As a native speaker (I'm British), speaking English is an easy way to communicate with new people I meet on my travels. But the down side is that, even if you are determined to learn their language, foreigners will insist on speaking back at you in English! This can be a frustrating barrier to learning a foreign language. As a German language learner, I therefore found it necessarily to mask my English accent (not a bad idea anyway) and try very hard to sound like a native German speaker. The result was that many Germans then asked me "So, are you Dutch?" Funny but frustrating!
Philc854 OH MY GOD, IT DRIVES ME MAD I have a group of friends online made up of Americans, Germans and Dutch folk, and I'll try to speak German (we all do) to practice and everyone just replies in English and it makes me crazy
Funny. I speak dutch. But when people (except germans ) hear me speaking dutch, they always think that I am german. But have fun wth learning german. I also learned german, it's quite easy if you want to make the effort. But never learn dutch , our language is worldwide known to be useless and everybody always expect us to be excellent english speakers ......... sometimes I would wish that I was a native german or english speaker
I am brazilian and I learned English when I was a teenager. I have never been abroad but I use pretty much my English on the Internet by reading and watching videos.
My friend is the same. Totally self-taught using sports, chat rooms, and English media online in Brazil. Agora estou estudando portugues nos estados unidos, que desafio
My cousin is learning English too because in Japan they force them to the sad thing is its American English not English English which is my native dialect
Sometimes I wonder if China had been the first civilisation to invent computers, what would their software code even look like? Would they begin by inventing some system like Ascii that encoded many thousands of their language's characters instead of topping out at 256? Would these have any practical use in programming or would they have to simplify their writing system drastically to adapt to early computer screens? And what about the keyboard? Since the keyboards used by almost every language today are an adaptation of the ones used to write English in the Latin alphabet. Imagine if it had been the other way round and the keyboards used in English-speaking countries were a modification of the devices made to type Chinese characters.
@@holger_p "yield", "volatile", and "void" are all normal English words to use. Yield is on street signs when you are supposed to yield. Volatile would be on a warning. And void is important for bank talk. I'm a software developer, and while I agree that you don't have to know English to code, it will definitely help. It will be the most useful with libraries. It is easier to remember something if the name makes logical sense, rather than just memorizing.
@@holger_p void in programming means you aren't returning anything. The return value is void, meaning "empty". A normal sentence using void would be like "space is a void". Yield return is returning values one at a time. Yielding means to wait your turn, basically. Someone obviously doesn't need to learn English to code. I'm not really arguing against you about that. But those words are more common than Shakespeare, laws, or contracts. Even just knowing the meaning of the words, helps with remembering them versus memorizing letters to type to put down to do a task. All I'm saying is it is easier to remember a word if it means something.
@@JontyLevine I'm curious too. Any language that does not use an alphanumeric system but rather has symbols that morph and change depending on meaning and position are very challenging for computers. I kind of think that if China invented the first computer systems, they would've come up with a very simplified version of Chines just for computer stuff, I man, with very early computing, you wouldn't have the luxury of using something like unicode. Who knows, maybe Chines today would be very different because of that.
I will add also that in some places, English is perceived as “neutral”. For example, modern India is actually a confederation of many different peoples and languages, with a long history of conflict. In south India, there are many mother tongues (Kannada, Telugu, etc), and Hindi is associated with northern aggression. “Why should Hindi be our national language? Then all the northerners have the advantage, as it’s their mother language. If we all have to learn something new, like English, we all begin the same.” Seems to be the attitude. I am sure that the same preference for English could be found in many “new” countries which have united previously opposed groups.
That is why, in 1975, when three companies from France, Germany and Italy formed Iveco (the truck makers), they chose English as their corporate language. As one of the directors wryly observed: "It puts us all at an equal disadvantage."
I am Korean but I could unterstand this very well. and it was really nice. My academy teacher said watch this video for my homework and I watched it!!!! and I have to do speech with this video on this Friday.... oh I'm soooooo nervous....
@@charlesdesouza9139 Regarding the economic power and influence that Germany has today I would say they might lost the battle but didn't lose the war ;) (which btw was actually a British war AGAINST Germany in order to not allowing them to become the global superpower).
Paul Li the American education system is a MESS (and that’s putting it lightly). I can go on and on about why but one of the main reasons is that the education system isn’t standard at a federal level, it is left to each individual state on what should be learned and what not learned. For example, here in California it is required for students to take at least 2 years of a foreign language to graduate high school and there is the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam) which is a test students have to pass in order to graduate, but many of those foreign language class are introductory level and once they graduate colleges have different requirements to graduate and may or may not have more advanced classes for that foreign language so few people actually continue to learn or practice a second language. I can’t speak for other states and what their requirements are but it can be totally different, they might only require one year of a foreign language, maybe no foreign language at all. Each state varies in their requirements. Not to mention that some schools are very underfunded, the high school I went to I graduated in 2013 and my brother who is 7 years younger than me had the same textbooks as me! Same thing for middle school. Plus, depending what part of the country you find yourself in you might be discouraged to speak a second language.
Agreed. It's a matter of us taking for granted the accommodation of the English language, I think it's formed communities/cultures that don't see the need to learn another language anymore. Maybe someday this will start changing!
@Patrick True. However, as a result, American travelers who speak a foreign language at more than an elementary level are especially well received in countries where that language is spoken. Example: I'm running in a park in Hamburg and see people entering the planetarium. I'm curious about what the planetarium looks like inside, so I enter, too. A lady taking tickets tells me (in German) that a show about the universe in 3D is about to start, and tickets are 5 euro. I say (with an obvious American accent): Ach, ich habe kein Geld, weil ich renne. (Oh, I have no money, because I'm running.) She can see I'm in running attire, and who goes shopping or needs money while running? She says: Wir können ein Geschenk machen. (We can make a gift.) I say: Wirklich? Das wäre sehr nett von Ihnen. (Really? That would be very nice of you.) So I got the last and an excellent seat to a sold-out show for free, and had an interesting conversation in German with a woman, whose daughter at the last moment couldn't make it (hence this one seat still available). This sort of thing happened to me on almost a daily basis, while I was in Germany. I really love the German language. That's why I kept learning it even after 4 courses at university.
I live in Brazil and practically no one speaks english here, everything is dubbed and quickly translated to Portuguese so some people just don't want to learn English. In Brazil they teach English in school but it's very bad and you don't really learn much, just the verb "to be" and that's it. Finding someone that can speak English is hard, but not impossible, most of the ones that speak English live in big cities.
It seems you need to have a superpower which speaks the language for this language to spread. As long as the Esperanto-Empire does not exist, i guess the answer will be "nope"
Question of the day: "How well do the people in my area know English?" Well considering that I live in England, near London, I would guess that at least 1/5 speak some English.
As a Malaysian, I would say most of the people around me understand English but not everybody is comfortable with speaking in English. We use a lot of english words in our everyday conversations though, because Malay has a lot of borrowed words from english.
I'm from South Korea. The education system here places much importance on English. Almost any Korean will agree that in order to get into a prestigious college, mathematics, English, and Korean are the top three most important subjects. So people tend to equate English proficiency with academic excellence, and I think that puts even more pressure on students. TOEIC (Test Of English for International Communication) scores are not optional but mandatory for a majority of companies in Korea. So college graduates and job seekers spend a lot of time and money learning English. I have heard statements that English proficiency and standard of living go hand in hand, and that most well-off countries tend to have high English proficiency. However, I think the South Korean society is putting too much emphasis on English. Not everyone needs to speak English fluently, but everyone is spending so much time and money on it, which seems unnecessary in my opinion. And the English proficiency does not seem that high compared to the money this country spends.
but... but your english is so so beautifully written :-). (그런데 저는 한국말을 배우고 있어요! ㅋㅋ. 사실 한국에서 영어를 가르치고 한국말을 관심이 있어졌어요! 하지만 한국말을 배우는것이 오래 동안 걸리 는 것 같아요.... I hope my Korean will one day be as good as your English)
There are many more reasons for learning and using English beyond test scores, and therein lies the answer to why S. Korea spends so much time and resources on English education with so little to show for it. The other problem is the culture - nobody expects perfection, but it seems that unless they think they can speak perfectly, Koreans won't even try out of fear of making mistakes. It is a shame, because it is self-limiting.
