All students may be required to study a second language. (1 Viewer)

[circusmind]

Not really, if you have made up your mind that you want to stay in country where they dont speak english, then learning the language is a breeze. ITs only a problem when you dont like the place where are you staying.

Have you ever lived in a country where you don't speak the language? There is probably nothing as alienating and bewildering as being surrounded by people who you can't communicate with. Living in an environment where your target language is dominant makes learning a language quicker, but only because you are forced to learn quickly. Most research into language acquisition shows that language learning is so difficult that it generally is only done properly when absolutely necessary. Living overseas doesn't make the language easier, it just puts you under a hell of a lot of pressure to become competent.

English is derived from other languages -latin, french, german etc...

Yes. And if I dropped you in a Berlin street right now, you'd have no clue what was happening around you. Linguistic similarities do become apparent the more you study a language, but when someone comes at you rabbiting on in German, and you only speak English, you have no clue. There are significant similarities in terms of vocab, but these are only really apparent when you're looking at text, or once you've got enough of a grasp on the spoken language to actually distinguish individual words from the stream of gibberish.

 

[HotShot]

Have you ever lived in a country where you don't speak the language? There is probably nothing as alienating and bewildering as being surrounded by people who you can't communicate with. Living in an environment where your target language is dominant makes learning a language quicker, but only because you are forced to learn quickly. Most research into language acquisition shows that language learning is so difficult that it generally is only done properly when absolutely necessary. Living overseas doesn't make the language easier, it just puts you under a hell of a lot of pressure to become competent.

I have, I am not suggesting you will learn the language in a day or two. It will take time at least a year. Language learning is difficult, but like anything else practice makes perfect. When I live overseas I knew only english and not the native language.

But trust me, people do understand what you mean, they eventually understand. If you want water, you go ask them in english, if they cant understand you use gestures -then say ah 'water' in their language. Then you know the word of water.
How do you think you learnt to speak english? Since you were baby? How do you think that people around you, your parents understood what you were talking about? This is fundamentally how people learn languages.

There is no pressure, its just a natural environment to be in.

Yes. And if I dropped you in a Berlin street right now, you'd have no clue what was happening around you. Linguistic similarities do become apparent the more you study a language, but when someone comes at you rabbiting on in German, and you only speak English, you have no clue. There are significant similarities in terms of vocab, but these are only really apparent when you're looking at text, or once you've got enough of a grasp on the spoken language to actually distinguish individual words from the stream of gibberish.

ITs all about practice, when lived overseas - I learn their language and spoke their langauge. When I came here, everyone speaks english - so fuck the other language and I forget it pretty much. As humans we are all similar and our communications are very similar. Sure there could be understanding, but there is always misunderstanding - misunderstanding doesnt arise from language differenecs but rather - more cultural and background differences.

If the german came up, I would probably work out what he said in time.

 

[circusmind]

But trust me, people do understand what you mean, they eventually understand. If you want water, you go ask them in english, if they cant understand you use gestures -then say ah 'water' in their language. Then you know the word of water.

Of course. I've done my share of miming and gesticulating to get my point across. But you don't really consider that to be an adequate social situation, do you? If you want to actually form relationships, learn new things and experience a whole new universe of culture, you need to speak the language. And hell, I don't really want to piss people off by miming at them. I'd prefer to make the effort to actually express myself adequately.

How do you think you learnt to speak english? Since you were baby? How do you think that people around you, your parents understood what you were talking about? This is fundamentally how people learn languages.

I learned to speak English because I needed to in order to survive. It was the only way to communicate with any efficiency with the people who were responsible for all of my needs. It still took me a few years to gain basic fluency.

If the german came up, I would probably work out what he said in time.

Perhaps, but you'd find any meaningful interaction nigh impossible. Try engaging the interest of a nice girl at a party when you can't talk to her....

 

[kami]

well theres 32 countries or so in europe and how many international borders to you think a country has, look at germany

http://www.mapsofworld.com/germany/germany-map.jpg

it has 9 international borders that seems like commone sense

well their expected to know english and their native language, australia is tell pretty much islolated from everything else even the information age has changed alot so i dont see the need

Err... Indonesia? And with new transport technologies developed in the last century the rest of Asia has become a fairly close neighbour as well. Far closer than a brief glance at a map would indicate.

It also should be blatantly obvious that you don't need to be next to a country to have extensive interaction - there is a large involvement between US and Aust. for example and we're not exactly neighbours.

