreds of millions of native speakers.



Places like Germany/Switzerland/Austria, and French speaking countries fall somewhere in the middle, they tend to be ‘ok’ at it, a substantial number of native speakers, but still not anywhere near the top 10 most common.
Just as a rhetorical question, if Stansted was to offer signage in a second language, what language should they choose? What's the next most 'universal' language they could go with?
Click to expand...
Certainly at Australian airports, signage is in both English and Chinese.
1651792340425.png
 
Last edited:
Gazza said:
I think there is somewhat inverse relationship between the number of speakers of your native language, and English proficiency as a 2nd language.

The less speakers, the better they are at English.
Click to expand...
Oh, definitely. Coming from someone whose native language is spoken by a bit more than 2m people, you would struggle to find people that don't speak at least one foreign language and it's mostly English for anyone that was still in school after Yugoslavia's dissolution.

Slovenia is also on the crossroads of a bunch of different language groups, so people in the Western part of the country are often fluent in Italian, the ones living near the Austrian border are fluent in German (as a lot of people commute over the border daily, considering the wages up North are comparatively much higher), people in the Northeastern bit might also be fluent in Hungarian and due to the historical ties, a lot of people would be fluent in Serbian/Croatian as well (our languages are somewhat similar and I can understand most of what they're saying, but it's still different enough that I wouldn't dare say I speak them).

As for me, I don't think I have enough motivation to properly learn a 2nd language other than English (I've had German, French and Latin in school and while some of it did stick, I'm very far from fluent in any of those languages), so I can completely understand a Brit that struggles when it comes to foreign languages.

Though I do have to admit that I sometimes start blabbering in English to people that aren't as fluent in the language as I am. Mostly subconciously going by the logic of "it's a second language for both of us, so we must be at the same level speaking it, right?".
 
A lot of posts above have good explainations. English is the biggest second language in the world, a lot of people talk it outside of english speaking countries and it is accepted as a pretty safe language to communicate with tourists. Honestly in school i never was really taught other languages properly and i believe a lot of english simply have no good reason to learn other languages as many countries will switch to English easily as its widely spoken.

A good example is when i went to Iceland last month which has over 99% of its population speaking English. You'd even hear locals conversing in English, every conversation was started in English and to a very high calibre of English too! Icelandic is a beyond interesting language but what is the point in me learning it?
A lot Scandanavia probably falls in that category albeit not as extreme, alongside the other Germanic languages besides German itself.

I am fairly good at German from visiting family in Austria (in a region where English is not spoken at ALL), though when going to a lot of Germany they tend to hear my accent and switch the conversaton to English. Which is polite but it makes me worse at the language as i do not get to practice it. I think that is another problem brits have while abroad trying to learn another language
 
I wouldn't say Germans are the best English speakers but they have certainly evolved over the years. Just 15 years ago a lot less of them spoke English compared to today.

To the point. English is the must know language. That's why I went to an English school. Brits probably never even considered sending their kids to a Swedish school, because why would they? Swedish is a pointless language with a couple million speakers while English got billions. English is also incredibly important for university. More than half of our literature is in English and a lot of our professors speak English. Without a good understanding of the language it would be hard to churn through 800 page books on everything from accounting to microeconomics. This worldwide knowledge of their language has made native English speakers complacent in only knowing their own language and thereby not putting major effort in learning another one.
 
Was in Holland with my dad once.

In typical British tourist fashion, he kept talking to the locals in an overly pronounciated and slow manner.

"HAVE. YOU. EVER. BEEN. ENG-LAND?"

And then the locals would reply in perfect English like:

"Yes, actually. I went on a two-month road trip around the UK a couple of summers ago."

Was pretty funny.
 
Seeing a couple of stories around has convinced me to share a couple of mine...


When I was in Efteling for my first visit, had a guy come up to me and start speaking Dutch. My blank expression must have made it obvious I didn't speak the language. He then started reeling through other languages..."Deutsch? Français? Espanol? English?"

Eventually realising that he was trying to ask me what language I spoke, I sputtered out "Oh, English". The guy chuckled to himself and said "Oh...okay...I try..." and then proceeded to say absolutely perfectly "Can you take a photo of me and my family in front of the sign over there please?". Left me both awestruck and a little embarrassed!

---

Second one is from during my PhD when I attended a week-long conference at a German university. The conference was in English, and being in Germany, I expected that it would have a fair few non-native speakers. I learnt however that the conference had about 75 attendees from 10 different countries, and I was the only native English speaker. I was literally the only person in the room who didn't know a second language.
Think that was the bigger motivator for me to try and take learning a second language a bit more seriously.
 
Tolik said:
English is simple to learn (I noticed it among my foreign friends) and that's the second reason why it's used all over the world
Click to expand...
I could write an essay here to explain to you how wrong you are, but I'll try to keep it brief.

How "simple" a language is to learn depends mostly on your exposure to it followed by what your first language is.

Europeans generally have a lot of exposure to English, and some of those countries have languages that have a lot in common with English. This doesn't make English "simple", but there's a definite head start.

Move outside Europe and things are very different. There's still a decent exposure to English in many places, especially those with large tourist industries, but the language itself bears little resemblance to most of the languages spoken in those countries. It's learned out of a perceived necessity, not because it's easy.

Finally, if English were so simple, you'd think that people who have it as a first language would be better at it. Go and spend 10 minutes on Facebook and see how utterly appalling many people's spelling and grammar are. It's embarrassing.
 
Last edited:
gavin said:
I could write an essay here to explain to you how wrong you are, but I'll try to keep it brief.
Click to expand...
I can keep it briefer: I suspect he's a spam account who's one edit away from linking a shoddy "learn English for free*! site". I've already warned him for posting a dubious link in another thread, but I'm feeling somewhat trusting today and willing to give the benefit of doubt, or whatever the expression is.

@Tolik, I would appreciate some evidence that you're not here to advertise.
 
Pokemaniac said:
I can keep it briefer: I suspect he's a spam account who's one edit away from linking a shoddy "learn English for free*! site". I've already warned him for posting a dubious link in another thread, but I'm feeling somewhat trusting today and willing to give the benefit of doubt, or whatever the expression is.

@Tolik, I would appreciate some evidence that you're not here to advertise.
Click to expand...

Once again, your detective work never ceases to impress me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top