Ginnie M, It isn't that way only in South Korea. I can attest the same attitude in Israel as well. Furthermore, when I was a child we started learning English in the 4th grade. Today's children already begin by the 1st grade coinciding with Hebrew or Arabic.
@@TengkuAmier but its technically English... and this is very obvious in so many levels. -Speak to random stranger -Read news papers -Watch television -Read signages -Read any document presented in government -Read and watcg literaries like books -Listen to radios -Study there, and I wouldnt hear English as taught being foreign langauge ...etc. Even history speaks for itself.
@Ozyc Ĝi (aŭ iu simila artefarita lingvo) devas esti, aŭ homoj estas stultuloj, kiuj ne kapablas paroli eĉ iun komunan lingvon. La angla kaj iu ajn alia natura lingvo estas tro malfacila por esti VERA 'lingua franca'. Kion do signifas 'lingua franca'? Ĉu ĝi estas io alia ol internacia lingvo? Ĉu 'lingua franca' estas nur lingvo por elito?! Homoj, kiuj facile ellernas lingvojn, ofte pensas ke Esperanto estas ludilo, ĉar ili kapablas ekbalbuti en ĝi tre facile. Sed ne estas tiel por la plimulto de la homaro.
I'm Indonesian, and everyone speaks English (good or broken) 😂 because we have to learn it from the first grade. I'm currently learning French, but I still love the practicality and the simplicity of English.
You are the only person so deceive English as simplistic. Native speaker here and upon learning new languages I have realized English is a cumbersome language.
thomas emeryiii Actually, English grammar is simpler than most languages I know of, since it lacks cases that languages like Ukrainian have a lot of and have simple conjugation and not much tenses unlike French
I really apreciated the fact of knowing english when I met an Egyptian guy, he was kinda bad at spanish and I was really bad at Arabic so we spoke English lol
I've been to many, many hostels in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa, and I've spoken to travelers from all continents and from many, many countries (including China). I'm fluent in English. And English was always the default language we all used when we communicated with each other. It was automatic. That, to me, shows how English is the behemoth lingua franca. Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, French and Russian--the only credible competitors to English--are left way, way in the dust. You can use those languages in their respective spheres of influence, but you can't outside them. Only English works this way as a true lingua franca.
5 лет назад+24
In fact, there are more Spanish native speakers around the world than English native speakers, but there are more people who study English as a second language, yeah, English is so useful to me for comunicate with almost anyone out of my contry!
5 лет назад+15
@Frx bx01 Flase, also LangFocus confirm what I just wrote, The language with more native speakers is Mandarine, followed by Spanish, and in third place is English, but English is the language that more people learn as a second language
As far as French is concerned, it's all the same useful in numerous countries outside the French-speaking world , it's well spread in Maghreb, Lebanon, Egypt, it's often the first foreign language in English- speaking countries ( Britain, Ireland, New-Zealand, English Canada) and even more frequently the second foreign language (Italy, USA, Australia, Germany, Mexico and so on...)
@ Marc Moulin I've been to Morocco and Egypt. I saw a lot of French signs throughout. But the only language other than Arabic that came out of the mouths of people I met was English. I remember staying in this riad in Morocco as the only guest, and the host was this very kind Moroccan man. He spoke to me in English with a French accent. I tried to speak in French with him, but he insisted that we speak in English instead. So I obliged. Sorry to say but even in the French sphere of influence in North Africa, French is losing its hold over the people.
I just went to Japan. Most people there speak only broken English at best. Some who work with tourists speak it well. But I did hear overhear a German speaker and a Spanish speaker getting by pretty decently in English, and also a Japanese speaker and an Italian speaker communicating using English. It certainly is the first language people try if they don't speak the same language. No question it is the world's common tongue.
Here's the thing: Europeans learn English using textbooks published in Oxford or Cambridge. The "British English" they hear and learn is the Queen's English or Oxford or BBC English. However only about 5% of Britons speak that way, and when foreigners come to the UK, most locals they encounter speak with a Cockney, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham or Scottish or Irish accent, which they may find difficult to understand.
Mind you, we also learn English pronunciation from American movies with subtitles. After hearing a lot of them, the British accents sound a bit weird to you and take some time to get used to. Some are harder than others, of course.
no. we learn english basically how everyone else speaks it, and the pronunciation is flowing from the tap (like this video) so no need to feel special about your accent
Nope, I've learnt English watching British TV series. You are talking about a time before Internet, when you had only the books and a teacher who would tell you what to do.
Here's the actual thing: Europeans learn British English (non-hillbilly English) in schools and the mass media is full of American English, resulting in a mix between the two.
I am a Indian.I study in an English medium school.English really unites the country.All the formal letters, e-mails we write in English.We are even taught Shakespeare in the higher school.
Same here in the Philippines. Although we have Tagalog as a national lingua franca but English is still more widely used in every administrative and commercial communications. Hence, it is not surprising that someone from the provinces, most especially Visayans, are more adept in English than Tagalog.
Funny enough I am an Arab (Egyptian) yet whenever I speak with a Morrocan or Algerian we end up having to use English as their dialect is not understandable by me even though we supposidly speak same language.
Singers and bands from Germany, Sweden, Netherlands etc. sing their songs in English....even if the singer does not know English ! ! This, of curse, is because they want to sell in the "big market"
Not necessarily. In the wake of 1066, English lost a lot of grammatical endings. This means that there are a lot of very short words, which makes it easier to write lyrics that fit in the rhythm in English than in some other languages
People in Sweden and the Netherlands, especially those under the age of 60 and most definitely singers and musical artists talk and understand English like a second language. I am not sure if it is that widely understood and spoken in Germany but I guess in bigger cities and among the younger generations it is. (I am from Sweden and have travelled much in Europe)
I learned English at school first, and then, I heard my half sister speak it once, and although she is a German, she spoke it with a perfect british accent, and I was like, I *want* to do that too! I Started imenselly getting interested, and a friend of mine told me about great games for the blind, and that the truely great ones are available in English only, so there we go! As for now, I can speak English well enough to do every-day-conversations, but when I read the English translation of "Emil und die Detektive" by Erich Kestner, there are thousands of words I need to look up. Concerning my pronunciation, I can do both british and american, and I'm in a really torn state. Currently, I just speak the accent of the other person, but I tend to speak with an american one when I'm alone. So, that's me.
How exactly do you mean? Replies to RUclips comments? In that case, my screen reader reads the notification when it comes up. And if I miss it, I just look in action center. I'm glad that windows 10 has such a thing.
@@karleick6679 Thanks for the reply. I didn't know about "screen reader." It makes sense that smart software is able to read aloud what you can't see. And I assume other software translates your spoken words into written comments and replies. Someday there will be cameras that can bypass the eyes and connect directly to to the part of the brain that processes images. I think even now there's some way the blind can ride a bicycle on a city street, and I don't mean on a tandem bicycle.
@@alwaysuseless Oh no, I actually write using the PC-Keyboard, using the ten-finger-system. That system isn't as easy to explain for me, but like anything, if you frequently use it, it just gets stuck a lifetime. I do the whole controlling with the keyboard actually. When it comes to Smartphones, navigating is pretty easy, but typing is a pain in the but. That's why I, indeed, use the dictation function, although it isn't as reliable, or, in the case of WhatsApp, just do voice messages.
As a Turkish person, although English is nothing like Turkish, English is simple in a way to learn and talk. You don't need to learn a complicated alphabet, you don't drown in cases and its grammar isn't that difficult.
Yes, that's true. It is simpler than many other languages in many respects. But spelling is harder than most languages. This is because English borrows so many words from many languages, each with its own rules for spelling and pronunciation. That is why the spelling is so inconsistent.
@@cjsm1006 English is a Germanic language, and has never dropped all the Germanic spellings. "Knight" used to be pronounced Knekt hundreds of years ago, and has since lost the k sound and the g sound, but is still spelled as if it had them. I'm not sure why English speaking countries seem so intent on keeping their difficult spelling. I am learning German, and while it is very difficult grammatically, it is practically phonetic, and that helps a lot. My mother was Italian, and she loved English because "there's a word for absolutely everything." Any word we like from any other country, we just adopt.