I srs dont understand why you need to know a second language. YOu can survive easily in any other country if you know english. But can you survive in another country if you knew only Japanese? You wouldnt last a minute in Russia.

You can't survive anywhere if you know English - leave the tourist districts in many countries and you're screwed. Your second statement about knowing only Japanese only supports my statement - you can't survive just anywhere with a single language - knowing more languages helps to remedy that.

I disagree. The cultural differences that are worth preserving and that make the world interesting are not contained within languages. It is worth celebrating different culture, art, food, music, religion ect. But language. It's just a way of communicating these things. It's a means to an ends. Different languages just make life difficult. I think it would make the world a better place if we all spoke the one language. Language is evolving anyway. The English we speak now is almost indistinguishable from that of 1000 years ago. It seems a natural trend that as the channels of communication around the world become more effective the world's language will become more homogeneous. Why would we want to fight this process?

While differences are not confined within language, some of it is indeed contained within language if only in the concepts it articulates, for example there are languages that deal with time in a completely different fashion. If we shifted that to english, that would be completely lost since English could never articulate the concept and thus it would die.

Language is also an aid to accessing other cultural aspects as it allows you to interact with the people, texts and places in a manner similar to those who are native to that language. Those channels of communication you mention would also be far more effective if we all spoke multiple languages.

Not that note all languages have similarites especially English which is derived from other languages. So if you know English you can pretty much understand any other language, even if you dont know english you can still understand what is going on.

No, no you can't. Try listening to some people talk in Japanese, you will have no luck in all in deciphering details.

If you want to work elsewhere you shouldnt need to learn language - just rock up there and live there for few years and you will learn automatically. Just by observation rather than rocking up to classes. This isnt the way to learn a language.

In the time it would take you to pick up the language you wouldn't be able to make a living - every skill and qualification you possess would be rendered obselete by the fact that you cannot communicate, at all. You might be able to get around this with prior knowledge of the language which would allow you to adapt and learn much quicker, without that problematic period.

People seem to have a desire to hang on to old traditions and to fear change and globalisation. It's not the death of culture, it's just a new and different culture emerging. This is a positive and inevitable consequence of human civilization. Don't try to fight it Tulipa.

How is change innately positive? That view is as foolish as someone who believes something is innately worthwhile because it is traditional.

The obliteration of identity is something that occurs when culture dies - why should we embrace that obliteration when these identities do not inherently harm us?

But trust me, people do understand what you mean, they eventually understand. If you want water, you go ask them in english, if they cant understand you use gestures -then say ah 'water' in their language. Then you know the word of water.
How do you think you learnt to speak english? Since you were baby? How do you think that people around you, your parents understood what you were talking about? This is fundamentally how people learn languages.

So if I'm trying to work as an accountant, lawyer, nurse, doctor, engineer or any occupation - even a newsagent cashier .. I can just wave my hands and make gestures till the person I am with understands what I'm saying ... right?

When we were learning to speak English as babies, we were reliant on our parents to obtain things for us. I don't think most adults going overseas will have the same luxury.

 

[circusmind]

You can't survive anywhere if you know English - leave the tourist districts in many countries and you're screwed. Your second statement about knowing only Japanese only supports my statement - you can't survive just anywhere with a single language - knowing more languages helps to remedy that.

Exactly. If you speak a couple of major languages, your odds of being able to interact with any given person are dramatically higher. Often I've found that my German has enabled me to speak with various Europeans, Scandinavians etc. The conversation comes to a grinding halt when their inadequate English becomes obvious, and then I throw out a tentative: "Sprechen Sie Deutsch" and bingo, we have a common means of communication. Even if you are both fairly inept, if you can switch between a couple of languages, it's easier to communicate.

In the time it would take you to pick up the language you wouldn't be able to make a living - every skill and qualification you possess would be rendered obselete by the fact that you cannot communicate, at all. You might be able to get around this with prior knowledge of the language which would allow you to adapt and learn much quicker, without that problematic period.

Exactly. For all your skills, experience, intelligence, whatever in your home country, as soon as you enter one where you don't speak the language, you are essentially entirely useless.

So if I'm trying to work as an accountant, lawyer, nurse, doctor, engineer or any occupation - even a newsagent cashier .. I can just wave my hands and make gestures till the person I am with understands what I'm saying ... right?

