All students may be required to study a second language. (2 Viewers)

[Serius]

What a fucking stupid idea. The only language you need to know is English. We live in australia, thats our national language. Further more English is basically an international language, its the language of trade and anyone in a non english country who is serious about business or traveling or whatever will learn english.

Why the hell would we need to know other languages? why should it be forced upon us?

 

[withoutaface]

NO.

Because then you get Asians who already get UAIs of 100.00, getting 10% added onto that because they already know a language other than English.

There's the old mathmite!

 

[circusmind]

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

It brings us closer to people who don't speak our language. Just because we speak the emerging lingua franca, doesn't mean having a couple of other languages isn't an enormous, enormous asset.

 

[circusmind]

What a fucking stupid idea. The only language you need to know is English. We live in australia, thats our national language. Further more English is basically an international language, its the language of trade and anyone in a non english country who is serious about business or traveling or whatever will learn english.

Why the hell would we need to know other languages? why should it be forced upon us?

1.) The vast majority of the world does not speak English.
2.) We live in Australia, but some of us like to actually check out the rest of the world for work, pleasure, education, etc.
3.) How very arrogant to expect others to learn your language while you refuse to attempt theirs.

 

[katietheskatie]

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.

yeah, the united states is heaps monolingual .. there are entire spanish-language tv networks, spanish grocery stores, even the loudspeaker announcements at disneyland are in both english and spanish.

What a fucking stupid idea. The only language you need to know is English. We live in australia, thats our national language. Further more English is basically an international language, its the language of trade and anyone in a non english country who is serious about business or traveling or whatever will learn english.

Why the hell would we need to know other languages? why should it be forced upon us?

edit; awesome example of the complete and total ignorance i was referring to before.

 

[_dhj_]

yeah, the united states is heaps monolingual .. there are entire spanish-language tv networks, spanish grocery stores, even the loudspeaker announcements at disneyland are in both english and spanish.

That is due to the ethnic makeup and historical reasons as I have mentioned. It is not as if average Americans will learn Spanish for the sake of it. It's the same in any ethnic community within Sydney - such as Leichardt, Ashfield or Randwick. No doubt you'll find an abundance of Italian, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew etc. written on shop windows and spoken on the streets.

 

[circusmind]

That is due to the ethnic makeup and historical reasons as I have mentioned. It is not as if average Americans will learn Spanish for the sake of it. It's the same in any ethnic community within Sydney - such as Leichardt, Ashfield or Randwick. No doubt you'll find an abundance of Italian, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew etc. written on shop windows and spoken on the streets.

Not to the same extent, by any means. Some areas in the States will soon be majority hispanic. If I was living in the US, I'd definitely be learning Spanish.

 

[circusmind]

I'm all for making a second language compulsory, but not at the cost of distorting University entry scores.

ftw.

 

[xeuyrawp]

1.) The vast majority of the world does not speak English.
2.) We live in Australia, but some of us like to actually check out the rest of the world for work, pleasure, education, etc.
3.) How very arrogant to expect others to learn your language while you refuse to attempt theirs.

4.

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.

You are seriously deluded aren't you. Maybe you should read this:
http://australianrant.blogspot.com/2007/06/jewtube.html

Scroll down to my commentary on Arabic being a 'goofy language'.

Arabic's far less goofy than English. English: Case system for pronouns, but not for nouns. Word order essential, unless you're switching voices, then goodnes knows what you do: put in 'was' sometimes, other shitty words the other times. Auxillary verbs floating around and make no sense. Ridiculous tense and aspect system. Phonology impossible to learn without just accepting it as is. Stupid alphabet tacked together from about fifteen different languages (with respective lexico-grammatical and phonological quirks). Prepositions rarely being always attached to verbs. Etc, etc.

Arabic: Different form of grapheme depending where it is in the word. Lots of consonantal clusters.

I'm all for making a second language compulsory, but not at the cost of distorting University entry scores.

For once we agree. You'd have to allow students who are struggling with English to opt out of that, though.

Edit: I wish the poll was public. I'd be interested to see the relationship between those who voted yes/no and those who've had to properly study another language.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

In a world where more people are learning English - it makes more sense to to be better at English.

More and more people understand English than before, so it only makes sense to focus on english.

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.

yeah i would have to say i agree with you

it takes a long time to learn a second language well enough to be fluent in it. i don't see how taking up another language for the HSC is going to solve any supposed "language crisis" when most people will exit school knowing the basics and really not much else. knowing how to greet someone and count to 20 is really not going to do much for you, ok.

besides, i really think that competence in speaking one's native language is more important than being multilingual. if you're not even literate in your mother tongue, how are you going to learn a totally unfamiliar language? it might seem obvious but you have to be competent in one language in order to learn another, how else are you going to be able to translate and learn new vocabulary? there are people in australia who have lived here all their lives and still cannot string together a complex sentence (or even a simple one) i'd say that is the real "crisis" here, if there is one at all.

also, rewarding people with UAI points on the basis that they studied another language is bullshit. wow, so you can speak elementary spanish now, well done. who cares. it doesn't make you more deserving of academic reward than someone who only speaks English.

i agree that from a business point of view it's beneficial to learn another language, and it definitely would open up opportunities for you if you could speak multiple languages, but i object to the idea that it should be compulsory. and before anyone asks, yes i still think that English should be compulsory for the simple reason that it is the official language of this country and if you don't know it you are screwed over, to be blunt. if we lived in japan we'd have to learn japanese, wouldn't we? it's simply about being competent in the language that you will be expected to use fluently every day (unless you move somewhere else of course).