Leeber Gruber Honestly, Esperanto is a great language. Very flexible and simple. I was essentially fluent in a year with only about 15 minutes of study a day. I no longer care if it ever becomes the International Language, it has been a great experience for me and has opened up options for communication and personal enrichment. To articles on many topics written by individuals from around the world. To music and poetry and podcasts that I otherwise would never have found. William Auld is particularly brilliant in my opinion. And you'll never meet a friendlier language community anywhere. Phonzo Cisne Jes, estis bedaŭrinde. Sed ni havas la fratecon de Esperanto. Estas bone vidi alian Esperantiston!
Just a heads up to the anglophones who complain about not being able to practice languages abroad because people will automatically respond in english. As an American I see where you're coming from, but I found that if you just lie and deny the ability to speak english they have no choice but to speak to you in their native language. (Lived in Germany as a teen and as soon as Germans would speak english to me I would just say in german that I didn't speak english and if they continued I'd start speaking spanish.) When I moved to France? I'd speak German or Spanish if they tried to speak english with me. I know it is dishonest but doing this allowed me to improve and profect my foriegn languages. Also, if you ONLY speak english fluently just make up a language. I've had friends do that and it works.
I guess it may depend on where you lived in Germany. Whenever I lived or visited there, I only spoke the German Language to other Germans. The thought never crossed my mind to speak English? Of course, it may have helped that I spoke with a dialectal accent of the region I was at or that I spent most of my town in smaller villages or towns. The only time I actually used some English is when I checked into a business hotel and used my American Passport for an ID. The desk clerk upon seeing my passport started speaking to me in English and I just would answer in German. I was OK with carrying on a bilingual conversation.
I'm a 16 years old boy in Italy, and here English is taught at school for 13 years. Most young people know it well enough (it also depends on how much they study etc.). Older people, however, don't know it as much as young ones, since before about (1980 I think?) at school you could choose between English and French, and most people chose French because of its similarities with Italian and ease of learning.
Interesting, thanks for the bit of information, I've always wondered what language people in western europe countries learnt, in my country everyone learnt Russian (before the early nineties, when a new regime came in) as their first foreign language. I'd like to know what the situation was also in other western countries, if anyone knows.
Actually in Italy all children study english but french is not the second foreign language in every part of the country. In fact, in northern Italy many schools decide to teach germany, and in other areas they decide to teach spanish. Then in secondary schools, students keep learning english and usually can chose another language. For example, I had to chose beetwen german and spanish back in the days. (I chose the second because I studied german for my whole childhood and I've always been hating it) I apologize if I commited grammatical mistakes... I'm better at speaking english than writing.
Matteo Carta Yes, but that's not what I was talking about. I didn't mention any second foreign language, I just said the _first_ foreign language was French instead of English before around 1980. In fact I learned German as second foreign language myself.
My mother, a native English speaker who is also fluent in French, was in Brussels twenty years ago and had to ask two police officers for directions. She spoke to them in French instead of English, assuming that it would be easier because French is one of Belgium's official languages. However, the officers then turned and discussed among themselves IN ENGLISH what to tell her! I know the language situation in Brussels is a bit of a special situation, but still!
I find it strange that there are Dutch speaking Police Officers in Brussels that don't know French! They were either foreign or it just was a special case.
@@bletrick3352 I believe they understood her but didn't think she spoke English so they spoke to each other in English on how to give her the best directions
Interestingly enough, I'm a native English AND Polish speaker, and after growing up in England I moved back to live in Poland for a few years (living in Poland now but moving back to England once COVID decides to calm tf down). Me and my boyfriend of a year now speak predominantly English to each other in everyday conversations, which is a bit unusual since you'd imagine a purely Polish couple both knowing Polish natively and living in Poland would use Polish to communicate, but that's not the case. I think part of it is my laziness since my English is significantly better than my Polish. Despite living in Poland for almost 2 years now, i still use English predominantly with my family and nearly all of my friends here, unless their level of English is low enough that they're not comfortable with speaking it. Usually though, even if they don't speak it I will still use a mixture of predominantly English and Polish and have them reply in Polish.
Sounds like my experience with using Bengali in Bangladesh. I use mostly English despite being native in both- but there’s no question my English is better than Bengali so it’s my natural go to to use.
I don't know if it's your laziness, but if I had known you, I guess, I would be glad that you're keen to speak in English with me - and I suspect that your friends from Poland have similar reason as myself in your case. I'm a native and daily Polish speaker, who mainly practises this apparently _lingua franca_ on the internet by passive consumption. Likewise, I'm also a software developer in Polish team of Swedish company, so I have a few opportunities in a week to try some clear communication with colleagues in different subsidiaries - but you know how it goes, they use Swenglish, we use Polglisz, everybody is happy ;) Thus, I believe your friends are happy to use English with you, as they can train themselves without any concerns that they will not _dogadają się_ with you - as they can easily try to switch to Polish and rely on your help :)
My friends do understand English but they don't really speak that well. One time when I was on a stroll in a mall with my friends I had to buy some stuff while they stayed in a certain spot. A tourist came to them and asked where is the toilet, they understand but couldn't speak and just said, "Yes yes yes yes yes... YES, yes yes..." I'm still laughing about it till this day.
Let's just say that English is truly an eye opening language. My family doesn't speak it though. Also English is not phonetically consistent which makes it a hassle to learn but still I love it.
Wait until you go to the Netherlands, those people are freaks in their language knowledge. It seems they do anything they can to avoid speaking Dutch. I don't think I even heard Dutch when I was there, and no I wasn't just in Amsterdam, in fact I stayed in Rotterdam, still minimum to no Dutch.
@@behradh Sadly is to say I agree, it seems that English influence is so big that they do not care about Dutch anymore. Even their higher education is in English. Is this a nation ready to commit language suicide? ( If that terms exists)
I'm a native English speaker from the UK. You can't learn every language so it's really useful to have a lingua franca, and I find that it's really easy to get by in English all over Europe. I don't think that everybody speaks English, but many people do so it's generally easy to find someone who does. The highest level of English I've come across has been in Sweden, where many young people speak English without a discernible Swedish accent. The standard of English spoken is really excellent in Scandinavia and the Netherlands in particular. I was a bit surprised last time I travelled through Charles de Gaulle international airport in Paris though. I ordered a coffee and the baristas, although they understood my English, only replied in French. I was in transit waiting on a long haul flight so I was really surprised they didn't speak English. Also I was a little bit annoyed because I wanted an Americano but foolishly asked for a "black coffee" so I got an espresso!! Many British people are monolingual and aren't able to communicate well with non-native speakers because they don't know how to modulate the speed they speak at or the words they use. Quite ironic really that their native language is the global lingua franca but they are unable to successfully communicate with non-native speakers... I really hate it when British people say the same thing repeatedly, increasing in volume each time, when the person they are taking to is struggling to understand. They aren't deaf!! Saying the same words only more loudly is not helpful!
Must be different in Norway then, because a couple of my college buddies were Norwegian and while they spoke excellent English, they had discernable Scandinavian accents....
just to say, once in Italy a girl asked me something (she needed help), and doing it she was speaking with a strong scottish accent which was absolutely incomprehensible to my ears, and she was just trying to say it louder instead of use the ''standard'' english pronounciation, showing a certain disappointment after a while. So, instead of slapping her face, I started to speak italian, just to make her understand how does it feel.
When you do not know any other language don't criticize people doing the same to you. Because you were talking in your mother tongue (english) But the barman was doing the same while speaking French ... I hope now you feel the way feel while English speakers talk in English to us.
