Hi !
i have been reading some interesting articles about English language teaching to kids.
I remember at least two among all.
One about China.
If i understand well in the past years the Chinese government decided to set a plan to teach English language intensively to young kids.
Now they are stopping this plan because worried by the fact the kids keep on talking english and refuse to talk chinese.
Another case Ireland.
I think we all know how Irish people are proud of their origins, rightly i would add.
However, it is a fact that absolutely everyone speaks English and much less Irish.
And the % of people knowing Irish is even decreasing.
But i was even surprised to learn that at least in the past years Irish kids refusing to learn/speak Irish were even physically punished for this behaviour.
And i have the feeling that a similar situation can be found in Scotland and Wales (maybe physical punishment aside).
Third case Norway
In Norway like in other northern european countries English movies are not dubbed. And so cartoons. Until recently.
Again Norwegian were worried about kids talking more often in English that in their native language.
And they run for cover and started dubbing cartoons ...
Kids are, usually, without prejudices. They are fresh. Spontaneous.
What makes English language so popular with kids at the point that they even tend to prefer English
to the language of their own mothers ?
And more in general what makes English language so popular and English people so unpopular ? 🙂D😉)
No seriously.
I think we should follow kids attitude and adopting globally English language.
Maybe getting rid of some weird exceptions to its very efficient rules.
Why children cannot be childs ?
Why i, you, we, they play but he/her plays ?
I am sure kids would love English even more.
Have a nice day.
Kind regards, gino
i have been reading some interesting articles about English language teaching to kids.
I remember at least two among all.
One about China.
If i understand well in the past years the Chinese government decided to set a plan to teach English language intensively to young kids.
Now they are stopping this plan because worried by the fact the kids keep on talking english and refuse to talk chinese.
Another case Ireland.
I think we all know how Irish people are proud of their origins, rightly i would add.
However, it is a fact that absolutely everyone speaks English and much less Irish.
And the % of people knowing Irish is even decreasing.
But i was even surprised to learn that at least in the past years Irish kids refusing to learn/speak Irish were even physically punished for this behaviour.
And i have the feeling that a similar situation can be found in Scotland and Wales (maybe physical punishment aside).
Third case Norway
In Norway like in other northern european countries English movies are not dubbed. And so cartoons. Until recently.
Again Norwegian were worried about kids talking more often in English that in their native language.
And they run for cover and started dubbing cartoons ...
Kids are, usually, without prejudices. They are fresh. Spontaneous.
What makes English language so popular with kids at the point that they even tend to prefer English
to the language of their own mothers ?
And more in general what makes English language so popular and English people so unpopular ? 🙂D😉)
No seriously.
I think we should follow kids attitude and adopting globally English language.
Maybe getting rid of some weird exceptions to its very efficient rules.
Why children cannot be childs ?
Why i, you, we, they play but he/her plays ?
I am sure kids would love English even more.
Have a nice day.
Kind regards, gino
Last edited:
Children may like English because it is the language of most pop music and movies. Children can have very poor taste, so we should not feel obliged to follow them!
My impression (as a native English speaker) is that English is easy to learn at a superficial level but much harder to learn the subtle nuances which educated natives understand. As the language comes (mainly) from three quite different sources (latin (partly via french), greek and anglo-saxon) there are often three different ways to say almost the same thing - but often they are not quite the same thing. Sadly these days many foreigners speak much better English than our own youngsters, as they are too lazy to learn some of the details. This means that eventually English will become less expressive. I realise that languages have to evolve, but I would prefer the change to come from knowledge rather than ignorance.
My impression (as a native English speaker) is that English is easy to learn at a superficial level but much harder to learn the subtle nuances which educated natives understand. As the language comes (mainly) from three quite different sources (latin (partly via french), greek and anglo-saxon) there are often three different ways to say almost the same thing - but often they are not quite the same thing. Sadly these days many foreigners speak much better English than our own youngsters, as they are too lazy to learn some of the details. This means that eventually English will become less expressive. I realise that languages have to evolve, but I would prefer the change to come from knowledge rather than ignorance.
not forever.