No...no...if there's anything Hollywood has taught us, it's that everyone on earth understands english if you yell it at them at half-speed with exaggerated intonation :rofl:

 

[katietheskatie]

Not really, if you have made up your mind that you want to stay in country where they dont speak english, then learning the language is a breeze. ITs only a problem when you dont like the place where are you staying.

bullshit.

i think this would be a really good idea .. like, most european students at my uni speak awesome english, and more often than not speak a couple of other languages, because it's compulsory at school from a younger age. i seriously think all kids should take a language from early primary through to year 12, like someone else said, it teaches you way more about english and its structure than actual english class ever will. it's weird, but it's true.

and i think it's so fucking ignorant to be like "well when i go overseas people can speak english to me, so why bother?" i love the fact that people here pay out those who can't speak english as well as we do, but we expect everyone overseas to speak english to us so we don't have to bother learning their language.

 

[Iron]

Im happy to orgainically learn foreign languages where a practical need arises.
I agree that there's a lot of enriching value to learning another language. I also agree that it actually does lead to better English skills.
But I cant help but think that it's a waste of time to study it at uni.

Exchange programs are more useful. Or even taking in new immigrants. Picking up their language would only be a fraction of the benifit.

 

[volition]

I think this is an idiotic idea, and completely unnecessary. Who honestly CARES that we're monolingual? If we needed people who know more languages, then it would pay to BE one of those people, so therefore there is already enough incentive.

Even if it is 'bad' to be monolingual, I STILL don't think it's really going to do much if we're forced to learn a language. Guess what happens when people don't want to learn? They don't!

What's stopping everyone from just doing the same language and then we just don't have a good distribution of languages? The scheme would be rendered rather useless in this case too.

Besides, if you get a 10% bonus just for doing it, then there's nothing stopping you from just "doing a language" but putting in next to 0 effort into it.

 

[frog12986]

Maybe we should encourage students to get the English language right before we start pushing other languages?

Agree 100%.

Does anyone here know that a verb is not a 'doing word' as you are taught at school?

They claim that we are monolingual, but aren't most nations? I certainly don't see the Chinese President or Japanese Prime Minister speaking english.

 

[_dhj_]

Agree 100%.

Does anyone here know that a verb is not a 'doing word' as you are taught at school?

They claim that we are monolingual, but aren't most nations? I certainly don't see the Chinese President or Japanese Prime Minister speaking english.

Most Chinese and Japanese students learn English from primary school though.

I don't think we should force students to study a second language. Their selection will be arbitrary and there's no guarantee that what they learn will be useful in the workforce. Additionally, if we teach our kids a second language we would increase their employment mobility - worsening the brain drain resulting from our most skilled workers going overseas.

 

[circusmind]

Even if it is 'bad' to be monolingual, I STILL don't think it's really going to do much if we're forced to learn a language. Guess what happens when people don't want to learn? They don't!

If language-learning is accepted as a fact of life, then people will become multilingual. In other countries where languages are taught consistently, it becomes just like any other subject. Even if you hate maths, you still generally graduate high school with some degree of numeracy.

They claim that we are monolingual, but aren't most nations? I certainly don't see the Chinese President or Japanese Prime Minister speaking english.

The majority of the world population speaks more than one language. Japanese PM Shinzo Abe speaks English.

 

[_dhj_]

If language-learning is accepted as a fact of life, then people will become multilingual. In other countries where languages are taught consistently, it becomes just like any other subject. Even if you hate maths, you still generally graduate high school with some degree of numeracy.

I just think language is something that you can only effectively learn by actually living in a country, or with someone that speaks it. It's inefficient to 'teach' a second language in schools, because unless the student is dedicated to learning the language outside its native environment, she will forget the language in a few years time.

 

[circusmind]

I just think language is something that you can only effectively learn by actually living in a country, or with someone that speaks it. It's inefficient to 'teach' a second language in schools, because unless the student is dedicated to learning the language outside its native environment, she will forget the language in a few years time.

For sure. It takes consistent effort for a student to achieve and maintain competence in a foreign language. However, if we didn't have such a culture of monolingualism, there'd be no problem here. European kids graduate high school but many still retain their languages because there are interesting bands/movies/books/papers available in those languages, and people to talk to. Ultimately, many will lose a large chunk of what they learn if they don't practise it, but I've found that once people are exposed to a foreign language in sufficient depth, they find it worthwhile enough to follow up opportunities to use their knowledge.