Most Russians don’t speak English in general, most of my non-linguist friends are either unfamiliar with the language or their level is relatively low. I don't generalize actually, there're a lot of smart young people across the country (who are university's graduates, mostly) who do speak it rather nice. There're also a lot of people who can't understand a word and really want to change it (I work as a private tutor sometimes, trust me, I do know it). However, there're a lot of people, mostly from the working class and/or provincial areas who don’t want to learn English at all due to thinking of it as of an “enemy’s language” - with all this sanction things and international stupidity many Russians don’t wanna expose themselves to cultures of Britain and the US. There’s a phrase said by those who don’t want to let English in their lives: “If somebody wants to talk to me in Russia they must know Russian. If I want to talk to somebody while being abroad... This will never happen because I will never go abroad”. Another thing is that in the Soviet Union it was pretty useless to learn a foreign language, especially English, as it was almost impossible to leave the country. Therefore, most of the teaching techniques are rather inefficient and/or complicated so learning a language was not only senseless but also quite a challenge. Despite that the USSR is thankfully not around anymore, it has been not so much time left, so techniques and methods remain the same, that is why even if someone wants to learn the language they may find it really difficult, a lot more that it actually is. I could learn English mainly because my mother was and still is an English teacher. She’s also an incredibly smart person. She knew that knowing the language would be extremely useful in the future and started introducing me to the language and the culture at the very young age by showing some movies that lacked an official Russian translation and taking me to her job (which is actually a military boarding school for boys). At the age of 7 I started learning English at school with two classes per week (later more). I also had additional lessons with mom and grandma quite often, so I had become completely fluent by the age of 12. Currently I’m 20.
I don't know about all the Russians but in Moscow people under 30 with college degrees usually know at least some English (enough to travel and read technical documents). Also the only place where I see English called "enemy's language" is this page. Please be careful with such generalizations. There are more than enough misconceptions about our country around the world as it is.
Let's take it from the roots: both German-Romance language branches and a Slavic one derived from our one common ancestor - the Indoeuropean, so you won't have a headache like you would've had otherwise if you learned Chinese or Arabian, you get my point. Now, let's sort it out step by step: - Russian is not lingua franca anymore and probably never will be, not only because the USSR collapsed, but also thanks to the hideous state we fellow Russians live in; - as such, before making up your mind whether or not to learn Russian, please be aware that Russian main TV channels are run by government and the mind of a common man is often filled with skilfully constructed bed of lies and general misunderstanding about the outside world. That doesn't mean everyone is racist and want to expel/kill you, but surely there aren't crowds of smiling people on the streets. Even so, all things considered, you can centainly expect a warm welcome and common sense from people, as we are nor aliens nor brainsick imperialists and there are both blinkered mediocres and brilliant potential acquaintances; - now back to the point: you can learn that terrible Cyrillic alphabet in merely one evening and won't be scared by all that frightful ЖЩЪ anymore; - yet learning the language itself (and the phonetics! oh my beloved palatalization!) will probably fuck you up, so you'll need some solid motivation to wade through all that cases and rules and grammar and oh my god how do you speak that living hell why am I always mistaken in some unexpected way? - all things considered, learning Russian for the sake of learning might probably suck you dry, but given the case you are truly into Russian language and culture and history and people, you'll definitely be rewarded.
Moscow and the outer Russia are basically different countries, it's always been like that. Many people I know have some knowledge of English one way or another but I can't tell that they're really fluent or something.
English. People do learn it, albeit they don't really like doing it (and the language isn't taught really well, if you don't learn it on your own you won't learn it). Some people who do want to learn it, learn it.
It is indeed worth learning. If you have an interest, learn it. But I need to warn you - it's a very hard language to take up, even us native speakers make A LOT OF mistakes while talking and, especially, writing. Alphabet isn't really the most complicated thing you'll face if you decide to learn it. The lack of articles isn't a major issue as well. I don't want to spoil it for you, so nuff said. CIA gave it a 4 learning difficulty rating for an English speaker. The highest rating is 5, btw. If you want to start learning the language feel free to contact me, I hope there's a link to my Facebook in my Google account. If there's no just use an email, I always reply. Many Russians are but there's a thing in our culture that they would never tell you. If people find out you're a foreigner they'll be really kind to you, I assure you. Unless they're really dumb but hey, there're dumb racist people all across the globe. Unlike many authoritarian countries, such as North Korea, Venezuela and China you won't really feel this regime here, if you don't dance in a church (but there's a historical explanation why don't you need to do this and why the people are so crazy about it, I personally don't care). Facebook, Twitter, RUclips, Google and Telegram work without any restrictions (there're some but they're for Russian users only, and the companies, as well as the government don't really care about these damn restrictions, this law doesn't really work, like, AT ALL), you won't need a VPN unless you want to watch some really hardcore pervert horse porn or something. The same will go for most of the stupid laws that work (or don't work) here, so Russia would be a really nice place to visit (I know many guys who visited and they liked it here).
And why is that? Because the Romans invaded England and turned the language of the Barbarians into a rich and beautiful language with lots of Latin and Greek words. Gaius Julius Caesar should take credit for it.
@@yolamontalvan9502 Dude it's because English is spoken in North America (with the exception of Mexico), Europe (some parts), Africa (some parts), Asia (again, some parts) and Oceania (most parts). All spanning from far west to far east so due to timezones the sun in the English language "never sets".
@@yolamontalvan9502 the English took over England after the Roman conquests. Ironically the French and Latin were largely brought in from Norsemen (Normans) who had assimilated to French culture.
I'm in Ayutthaya, Thailand. A lot of foreign traveller visit here everyday. But not so many people could speak English for daily basis around here. But they actually could use a little of english for trading and negotiating to Travellers. But many could use that same level of communication in Mandarin, Japanese and maybe French too. Also, I found that even though most of the travellers could speak English, It's very often that French, Chinese and German people does not feel comfortable to speak English. And some doesn't understand English at all. French is the most language that I need to use translator app for help (I use EnglishFrench instead of ThaiFrench which is not possible to understand the result.) While people who native to Latin like Brazilian, Spanish that I was met "always" could speak English. Not to mention Malaysian, Indian that obviously could speak English. Oh, Almost off topics. But very interesting experience about English. There are many of Chinese migration in my parents and grandparents generation lived here, Most of them are from Chaozhou. Then there was a transferred student from China to my school. One of my friend having parents who both came from China, So we introduce them. And surprised that in the end, They speak English to each other. As my friends parents never learn Mandarin. That's the first time I realized that there're many Chinese languages.
I do not speak English, or I shouldn't say I'm fluent. I started watching this channel in order to get extra practice and I must say it worked out well
English is also the lingua franca in the Universe according to both Marvel, DC and Star Wars. And in Andy Weir's books, it's the lingua franca on both Mars and the moon as well.
English as the lingua Franca makes it hard for us English natives to learn other languages. If you're trying to learn French or Spanish and travel to a country where it is the first language, nobody will help you. They all want to speak to you in English because I want to practice English. In Spain it is almost rude. You can talk to them in Spanish and they understand every word but then they answer you in English usually very bad English) without even asking you if English is your native language. So I am finding that non-english natives are making it difficult to learn other languages. I have found a solution that works sometimes. I tell the person that I only speak Spanish and Hungarian. Then they are willing to talk to you in Spanish because nobody speaks Hungarian anywhere
Robert Britton Podrías comenzar por escribir tu comentario en español, y así tendrías (más) respuestas y ayuda en ese idioma. Tu pourrais commencer par écrire ton commentaire en français, et tu aurais (plus) de réponses et d'aide dans cette langue. As you posted your comment in English, I'll do the same. I can't say about other countries, but in Mexico is quite common to get help trying to speak in Spanish. Although it depends a lot on who you speak to. For instance, a salesperson or a front desk clerk will answer in English trying to be polite and making easier the communication (they can speak the language!), but a passerby will help you gladly with your Spanish trying to be polite and because in many cases they don't speak English fluently or not al all. I have had the same experience in English and French, while some people immediately change to Spanish (or even to English in France) to make me feel confortable, mainly in the commercial environment, some others have helped me with my English/French in the every day and academic settings. So "depende..." (it depends) as we say in Spanish. And if you need any help with your Spanish, I'm willing to help you.
gjvarelah Nice comment, like you said "It depends". Regretfully speaking and offering only anecdotal evidence, I have found that not many people are as helpful as you. Kind of like 80:20. I guess I understand to a degree, like why bother fambling about (just get on with it, use English). Of course then non native speakers get confused when I bruit out something and leaves me wondering. Native English speakers tend to underestimate their abilities when it comes to other languages.
bof1701 You have a point. The world wants to speak English to English native speakers. However, that just shows how bad foreign language teaching is in say the USA. People around the world learn how to communicate in a foreign language. I work with Americans that are exposed to Spanish, learn it for 6 or more years in school and all they can do is say a few words. Meanwhile people from other parts of the world, like Asia and Middle East come to the states, live in a Hispanic neighborhood and they learn Spanish by “Osmosis”. Spanish is a language totally different from theirs, with a different alphabet, etc.
