speaking the country's language
Nov 20, 2014, 3:03 pm
#46
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 2,379
English is an international language, it should be enough.
If the 'gate' is in the USA, its enough for agent to be English. No need for additional languages, they can find that in their home country.
how about people make an effort and learn the English language if they wanna live in the USA ? Or can we not say that anymore bcaz its offensive now?
If the 'gate' is in the USA, its enough for agent to be English. No need for additional languages, they can find that in their home country.
how about people make an effort and learn the English language if they wanna live in the USA ? Or can we not say that anymore bcaz its offensive now?
Nov 20, 2014, 3:49 pm
#47
Join Date: May 2004
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Part of the utility of a language is not necessarily being able to use it directly to be able to communicate, but to be able to draw things like vocabulary from it, like with the creole languages in Africa - knowing French, or Portuguese, or English would enable you to understand, if not speak, several other African languages in part or, at the very least, make it easier to learn more of a language if you are not starting utterly from scratch.
I learnt Latin and Ancient Greek at school, which huge droves of people, even at the time, thought a complete waste of time and we should be learning (insert language de jour here). In actual fact, aside from enabling me to do rather well in Jeopardy categories, it enables you to 'guess' at meanings of words in other languages which have their roots in those languages, as well as find English itself easier (knowing even simple things like the meaning of micro, macro, trans, mono, ante, post, ped enable you to guess at the meaning of words you may not have come across).
I went on a trip to Italy, and it was easy to understand the meaning of 'ieri' if you know that the Latin word 'heri' means yesterday, or reading a menu, pesce (pisces), agnello (agni), and pane (panem) are quite clearly fish, lamb and bread from that common root. Whilst I haven't travelled to Africa, I imagine it would be similar if you know the root of a creole language, to get by a little more easily.
I've found getting by in several European languages fairly easy based on shared roots etc. but find it incredibly hard to pick up a language which doesn't share structure, vocab roots, etc. with ones I already know - Japanese was very hard, apart from a few 'borrowed' words here and there (ko-hee, pan, ka-re, oren-ji).
I learnt Latin and Ancient Greek at school, which huge droves of people, even at the time, thought a complete waste of time and we should be learning (insert language de jour here). In actual fact, aside from enabling me to do rather well in Jeopardy categories, it enables you to 'guess' at meanings of words in other languages which have their roots in those languages, as well as find English itself easier (knowing even simple things like the meaning of micro, macro, trans, mono, ante, post, ped enable you to guess at the meaning of words you may not have come across).
I went on a trip to Italy, and it was easy to understand the meaning of 'ieri' if you know that the Latin word 'heri' means yesterday, or reading a menu, pesce (pisces), agnello (agni), and pane (panem) are quite clearly fish, lamb and bread from that common root. Whilst I haven't travelled to Africa, I imagine it would be similar if you know the root of a creole language, to get by a little more easily.
I've found getting by in several European languages fairly easy based on shared roots etc. but find it incredibly hard to pick up a language which doesn't share structure, vocab roots, etc. with ones I already know - Japanese was very hard, apart from a few 'borrowed' words here and there (ko-hee, pan, ka-re, oren-ji).
I never studied Ancient Greek in school so I can't tap into that lexicon as easily, but of course, many Greek-root words in English can be found in other languages as well.
Nov 20, 2014, 4:17 pm
#48
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: SYD
Programs: QF
Posts: 490
I see people trying to "speak the language" thinking it makes for a better trip. If you actually do speak the language, it works. If you bought a "Speak Klingon in 30 minutes" CD you're just making a fool of yourself. People in tourist areas expect to deal with language issues.
I live about half the time in Thailand and it's hilarious listening to some people who bought the book and listened to the tape.
I live about half the time in Thailand and it's hilarious listening to some people who bought the book and listened to the tape.
Nov 20, 2014, 5:43 pm
#49
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I disagree. I've worked overseas in non-English speaking countries and making an effort at least to greet in the native language and to break the ice and folks are more willing to help, for me it wasn't too difficult to pick up a few lines of polite conversation in Afrikaans, French, Zulu, Sesotho or wherever else you happen to be . Nobody expects you to learn a language and speak it fluently for a vacation. Certainly when Non-English speaking tourists visit Sydney and greet me with "G'day" or "Hello, how are you" I appreciate the effort and in return make an effort to help.