If we do foreign languages K-12 as other comparable nations do, kids will graduate with fluency that isn't easily forgotten

 

[_dhj_]

For sure. It takes consistent effort for a student to achieve and maintain competence in a foreign language. However, if we didn't have such a culture of monolingualism, there'd be no problem here. European kids graduate high school but many still retain their languages because there are interesting bands/movies/books/papers available in those languages, and people to talk to. Ultimately, many will lose a large chunk of what they learn if they don't practise it, but I've found that once people are exposed to a foreign language in sufficient depth, they find it worthwhile enough to follow up opportunities to use their knowledge.

If we do foreign languages K-12 as other comparable nations do, kids will graduate with fluency that isn't easily forgotten

Europe is different because the countries are so close to each other. Evitably there is a cultural melting pot, especially given that European countries have always been geographical neighbours to one another in art and religion, politics and war. Instead, we should compare ourselves with countries like China, Japan and the United States, which are all monolingual countries.

 

[circusmind]

Europe is different because the countries are so close to each other. Evitably there is a cultural melting pot, especially given that European countries have always been geographical neighbours to one another in art and religion, politics and war. Instead, we should compare ourselves with countries like China, Japan and the United States, which are all monolingual countries.

The US is becoming more bilingual every year....but I take your point. Still, I think given the speed of globalisation, languages will become more important whatever your location.

 

[_dhj_]

The US is becoming more bilingual every year....but I take your point. Still, I think given the speed of globalisation, languages will become more important whatever your location.

I agree that in an ideal world we ought to be bilingual. However, for a country to become bilingual there needs to be a historical catalyst though, such as receiving a huge influx of migrants from another country, or being conquered by a foreign power. Alternatively there needs to be a great demand in the workforce for us to learn a particular foreign language. It's quite possible for say, Chinese, to become that language in the future. However I don't think there's a point in teaching a second language per se.

 

[kami]

Another thing to take into consideration when dictating the study of languages is that someone who has learned several languages will generally be adept at picking up others since they've trained themselves to absorb such information. So students would not simply be learning say German, French or Mandarin but would be learning how to learn so to speak. Which allows for much self-directed learning of other languages later on in life.

 

[Iron]

I dont want to sound Orwellian, but I think that in many ways vast chunks of language have been rendered dead and meaningless. Expressing what we feel through words takes a back seat to actually feeling those things. We've surrendered to the barbarians. I mean, look at TV/movies. Most kids wouldnt have a clue about the various tricks designed to manipulate them because they lack the articulation, vocabularly and attention span to critique.
That's a global truth, whatever language.

 

[Iron]

? If anything, the speed of globalisation makes languages less important, thanks to the superior cultural power of the West (take Hollywood)

 

[xeuyrawp]

Maybe we should encourage students to get the English language right before we start pushing other languages?

I'd disagree. You cannot even start to understand English until you learn another language, imo.

I'd agree with you if we're talking about lower students, but unless you're struggling with English on the most basic level, learning another language will improve your ability with it drastically.

Ask any school which has compulsory language requirements. For example, all the Jewish schools have large groups of terrible students (Jewish parents of special-needs kids refuse to send their kids to special-needs non-Jewish schools), yet they all do very well in the HSC. See results of Moriah, Masada, and Emanuel in English.

Obviously this is a tangent, but schools which are eager to have compulsory language requirements will usually exempt students who are struggling with English and are performing poorly in English Standard. That being said, we’re talking about native speakers here.

Another thing to take into consideration when dictating the study of languages is that someone who has learned several languages will generally be adept at picking up others since they've trained themselves to absorb such information. So students would not simply be learning say German, French or Mandarin but would be learning how to learn so to speak. Which allows for much self-directed learning of other languages later on in life.

Well that's contingent on having a metalinguistic understanding, which also leads to improved ability in one's native tongue. And you are 100% right - learning another language is just slotting in the new lexical and grammatical forms with your own language's and understanding how and, more importantly, why they differ.

Edit:

Agree 100%.

Does anyone here know that a verb is not a 'doing word' as you are taught at school?

They claim that we are monolingual, but aren't most nations? I certainly don't see the Chinese President or Japanese Prime Minister speaking english.

Case in point: a) A verb is a doing word. You only think it isn't because English sentences with statives (I was sitting when he arrived.), intransitives (Then I smiled.), etc don't have a direct object. If you learnt any other language, you would understand this.
b) Both the Chinese President and the Japanese Prime Minister are fluent in 'english'.

I think a few people in the thread are missing the real point: That learning another language produces generic skills, not specific ones. Being able to speak with someone in another language is great, but being able to properly understand communication is better.