It's good to have a language to communicate with people from all over the world. Today is this language is English, so be it. Whoever doesn't know how to speak it nowadays may get in trouble to find information about stuff. But I believe that there's a downside to this to the native english speakers, because everyone in the world who speaks english as a second language can have access to information and culture of the english speakers, but native english speakers may get themselves in a comfort zone thinking that they don't need to learn any other language and that leads them to close themselves to amazing stuff that other cultures have, because the language is the front door to the wonders of any culture.
I've found that the most interesting thing about learning a foreign languages is that in comparing it allows you ro undestand your own language and how it works a lot more. I've heard, so I don't know for certain, that in english schools learning syntax isn't in the curiculum until the appropriate university. That's a lot to miss out on, at least in my opinion.
I find the problem for English speaking people wanting to learn another language is that people laugh in our faces and always answer in English. That causes problems when we live in a country and have as much interest of learning the new language as anybody else. In Scandinavia some speak to all foreigners in English even if they are fluent in Swedish, Danish or Norweigen. This can make the other person lose confidence in their ability. In the end it can also be extremely iritaing. We are wrong if we don´t learn the language and treated like idiots when we do.
@@benangel3268 That is part of learning a language, I am Nigerian and I moved to Mexico 14 years back without knowing a word in Spanish, today I speak about 95% Spanish, in the beginning people laughed at me but they still corrected me, some chose to speak to me in English but I preferred replying them back in Spanish, I know people who have been here for 9 years and can barely construct a statement in Spanish because they didn't want to be made fun of. Keep your head up, people will always look for a reason to make fun of you.
Say there’s a lot of truth in that statement I went to take a Spanish class in Costa Rica being the only American in class with majority of my classmates being from Switzerland they’re used to having multiple languages being spoken around them and I only know the one so it was like crossing a dozen cultural bridges
i am a native english and german speaker who also knows some french. when i was on a trip to spain last year, i spoke english when i could, but there were quite a few instances where i couldn't use it, and french was a suitable backup option. i even ordered a covid-19 test in french on the trip! while english is easily the most useful language in the world, i think this shows there is still some legacy of the importance of french, and plenty of value in knowing multiple foreign languages.
I mean Spain is pretty close to France and French is still a pretty widely spoken language. As far as the most widespread and popular languages go, I’m pretty sure French is high on the list with English, as well as Spanish.
I am an Iraqi. In Iraq English is taught from class # 5 all the way to college graduation ( MANDATORY), but students don't interact with so many native speakers of English,(economic siege, war and people afraid in their houses, then no power, slow Internet, International companies advised not to go there...etc). So unless your work involves interacting with the American army there, it is like the physics that you just forget about after each test. Now I am an exception; I came to the US as an international student which is why my English looks better than the picture here. Yesterday, my neighbor- He's in Iraq- posted a photo on Facebook and wrote NOW LOOK for "new look" . So Yeah Iraqis can and are somehow learning it, but there isn't that much interaction and they just can't practice it with the right people. In northern Iraq however, where the Iraqi Kurdish people live, it is the opposite; you can see many international Organizations and people around so the local people and the new generation in particular seem to be more interested and generally better in English. In fact, many of them know more about English than about Arabic which is the first official Language of the country.
Sir or Madam: I understand why you are less than happy about U.S. English...and I apologize! but your spelling of the word "neighbor"..means we have corrupted you!..
disoriented1. I'm a guy & my spelling is right 🙂. Also, I didn't say Iraqis aren't happy about English. The thing is that we can't learn it the right way -only the boring textbooks- and even most of the techers haven't talked to a native English! My point is I hope that changes soon.
I think my position makes it interesting to answer the question of the day: I am Egyptian, I live and work in Romania, I was married to a Romanian lady, so this means languages spoken with my ex spouse, family, coworkers and people on the street. - Between me and my ex(s): we spoke English, except occasional times we spoke Romanian in front of their families or friends. We almost never spoke in Arabic. - Between me and my coworkers: funnily we speak English, not only because it's easier for me but also we work in IT domain, where our work itself is in English (programming and development). - Between my ex(s) and my family: Broken English indeed. My father and sister speak English but not as fluent as I do, while my mother says only "thank you" and "very beautiful". One ex understood Arabic but never spoke it. This kept the communication (and the drama) limited. - Between me and my ex-in-laws: Both Romanian and English. I think those who knew English wanted to make me comfortable or show some prestige, speaking English with me, if they can. - Between me and daily life people (sellers, taxi drivers, etc): Romanian always, except when I am out of vocabulary or except when they want to be nice to me so they respond to my Romanian in English. Romanians, in general, speak English well, but then I live in the capital and can't speak of the countryside people. - Between me and my clients: English indeed for the majority of them are from all over the world. I barely even had Arab clients. - Between me and my own Egyptian friends: Mostly we chat in Arabic, but with some we chat in English, simply because faster to type!! - Between my ex(s) and friends: Good English indeed. So I think there are many examples and levels, from 2 countries on 2 continents, I can give.
Omg I from Romania, I can speak English, German, Spanish, Italy and Romanian, I wish you the best in our country , I was living in Bucharest Romania, but now I'm in London England I used to live in Berlin Germany when I was 15, Wish you the best of luck, I know is hard when is you second or third language.
@@mihaybmt6193 Nice! A couple grammar errors but honestly knowing so many languages nadie espera que sepas todas las reglas gramaticas de los idiomas that you know :)
@@mihaybmt6193 Nice! A couple grammar errors but honestly knowing so many languages nadie espera que sepas todas las reglas gramaticas de los idiomas that you know :)
My favorite quote is, “English is an easy language to speak badly.” And I believe it’s true. Not only do we lack cases, elaborate word endings and “genders,” but native English speakers are usually really happy to try and understand non-native English speakers and encourage them to talk more. That’s unlike the French, say, who dont actually want anyone else to speak French.
Well, I can safely say that most French speaking Canadians tend to appreciate efforts to speak our language. It's a hell of a lot better than the "say it louder in English" trope (which is thankfully rare but very surreal to watch). We do often break out our own English (if we know it) in an attempt to ease communication. As for the continental French, well, I can't honestly comment since it would be like an American trying to explain British behaviour.
As a person who loves France I haven't dared to travel there yet because my French wasn't suffisant. How on earth could I go there and say "I love France" when I can't speak the language properly? The French certainly expect everybody to say at least Bonjour, merci.... But in my case I feel commited to speak some very solid French when going there. That's why I'm currently working on improving my French skills. And I know that the French love it when you (try to) speak their language.
American here. I did a year-long foreign exchange in Japan a few years back. I had studied the language for some time before going, and was glad I did. More often than not, I found it necessary to communicate in Japanese. There are some individuals with a high level of proficiency in English, but most of the time it was just easier to use Japanese.
While traveling in Germany it seemed as everyone knew fluent English and it was very easy to get around. The same cannot be said for Italy. In Rome many spoke English well but outside of Rome, it was relatively difficult to get around with knowing a good amount of Latin based vocabulary that appears on signs and such.
The crazy spellings in English come from the fact that English is a mixture of various languages of Europe. The various spellings of the same sound come from their words of origin in languages of Scandinavia France Germany Italian Spanish Greek etc. This RUclips channel has a video about that. Check it out.
Meh... I prefer Spanish when it comes to spelling. French when it comes to phonetics, it's a soft language. And English because of its basic grammar and verity of romance and Germanice loanwords.
English is my second language. The greatest obstacles in speaking English with correct pronunciation is the irregular spellings i.e. pronunciations usually do not follow the spellings.
I'm from the UAE. I feel honestly feel English is my other first language. I would speak either comfortable depending on the setting. This is becoming more common. I can see the same trend in other countries and I feel great full I can become best friends with someone from a part of the world that I wouldn't have heard about a few decades ago.
Basically, the way to summarize this for people who don’t want to see the entire video. British Empire had a really big empire. When America became America, it became a superpower so boom boom English everywhere
China is becoming a superpower nowadays, but I think that their language never will be very widespread because they have a very complex writing system and it is not easy to pronounce. English is not difficult to pronounce, the English grammar is much more simple than the grammar of Latin derived languages like French and Spanish. This makes English a very friendly language to learn.