Nov 20, 2014, 5:54 pm
#50
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: KIX, ITM, UKB, YVR
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Posts: 2,356
Living overseas for 8 of the last 10 years, primarily in Taiwan, China and now Japan.
Learning Mandarin Chinese when I was over 30 and now learning Japanese when I am over 40 years old, it has been a struggle but very satisfying.
After saying that, I am now "considered" functionally fluent in Mandarin (reading and writing, speaking and listening) and I am studying for my proficiency exam in Japanese scheduled for next spring.
Learning your host's countries language is a great way to integrate into the community. It doesn't do any harm to your job opportunities either.
Learning Mandarin Chinese when I was over 30 and now learning Japanese when I am over 40 years old, it has been a struggle but very satisfying.
After saying that, I am now "considered" functionally fluent in Mandarin (reading and writing, speaking and listening) and I am studying for my proficiency exam in Japanese scheduled for next spring.
Learning your host's countries language is a great way to integrate into the community. It doesn't do any harm to your job opportunities either.
Nov 20, 2014, 6:01 pm
#51
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 2,379
I learnt Latin and Ancient Greek at school, which huge droves of people, even at the time, thought a complete waste of time and we should be learning (insert language de jour here). In actual fact, aside from enabling me to do rather well in Jeopardy categories, it enables you to 'guess' at meanings of words in other languages which have their roots in those languages, as well as find English itself easier (knowing even simple things like the meaning of micro, macro, trans, mono, ante, post, ped enable you to guess at the meaning of words you may not have come across).
I had to do Latin in school for 3 years (alongside French and Spanish) and I can't honestly say I remember anything from the Latin lessons!
Nov 21, 2014, 6:45 am
#52
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Glasgow, UK
Programs: BA, UA, Marriot
Posts: 2,196
Oh, wait there's also Cote d'Ivoire (and there was a clue in the name, how about that), so that's four.
And now that I think about it, there's also Cameroon.
Oh yeah, and Burkina Faso, Burundi, Benin, Comoros, Gabon, Senegal, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, Togo. And then if we stray north into the Sahara and Mahgreb, there's Niger, Mali, Chad, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Djibouti. And apologies to anyone I missed.
So yep, not widely spoken at all.
My understanding is that something in excess of 110 million Africans have a decent command of French, whereas the Lusophone African states contain approximately 50 million Portuguese speakers.
Your personal experience may of course be different.....
Nov 21, 2014, 7:13 am
#54
Join Date: Mar 2003
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Nov 21, 2014, 7:21 am
#55
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Nov 21, 2014, 9:39 am
#56
Join Date: Dec 2009
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That's quite the generalized, and inaccurate, statement. I think maybe you're saying most American born black people don't speak a 2nd language at home? Students have to take a second language in school and I know many black friends of mine who speak a second language (mostly Spanish) but 1 who speaks 5 languages and acts as a translator.
Nov 21, 2014, 11:19 am
#57
Join Date: May 2004
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Posts: 8,215
That's quite the generalized, and inaccurate, statement. I think maybe you're saying most American born black people don't speak a 2nd language at home? Students have to take a second language in school and I know many black friends of mine who speak a second language (mostly Spanish) but 1 who speaks 5 languages and acts as a translator.
One of the problems we have when we try to divide people into buckets is that we start to forget that there is a range of ethnicity, language, and national origin in any bucket you care to define.
Nov 21, 2014, 2:21 pm
#59
Join Date: Jul 2013
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My high-school French teacher was an African-American who spoke impeccable French. He taught me so well that I get compliments in France forty years later. After I graduated, he also took on Spanish classes. I think he spoke German as well.
Nov 21, 2014, 2:28 pm
#60
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Of course, there is also the issue simply of definition. An American-born black person who is Spanish speaking in the home (at least partly) is termed Hispanic, rather than African-American, even though they are in fact, both.
One of the problems we have when we try to divide people into buckets is that we start to forget that there is a range of ethnicity, language, and national origin in any bucket you care to define.
One of the problems we have when we try to divide people into buckets is that we start to forget that there is a range of ethnicity, language, and national origin in any bucket you care to define.
I spent over a decade in sub-Saharan Africa and 90% of the population spoke at least 3 languages. Many spoke 4 or 5. Tribal language, English, Portuguese, French, Arabic and Russian were the most common.