I foresee the time, maybe in two or three generations, when chinese will be taught in many schools around the world.
Why because they will have become so dominant in world production and as a result "powerful". So powerful that they will demand that their customers must speak and read in chinese. Orders for all our goods will be in chinese.
I will be long gone, just as well, since I was not good at language at school.
I foresee the time, maybe in two or three generations, when chinese will be taught in many schools around the world.
Why because they will have become so dominant in world production and as a result "powerful". So powerful that they will demand that their customers must speak and read in chinese. Orders for all our goods will be in chinese.
I will be long gone, just as well, since I was not good at language at school.
No grammatical gender, no inflection, no tonal dependence. That makes things much easier. Spelling is indeed tricky (not as bad as French, though) since English is a hybrid language.
English is a mongrel language, thieving words and constructs as it goes. As such it is continually evolving to meet the needs of the users and is not constricting in the way some languages are. It's fun hearing my wife and sister talking as they use Hinglish (Hindi and English mixed) so I can sort of work out what is being said from the 30% English words!
That and movies makes it popular. Had the vote in America gone differently I doubt English would be that widespread outside the former empire though...
That and movies makes it popular. Had the vote in America gone differently I doubt English would be that widespread outside the former empire though...
" English is easy to learn at a superficial level but much harder to learn the subtle nuances which educated natives understand."
I agree with you on this. It took me less than only a month to learn the most of English grammer rules. It was relatively easy. And I was able to get the basic score at the exam within around six months by a very hard study. Unfortunately, my vocabulary since then has not improved as much as i want. I still have to look up some words while reading newspapers which is a headache. There are many words i forgot meanings altough i looked them up in the dictionary maybe 10 times. So, learning a foreign language needs "living in the culture". Especially for people after an age of 30, it is impossible to learn a foreign language as good as natives speak.
Answer to "why English is so popular" needs some political explainations which i will not make any since this is a technical forum.
I can only say one of the reasons that English language today is the common language for international relations and business.
Last edited:
And I think we should all be thinking for ourselves. I'm not going
to let the media raise my family and tell me what's right or wrong.
Hi and i see the engineer here 🙂
I think that English, in the end, is an efficient way to communicate.
At least at basic level of course. A deep knowledge of a language implies a big and continuos effort for improvement.
But these stories have amazed me.
Irish people for instance. So proud of their own culture, rightly so.
Irish language is vanishing away.
What higher expression of the sense of community than the language ?
At the point that Chinese, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Norwegian and i would add Italian (there is a big debate going on these days because important technical schools want to swith to English) force their kids to learn their native language.
This is torture on poor young kids 😱
Let them speak what they prefer. What they find easier, more enjoyable,
... am i right ?
Instead i have found a possible reason for the exceptions to the very smart rules in the English language.
I think that they are some kind of hurdles placed by native English for the foreigners to have an opportunity to laugh at them 🙄
Life can be boring without exceptions ... German knows.
Kind regards, gino
English is the easiest language to get started in to a level that you can make yourself understood by far.
Even jokes and nuances are not out of reach after a couple of years.
Although there are nuances in british english even americans don't get and vice versa.
But then those don't really matter for 99% of conversations.
Spelling is a bit more of a challenge but not insurmountable.
On the other hand italian and german are incredibly easy to spell but the grammar is hard. In italian in particular the thing is if you can pronounce a word you can spell it.
Put it into my own sphere of experience: Two weeks into my first job after coming to the UK the other employees came to me to proof read their letters.
At the time I thought that this shone a rather embarrassing light on the british education system. Still do...
Even jokes and nuances are not out of reach after a couple of years.
Although there are nuances in british english even americans don't get and vice versa.
But then those don't really matter for 99% of conversations.
Spelling is a bit more of a challenge but not insurmountable.