Well, I'm a native Russian speaker who has been actively using English since I was 15. I can't imagine my life without this language. More than half of material I read and watch on the internet is in English. I'm in loooove with this language. It's rather simple and pleasent to the ear. I study English Philology (which is English language + literature) at the university in Georiga (a small country, not a state of the USA) and teach kids this language. I try to convey to them my love for this language.
I live in the middle of Russia and only few of my friends (or people I know) know English well enough to watch this video. Even those guys, who literally lives in the Internet, they know only a little bit of English words and usually cannot put it together to say something harder than Present Simple. It is sad, I can say. Some TV channels even call English "language of enemies", but the main reason why people dont know English is because they dont want to educate. They dont even read science books or at least magazines in they own language, and ofcourse in English too. But anyway I am glad that I can type all of those my thoughts here and discuss it with the man of any nation, who can understand it. That is the power of the Internet.
"Some TV channels even call English "language of enemies"" Seriously? xd Yeah, I'm glad of that too. There's something magical that as a Polish native speaker I can communicate with some Spanish man in English where for both of us it's the foreign language, it's like we meet on some neutral field. Do they teach you English in Russian schools as the other language? Is it the most taught second language there? What are the others? German? And how early they start to teach you English in Russia?
DuchAmagi In Russian schools, as I know, pupils can teach French, German and English languages. In my class we were learning English since 2nd grade, but I started when I was 5 in pre-school group. Some of my friend from eastern Russia said that they have started learning it in 7th grade. But unless I graduated 11 class, I could only listen and read and couldnt speak at all, we had no practice speech. Later I was playing some online games, where I was speaking with foreigners a lot and it helped me sound more clearly. >Is it the most taught second language there? I guess so, because some of the students likes west culture and they have stimulus to learn English, and about other languages - there is no point of learning for them, as for me as well. But as I told recently, after graduating Russians usually cannot speak English even fluently. >"Some TV channels even call English "language of enemies"" Seriously? xd You saw that video with Morgan Freeman? It is neo-cold-war xd
TheBlack Moon Republican? Maybe you meant republics. We no longer have republics since "the disintegration of the USSR", that caused the separation of republics from the main country - Russia, but even new generations in these countries still learn or at least understand Russian. And besides Russian they all have their historical languages(like Tatar language), even some Russian "states" or "districts" has it.
I'm Japanese living in Japan, and as a native Japanese speaker I can say there's hardly anyone who can speak / understand English well enough to hold conversations with native speakers, even though we start learning English at the age of around 9~12(some elementary schools recently began teaching it from 2nd / 3rd grade, so maybe young children nowadays start learning it at around 7~8 instead). Most of the people over here even have difficulty communicating with travellers from non-English speaking countries in (broken) English with basic vocabularies, and many give up making themselves understood in that language on half way.... there are maybe some reasons for illustrating it, but from my point of view I'd say this is because there's hardly no practical use in actually learning/mastering it. In the book stores we've got plenty of academic books written in Japanese language and in most of the cases the books from overseas(regardless of in which language they're written) are immediately translated into Japanese, so there's no need for people to be able to read in English to gain informations. Plus in schools we can still keep taking classes in Japanese in universities / high schools and a lot of lectures are held in Japanese by native Japanese teachers, so there's practically no need to have a good understanding of it for taking credits to graduate from their school, unless you have to take some classes by those teachers from English speaking coutries who speak no Japanese, or you want to study in the schools / live / work in English speaking coutries in future. (I live near Tokyo and I'm not precisly sure about other parts of my country, but I guess the situation is more or less similar to where I reside at the moment, as Paul said in his live video that " Japanese people's fluency in the English language is generally quite low". ) Speaking of my attitude toward the English language, well.. if you want to constantly keep in touch with the outside world to enrich your views, I feel it's a bit awkward not to be able to communicate in that language because it's a necessity for international communication with people from different countries with different first languages, for whatever purpose. But I don't think everyone in the world should be able to speak it fluently since I suppose every culture has virtues in it, including in the languages local people speak, and I feel it's better to respect the different cultures as much as possible, no matter how different they are and thereby how displeasuring they might turn out to be to foreigners.
Is English your first foreign language? How difficult is it for a Japanese native? In my experience learning a foreign language from a different language family is noticeably more difficult than from the same as your native language. One reason, which I never deemed important before I actually tried learning a non Indo-European language, why it is so is that related languages have many similar words. The grammar is usually somewhat similar too. English is the easiest Indo-European language and its being lingua franca is very convenient for Indo-European people, but must complicate things a lot for others. Still you seem to have done quite well with your English - good job.
For most Japanese people,English is hard to learn.Because English and Japanese are totally different languages.There are no similarities between the two.And we dont need to speak English in daily life.That is the reason why English is hard for us Japanese to learn.日本語が英語話者にとって難しいのと同様に、英語も日本人には難しいのです。
it is still surprising to me that a reasonable amount of japanese people don't speak english well. and starting to learn english at the age of 9 is even stranger, i started learning english in scholl at the age of 5 or 6. I am brazilian, from Rio. the other thing i should add is there are a huge amount of english courses here. Near my home (20 min away by foot) there are more than 4. It appear it is not the same in japan. Am I wrong?
Bernard, I can't speak for Japanese nor Brazilians but experience from my country is, except for people in some jobs (not just catering to tourists, interpreting and teaching but e.g. IT) people don't get many opportunities to use foreign languages outside of school/courses unless they go out of their way to do so. Books, TV shows, Internet sites etc. are either translated or local, manuals and guides are translated too. And the lack of usage is reflected in the fact they forget most of what they might have learned in school.
Even if China becomes the dominant superpower in the future, I think English will continue as a lingua franca, because it's much easier to learn than chinese.
No. Language complexity is most irrelevant thing for a language spread. Is Latin so easy it dominated the entire European history for centuries? English is not easy and exceptionally hard to non-Europeans. Every language, including Chinese, is meant to be spoken by people. It’s unusual at best, but not impossible to learn. It would simply take longer than English to learn.
a550077 English is not easy, it's easiER than Chinese (in fact, no language is easy when studying fully). Latin is not easy either, that's why there was the Vulgar Latin, which developed in the Romance Languages. Even when comparing Romance languages with English, it's possible to see that it is easier. And what I mean by a language being easier is that you can make more mistakes and still be understood. So, of course, it's not impossible to learn chinese, but it being more difficult, it's less likely to become a lingua franca, unless China achieves the same or even greater level of dominance in popular culture, science, politics, etc, than Great Britain and USA have achieved in the past 200 years or so.
Mao proposed switching to Pinyin (didn't happen). Chinese characters are very logical and you can make rapid progress with very little knowledge (not as difficult as you might think). Chinese replacing English (not likely) unless there is a fundamental change regarding the redistribution of wealth.
For entire decades the Chinese governement has been doing everything in its power so that the Chinese culture won’t spread across the country’s boarders. The omnipresent information control and censorship completely eliminates artistic creativity and communication with the outside world. All these measures make the Chinese culture seem to be stuck in history and unattractive. What we actually see in Europe and in Americas are only fragments of what the Chinese culture could possible offer to us. The soft power of Japan, a contry which has 10 times less people than China, has several times greater cultural influence to the world. EVERY native-English speaking country is the exact opposite of that. These are rich, attractive, populous, democratic countries with a firmly established freedom of speech.
Other reasons why Mandarin won't become the lingua franca: -China banning a lot of access to everything -Chinese language is very hard for many people (I love its writing system but Chinese being a strictly tonal language makes it much more complicated and something that I don't really like)
But for real south east or east asian actually mandarin is easier than english,, except if they don't like mandarin at first perceptive. "The harder" will look easier if we seems like love and a lot familiar (at academics or internet world).
The Chinese government is trying to put the Chinese language into the map of lingua francas along with French, Spanish and Arabic despite the rest of the world are not interested of learning it
I'm from Italy and uhh... while nowadays English is taught in schools since the age of 5, many people speak a really bad English, or no English at all, and this is true for young people as well. Try typing "Italian politicians speaking English" on the youtube search bar to get a taste!