 

[circusmind]

yeah i would have to say i agree with you

it takes a long time to learn a second language well enough to be fluent in it. i don't see how taking up another language for the HSC is going to solve any supposed "language crisis" when most people will exit school knowing the basics and really not much else. knowing how to greet someone and count to 20 is really not going to do much for you, ok.

I'd propose doing a foreign language for the duration of primary and secondary schooling. Kids in European schools invariably graduate with fluency in at least one foreign language.

besides, i really think that competence in speaking one's native language is more important than being multilingual. if you're not even literate in your mother tongue, how are you going to learn a totally unfamiliar language? it might seem obvious but you have to be competent in one language in order to learn another, how else are you going to be able to translate and learn new vocabulary? there are people in australia who have lived here all their lives and still cannot string together a complex sentence (or even a simple one) i'd say that is the real "crisis" here, if there is one at all.

I don't think illiteracy is really that big a problem amongst school leavers in Australia, though I'm willing to be proven wrong. In any case, as was said above, learning a foreign language is only beneficial to your understanding of your own mother tongue.

 

[watatank]

it takes a long time to learn a second language well enough to be fluent in it. i don't see how taking up another language for the HSC is going to solve any supposed "language crisis" when most people will exit school knowing the basics and really not much else. knowing how to greet someone and count to 20 is really not going to do much for you, ok.

they'd have to revamp the way languages are taught or something. the hsc japanese i did was relatively basic tbh...it isn't going to serve me well in the outside world.

 

[UnIqUe PrInCeSs]

As we know, Australia is viewed in the International Community as racist, uncultured and inhabited by monocultural, ignorant bogans. This perception is largely accurate, but we as a nation are too insular to realise it. One of the reasons for this is that we are monolingual, and evidently proud of it as shown by some people in this thread.

I think making our country [arbitrarily] multilingual would make us less racist, less ignorant and more sophisticated, just like the cultured Europeans.

This is enough of a reason.

 

[iamsickofyear12]

To properly learn a language at school you need to do it over several years, not just 1 or 2, and even then it might not work all that well....

....I did Japanese for about 7 consecutive years but ended up knowing nothing because I didn't remember anything year to year. Basically I just re-did the usual hello, how are you, my name is... every year and I don't even know how to say that anymore.

 

[iamsickofyear12]

As we know, Australia is viewed in the International Community as racist, uncultured and inhabited by monocultural, ignorant bogans. This perception is largely accurate, but we as a nation are too insular to realise it. One of the reasons for this is that we are monolingual, and evidently proud of it as shown by some people in this thread.

I think making our country [arbitrarily] multilingual would make us less racist, less ignorant and more sophisticated, just like the cultured Europeans.

This is enough of a reason.

Racism is not always a bad thing... and I think you may be confusing ignorance with either stupidity or just not caring. A fair percentage of people are idiots, and I know plenty about other cultures but I choose not to care. Sophistication is overrated.

 

[UnIqUe PrInCeSs]

typical bogan thinks the world starts and ends in australia

this is why we'll always be a cultural backwater behind every other 1st world nation in progress

 

[iamsickofyear12]

typical bogan thinks the world starts and ends in australia

this is why we'll always be a cultural backwater behind every other 1st world nation in progress

been to America lately?

 

[HotShot]

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.

YOu will be surprised. More and more people from countries where english is not a main language are learning it. If you go to Russia, India, KAzakhstan, LAos, Mali, Kenya - there are people who know english - at least a little bit. Obviously you didnt get my point, take those countries which I mentioned before - there would be hardly anyone speaking Japanese in those countries.

The whole point is that the world in general - has an increaseing population of people who can speak english -this trend continues to grow.

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.

Dont know what you are talking about here -language quite simply is a communications tool - you dont need to write essay or a thesis in a different language.

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.

LOL, Firstly its is very very very difficult to be proficient in more than one language. If your native language is say Japanese and you live/studied in Japan and you moved to Australia for work - you may still know english, but you would be much better at speaking Japanese than english. There are very few people, very few - that are actually really fluent in multiple language - and these guys for the UN as translators.

Anything is more effective if you are good it. My whole point is, you shouldnt have to learn a language by going to classes or being forced into one.

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

You will be surprised how much is communicated just by the movement of lips, facial expressions and hand gestures. As they say about 60% of communication has to do with body.

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.

False statement, there are people who made living and are making one in foreign countries without having to learn the native language of the foreign country. Dont make assumptions.

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?

Would you work as an accountant or whatever if you knew you couldnt do your job properly? If you knew you are up to it then why not? Over time your communication skills improve.

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.

Wrong, as babies we observed things, we observed changes, we observed what your parents - WE OBSERVED noises, actions. This is how we learnt through observation - nobody taught us anything as such. Our basic communication came through observation and using this form of communication we were able to be taught.

 

[KFunk]

Thinking in terms of the NSW unit system - what about kids who want to go into areas where they are probably better off doing other subjects - e.g. bio, chem, phys, 4U math for a biotechnology/med science degree?

 

[Tulipa]

LOL, Firstly its is very very very difficult to be proficient in more than one language. If your native language is say Japanese and you live/studied in Japan and you moved to Australia for work - you may still know english, but you would be much better at speaking Japanese than english. There are very few people, very few - that are actually really fluent in multiple language - and these guys for the UN as translators.

Actually you've very wrong about that. My mother learned Spanish when she was a teenager, lived in Spain for a year about twenty years ago and is still fluent in it. She only spent two years really doing Spanish comprehensively. After that, it was easy. Once you get it down, you can be fluent for life and it only takes a year or two study as well as living in the country.

And again you're wrong about not many people being fluent in multiple languages. As has been pointed out in this thread European schools make it compulsory to know two languages. Switzerland for one has five official languages and most people will know at least two or three of those.