On the other hand italian and german are incredibly easy to spell but the grammar is hard. In italian in particular the thing is if you can pronounce a word you can spell it.
Put it into my own sphere of experience: Two weeks into my first job after coming to the UK the other employees came to me to proof read their letters.
At the time I thought that this shone a rather embarrassing light on the british education system. Still do...
Hi so you think it is a media issue ? i am not so sure.
We have in our italian alphabet originally 21 letters only.
Then English alphabet provides us with other 5.
Hungarian alphabet has 44.
Do you think that Hungarian can explain a concept better than italian ?
But let's see what will happen.
You cannot force people against their needs for long.
In the end the language that more efficiently serves to the scope of communication will win.
And i am sure it will not be a language based on ideograms
From the Egyptians the world has moved on.
Someone talks about Chinese as possible world language.
I can tell you Chinese language is not made for export at all.
Just look how many people outside China speak Chinese ... if they are not Chinese of course.
I go around and i find more and more people talking at least a basic english like me and we can communicate.
Basic concepts of course ... but sufficient to survive.
And this number is increasing at an amazing speed
Kind regards, gino
Hi do you mean that kids are very early sensitive to political issues ? Could be.
My point is that kids do not lie ... and they instintively go for what is more pleasant, less stressful, less painful ...
if you see my point.
My question is ... why not follow kids example ?
I can tell you that i do not love my language ... for me it is just a tool. I cannot love an hammer or a kitchen ...
There are just good and bad hammers ...
Regards, gino
Last edited:
Media can't be an issue. Media is a way of delivering information.
Ther origin of all issues is a person or multiple persons that have
an idea they would like to present with a certain purpose.
Foreign languages are a beautiful thing and they should be preserved
as such. It's a tragedy when a nation does not do all in their power to
protect their legacy.
We have a saying:" Voli svoje, poštuj tuđe", "Love your own, respect the others."
Hi and yes ! this tells to me that the success of English language is not imposed, people cannot like something by force.
It is just that to reach a survival level in English is much easier that in many other languages.
As i happen to like functional things i also like English language.
Of course for deep knowledge that would take years of study ...
I would like to add one thing.
I like much more technical books written in English that in my native language that is Italian.
And i also understand that students studying law much prefer law English textbooks.
I do not like exceptions by the way because i do not see the need.
Like mice instead of mouses ... teeth instead of tooths ... feet instead of foots.
But this will happen with the globalization of English at some point.
Kind regards, gino
I can tell you about a debate going on at what is maybe the most important technical school in Italy, Polytechnic of Milan.
There was a plan to switch to English in courses.
There was a vote and some 70% of the professors and more of the students voted in favour of English.
The minority at first stopped the process not because they loved their own, but because they did not respect the others.
Of course i guess their english was very poor.
From next year however this plan will start.
And i see a similar process going on also in other countries.
Maybe i am wrong.
Regards, gino
Last edited:
I dunno Gino, a Cole-Bar "Swiss Army knife " of a hammer could be easy to get attached to😉
Hi you are right. I have to rephrase.
I love a good tool that is efficient, functional and i hate a tool that is not well designed or realized, not fit for purpose.
It could be even dangerous in some cases.
I have the feeling that some language are unecessarily difficult.
In the end inefficient. I reject the idea that, as an example, a 60 letters alphabet is needed to express concepts.
Actually i can express concepts even without words sometimes ... 🙄
Kids do not lie. They are genuine.
Regards, gino
Have you got one?
I looked it up and it was a kickstarter campaign with the last update entitled "We can't build the Cole-Bar Hammer". Further info was only available for existing backers.
Personally I am quite fond of my (german pattern) roofing hammer which I've had for 30 years. It's like a claw hammer but less of a curve in the claw and one claw is elongated into a very useful spike.
Back to the OT: For engineering purposes I prefer german to english in the work place as it is more clear cut and leaves less room for interpretation.
For everything else I choose english over german.
The one thing that is sadly missing in the english language is a universal diminutive.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.