Politicians in most countries are not the brightest representatives of a nation. Look at President Trump and his "beautiful" English. Don't judge people by politicians. I know from my personal experience that Italians speak English quite well. Cheers! :-)
i dont want to be a nationalist but we have a realy good language imho. Ages ago, when i was a kid in school i loved to learn english because everything on my computer was in eng, especially games and it sounded so exotic. Year after year i came to the conclusion that english is an inferior lang compared to ours. It's easy and fast to learn but it's just that, a way to speak with foreign ppl, nothing else, good for manuals. If you consider that we have (maybe had) everything translated in italian like movies, games and books and we also got some realy nice singers, english is (maybe was) needed only if you want to work abroad (very likely nowadays to be honest). In the last years things are changing obviously, internet killed the TV (star XD) where everything is in eng, internationl commerce is "mandatory" (thx EU) for a country to not die especially inside the €uro zone and you have to consider also the lack of jobs in our peninsula which forces ppl to find luck elsewhere so right now, is imperative to learn a decent english and for several reasons. In 10 years everyone will speak eng in italy too (while dialects will disappear) but you have a good reason to explain our lack of english knowledge: our lang is better and we have\had everything in italian, we also had italian jobs lol. Forgive my arrogance my dear native eng speakers.
Well, if you want to hear a really horrible English, then google "Günther Öttinger Englisch". After watching this, you'll have to confirm that German politicians sometimes are every bit as bad in English as Italian politicians.
In my opinion the problem is that there is very little focus on teaching English pronunciation, so a typical student might have good comprehension when reading a text, but won't understand much when listening to it. I find it ridiculous that they have to study Shakespeare but won't even know all the different vowels that exist in English.
Here's the thing, however: pronunciation isn't nearly as important in English as it is in many other languages. If you're using English as a second language and come up to me and mispronounce something, chances are it will have no impact on my understanding you. Other languages... not so much.
In a nutshell, I love your channel. I am English and Italian learner, I enjoy your videos. I always find number of interesting facts. Thank you so much. Good Luck.
I know a few non english people through playing games on steam and the according to them, the best way they have learned english is through playing computer games as there are very few games with croatian translations, for example. They have a definite accent to their speech and it doesn't flow as well as it could do but in terms of their grammar and vocabulary, it's pretty much perfect.
Yes, that is how many people learned English, we were "forced to" because games, documentaries, websites, movies etc were often available in English only.
I'd recommend them to sing songs in English if they want to improve their accents. I did it and I'm glad. It's not that I sound like an English native speaker now (it was never my goal anyway) but I don't have that hard Slavic accent. Generally exposing yourself to a language is the best idea to learn it. So, yeah - playing video games is great. Also watching movies and singing songs.
Video games helped me with my English too, I’m fluent in English but sometimes I come across big words or words in English that I never heard of so that helps me learn new words to make my English better
In Tajikistan, hardly anyone knows English. The lingua franca is Russian and called the "interethnic language" in the Constitution. On paper, it's supposed to be the language between Tajiks and Uzbeks or Afghans for example. But in reality, Russian is the language of all the metropolitan places exclusively. Why? Because you don't know if the person driving your taxi speaks Tajik. So instead you must use Russian by nature of not being rude and assuming. Half your class may be Uzbeks, and none of them will speak Tajik unless the government tries to impose it again, which caused massive anger last time. In this situation, you must use Russian, even if you're in a Tajik-based school. Speaking of which, there are 3 school systems primarily - Tajik and Russian and Mixed. There are some Uzbek schools and others left over from the Soviet style of administration, but more and more people will turn to these two, and of those two, Russian is getting popular again. This is mostly because the Tajik schools are very low quality.. So parents demand the benefits of Russian education. You learn English in school now, but its late and in some areas I think it's optional. But still you will not find people who speak it because there is no practical use.
Could you explain then how come when I taught Physics in one of Engineering Universities in Moscow most of my Tajik and Uzbek students claimed not to know Russian well enough?
+ブブリコフバシャ I don't know why that is the case. Probably from a rural area with dominant Tajik majority then. You cannot be from Dushanbe and not know Russian to a good level. Especially because all dissertations are IN Russian. You'd fail school.
Here in Peru, although the teaching of English is compulsory, many people stop practicing it when they finish school and forget it, and therefore, almost everyone can only speak Spanish (one with lots of jargon)
Well, I'm peruvian and I live in the capital, Lima, being precise, in the smallest district in Lima, called Lince; here only the youth, pushed by their parents are learning English at language schools at a intermediate level, due to the lack of teaching quality at public schools unless you go to a private one.
I live in Canada, so most 2nd generation immigrants here speak English as mother tongue, while immigrants speak English to a varying degree. With travelling it depends on location. In Japan, using English was useless, I had to sign language all the time... In China, I didn't try to speak English due to my ability to speak Mandarin. In Hong Kong, using English was fine. In the Netherlands, speaking English was fine. In france, the same, but not as much. Same in the Caribbean (Dominican republic, cuba) but I assume that's because we stayed only in resorts...
Over the course of globalization of English, I think it’s really important to notice how much the English vocabulary and grammar has simplified. And that also benefits the expansion of English.
Do you like phrasal verbs? There is a big tendency to use them in everyday English in the USA. Yet, they are hard to learn and remember, and they have multiple meanings. What about abbreviations and acronyms? Is that a simplification or a complication?
Le français n'est pas un langage inutile ! De nombreux pays utilisent le français comme langue officielle en Europe, en Afrique et en Amérique du Nord (Canada). Seuls ceux qui parlent anglais ne s'exprimeront que de manière négative sur la langue française. French is not useless language ! Many countries use French as an official language in Europe, Africa and North America (Canada). Only those who speak English only will express himself / herself in negative manner about the french language.
I'm very fortunate to be fluent in English and Russian It helps me communicate to a large portion of the world population However there are some people that really love their language and culture and so rinds they choose to not talk to you in a foreign language because of that ... German to English tourists Ukrainians to Russians
I'm a Ukrainian, a lingua franca is still Russian in our country, and not English. English is studied in schools, but still it's spoken basically by some of educated people, you are unlikely to encounter English speakers among bus drivers, or sellers, or in rural area.
I live in St.Petersburg, Russia, and not that many people speak English here, maybe like 15% at a basic level and 2-4% at a more advanced level. That's not the case for the rest of Russia though (except Moscow), i doubt that more than 2-5% of people are able to have a basic conversation. Which is good in my case, because speaking English massively increases one's chances of getting a high-paying job (given that you have some other skills to offer) =)
Most russians only speak russian. Those who have access to (somewhat) decent education will most likely learn english. Those who live in regions where large ethnic minorities are present, will most likely speak russian and the language of the corresponding minority (for example, people from Karelia will most likely speak russian and karelian, people from Tuva will speak russian and tuvan, etc)
That's kinda sad. I mean almost everyone in Russia has studied English or German in school for nothing, people just not interested in foreign languages. At the same time, I find it funny that almost 1/3 of the people note on their social network pages that they know English when in fact they can understand only a few phrases like "London is the capital of Great Britain."
Nothing personal but as a Spanish speaker I hope that Chinese never becomes the dominant lingua franca... It takes too much time and memory to learn it.
Christian Pinto no me gustaría que el mandarín fuera "Lingua Franca" sure escritura es muy compleja, el inglés es por mucho más fácil, nuestro idioma debería de ser el idioma internacional jajaja Ñ power!!!
It's the writing system that gives me the chills, even though it look beautiful. Also there are various Chinese languages so even the Chinese are sometimes unable to speak to other Chinese... I didn't even know that until I watched a video of some folks from Hong Kong testing camera lenses on visit to Taiwan and only one of them could speak the local language.
I am from the US. I was raised mono-lingual. My parents are multi-lingual but refused to teach me their languages. My mom refused to teach me Tagalog because she did not see her language as useful. I traveled the world and I use English to communicate. I am learning Mandarin and I remember some Spanish from high school. When I travel I seem to use Spanish a lot, but Mandarin has been useful as well. I was in a hostel in Thailand and my French roommate did not speak English, but he spoke Mandarin. I was also once in Malaysia, and found my basic Spanish helped me speak to the Brazilian travelers who didn't speak proficient English. I was in Quebec and I spoke Mandarin as well to all the Chinese travelers and there was a large Spanish population in Quebec as well.
