Bad Language Skills

[kawanabe]

It must be wonderful to be able to converse fluently in another language.

To those ABers that can - How did you achieve it?
I have tried,maybe not hard enough,but lack the confidence and the"Mindset"to carry it further than"Basic understanding".

Should the UK Government now be thinking of putting more money into training/education in Language Skills,now that the UK has to make its own way in the World re Trade Deals.

[tonyav]

Well there were 310,600 on the 29th of January 2015, 237SJ.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/state-welsh-language-number-people-8538272

[tamborine]

Tune into the radio/tv stn of the language youre learning. Or watch dvd of the language, to rewind on misunderstood words.

[237SJ]

^ as their first language?

[gness]

You do, Tilly......Mikey has joked about not speaking Welsh......x

[tonyav]

Well 43% of the 310,600 always speak in Welsh at home ( according to the graph on the link that I posted ).

[Jackdaw33]

About 19% of the population use Welsh as their daily language. It is a fascinating language, on one level it looks very complicated but on another it is very simple. It is one of the few languages that I know where you can translate from English literally word for word. The major stumbling block for most learners is the concept of initial consonant mutation, unknown in all but Celtic languages.

[237SJ]

Well my friends and relatives in Wales wouldnt know the Welsh language if it came up an hit them in the face

[tonyav]

I doubt if I would either if I lived in Wales.

[237SJ]

Tony - agreed. Would my family from Cornwall and Devon know how to converse in Cornish? I don't think so

[tonyav]

I'll bet that there aren't many Cornish speakers these days.

[Jackdaw33]

Cornish is a dead language which has been artificially revived. The last native Cornish speaker died in 1773. Incidentally it is very similar to Welsh.

[tonyav]

Thanks JD.

[mikey4444]

Welsh is spoken by about 19% of the population, according to the last census. In South Wales where I live, the proportion is much lower.

A number of primary and secondary Welsh schools exist, where the complete syllabus is taught in the medium of Welsh, although if my two nieces are anything to go by, the language isn't used very much in everyday life, if at all. In North Wales, much more use is made of Welsh.

Children in Britain seem to pick foreign languages very easily and quickly, providing they are taught properly. Its when you get older that it becomes more difficult I find.

[Cloverjo]

My grandparents were Welsh, but they didn't speak the language. The one word they taught me was 'yakky da' :))

I was in Spain last week, and whenever I said 'Ola' to a Spaniard they'd reply with 'Hello, how are you?' It's quite embarrassing that we're so bad at languages. It's not just us Brits though. As far as I know many native English speakers from other countries are as bad. E.g. Aus, NZ, USA.

[wildwood]

As one who was born in Holland and due to family circumstances had to learn English as an 8yo, I found it easy to learn the words but the grammar is not easy to comprehend. Conversing with others happened very quickly but even now, 3 scores later, I still have trouble putting longish sentences together in a proper order.

Although I can converse in German, French, beside of course the Dutch and English, I really feel that one can not fully comprehend a language other than that which one grew up with as a toddler.

[mikey4444]

Jo......the problem is that us Brits can make ourselves understood almost everywhere, not just Spain. English is now the main lingua franca of the planet, mostly die to the internet.

[Sqad]

A smattering of English.
A modicum of French.
Bit of German.
A "passing " of Arabic."
A nodding of Spanish.

[Cloverjo]

Yes, Mikey. I've found that whenever I'm abroad people want to practise their English, so even if you try to speak a few words of their language they'll answer in English.

[waterboatman]

I've found that too jo.

[mikey4444]

It always amazes me that kids in Europe, some quite young, seem to speak very good English, while our kids struggle to read a menu in French or any other language. Perhaps they teach languages differently over there ?

Do they perhaps teach kids to actually speak English, instead of years of teaching how to conjugate verbs ?

I never learnt French at my Secondary Modern School in the 60's, but many of my friends did but still can't converse in the language.