Too bad your parents didn't share those parts of their heritage with you, but it sounds as if you were determined enough and learned several other languages. Good for you! ¡Bien por ti! C'est bien! 還行！
My mother and her siblings had a similar problem back in the 50/60s. Both of her parents are highly educated Chinese immigrants (masters and PhD from Ivy leagues) and back then there was research that suggested bilingual children had trouble reaching milestones. So they never bothered to teach Chinese to the kids.
No offence or anything but your mother was right about Tagalog not being that useful of a language, literally everyone in the Philippines speaks English as a second language, a lot of them even speak Spanish
I heard that there is more than one Tagalog and that speakers from different islands can't speak well with each other. Do you know if you that that is the case? Do you think that might be why she didn't want her son to bother with it.
drgn xence I was born, raised and graduated high school in the Philippines. Ive never met anyone that can speak spanish 😂 I know 2 Philippine dialects, english and currently learning Korean btw :)
You forgot one very important factor: simplicity. English is quite simple to learn.Yes, I know: spelling vs. pronunciation is challenge but grammar - well - very simple (e.g. with comparison to other languages: French, Spanish, I don't even mention my mother-tongue: Polish). That why Mandarin WILL NEVER become lingua franca - it's too difficult... I
No, there is so simplest language to learn, i all depends on your current language and perspective. Someone who speaks Spanish might have an easier time learning English than Mandarin, yet someone who speaks Japanese might have an easier time learning Mandarin than English! And Mandarin is not necessarily a super tough language to learn - it is less grammatically complex compared to some other languages - it just seems so from the perspective of someone speaking a non-Sinitic language.
The easiest second language depends on your native tongue, and the easiest first language? That one is debateable. I have Dutch heritage but I grew up in Australia without my Dutch father, so I never got to learn the language and pronunciation that he uses, English is my native tongue. I've looked into learning a little bit of said Dutch language and that's been pretty easy I just gotta memorise it, pronunciation though? I'm doomed.
English is easy to learn depending on your mother tongue. For native Spanish and French speakers, it's easy. But for say Japanese or Koreans (who I've taught English to), it's the opposite as English is completely different from their language. The tenses are a chore to master. English has 12. And try explaining "future perfect continuous" tense to a Japanese person. Japanese doesn't even have a future tense! Half of past tense verbs are irregular and have to be memorized. You can't just add "-ed" to any verb. And for the life of me, I can never explain perfectly how or when to use the/a to Japanese or Korean people because it doesn't exist in their language. "I play the piano" even though "I own a piano", lol.
@@JKTravelsShow for ur last example, i find it surprising that u teach english but dont know the/a are indefinite and definite articles. "i play the piano" is not referring to a specific, definite piano. whereas "i own a piano" refers to a real physical piano. "i play piano" could just replace the first sentence though, and i think that one might be more confusing to understand when u can drop articles
BATMAN65 We both did. I'm the polyglot between us so if necessary I would be the one learning her language. She's an Italophile though, so maybe she could learn it as well
опера пришла в россию из италии. итальянские оперы так и остаются на итальянском. иногда ставят на немецком, но русские и своих написали немало. а когда-то было много французского языка и французского балета.
I live in Israel, and most people here know english quite well. I think it's thanks to having many american and british tv shows with subtitles instead of overdubs.
I am from Venezuela and the internet has been my first source for learning english. I think that 30% - 40% of people here know basic things about english, and of that 30%, only a 20% speaks it and understands it well enough to talk to native speakers or watch this video
@@x24ygu789h Sorry I am answerinf you comment 2 years later!! Well, the situation was pretty bad, and it is even worse now. Let me just tell you somethings: 1) we are the country with the most oil in the world and right now, we have no gasoline! Literally! It is given right now only to hospital workers. 2) our minimun salary is 5 dollars. 3) police officers are here only to rob you in your noses. 4 ) USA is now offering 15.000.000 dollars for capturing our drug trafficking president and his crew!
I'm good at learning languages and I find English easy, thought I still don't speak it perfectly. But in France, almost everyone understands English, almost everyone has at least some English vocabulary, but people don't do a lot of efforts to train their prononciation. We learn English at school but I think the biggest part of my knowledge of English is due to internet. It trains me a lot.
Question of the day: "How well do the people in my area know English?" As a siberian, I can say that almost all my mates know English at A0-A1 level :D Since here there's no need to know it, in most cases. I myself speak English at B2 level, but it's really difficult to find someone to practice with :)
Yes, English can be very hard to understand for many Turks. We've English lessons, but they only teach some grammar rules and boring vocabulary. It became a phobia for most people. "I can't learn that, it's too difficult, what will I do when I learn this foreign language etc. English is kind of different for us, an agglutinative language speaker, so this reaction is not so surprising.
I remember while staying in Tapei, there was a lady working at the hotel who would always corner us in the lobby, asking all about our day and the stuff we saw. I think this was her way of improving English skills.
same here in Flanders (Belgium). We speak flemish (=dutch) , and we are also very good english speakers. Of course, our langauge is one if the closest to english and that helps a lot. But I am afraid that we both have the same destiny my friend : our languages are not so usefull (not many native speakers, not spoken in a wide area) , so we have no choice to be excellent english speakers .......
Based on the fact that most people speak English so well, do they keep translating books into Swedish as well in your country? Do people buy them? Or do they produce TV shows in Swedish? If yes, then why? It sounds like it could be cheaper and more efficient if everyone would buy the book in international language, no need to pay for translation and easier for people who come to Sweden. Or e.g. the TV show in English could be viewed by 100x bigger audience. I'm really curious how you guys preserve your language
Wow, as a native English speaker who studied languages (mostly Spanish and Russian) I have loads to say. Sorry. I used to have a terrible inferiority complex about what fantastic linguists people in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands were until I went there and realised their TV is about 50% English language so they literally grow up with it as a second language in their homes. Also when I realised my Spanish and Russian is as good as, if not better than Dutch, Swedes etc who I met in Spain and Russia I realised they're not better linguists in general, they just speak English exceedingly well. I have found when travelling in countries where I speak the language I have to reach a really good standard before I can stop them automatically speaking to me in English. If your Czech for example is basic it's too frustrating for a Czech to speak to you in Czech when they speak English. But on the other hand it's horrible to spend ages learning some language only to have people speak straight back at you in English so I tend to hold back until I can speak the language so well that they don't do that. As English speakers we are really used to hearing our language spoken with a variety of accents and sometimes quite incorrectly so we're good at understanding people no matter how bad their English is so people shouldn't be shy. I remember speaking to a Croatian once who spoke pretty good English but became really shy and lost confidence when she realised I was a native English speaker. There's no need to worry. We are used to people speaking English but not to everyone speaking English perfectly. I sometimes wish people would use English less. When you get Norwegians etc. writing their songs in my language if feels a bit weird. I kind of feel "hey, that's MY language. Use your own!" There is now a new kind of mid-Atlantic English based on TV, RUclips and music spoken by young people which to be honest isn't really spoken by native speakers at all. If you said "hey, guys, check it out!" on a street in Manchester you'd sound a bit silly. Also English swear words are overused or misused. We may say 'fucking' all the time among friends but I saw someone in Denmark wearing a t-shirt with FUCK YOU! written across the chest. Nobody in England would do that. It's too offensive. I have found that in Spain loads of people speak English along the coasts but you don't have to go far inland to find people are really not so confident in it. When my wife's passport was stolen in Spain once the police at the station were so relieved I spoke Spanish they made a fuss of us and were really nice - they made us coffee and gave us biscuits. In Russia I hardly ever use any English as only one of my friends there speaks it well and if you speak it in a public place people always answer back in Russian. People who don't speak Russian don't get to find out just how wonderful the people there can actually really be. Maybe you could say that about any country or language.
"In Russia I hardly ever use any English as only one of my friends there speaks it well and if you speak it in a public place people always answer back in Russian" - интересно. В Москве вроде бы почти все кто младше 30 говорят по английски достаточно хорошо чтоб общаться с иностранцами на простые темы. Конечно же Москва не вся Россия. У меня на работе (академический институт) все знают английский настолько чтоб выступать на международных конференциях с докладами и участвовать в обсуждениях. Тем не менее, как-то мне довелось прослушать один и тот же доклад сначала на английском, потом на русском - несмотря на то, что в английском докладе не было проблем с передачей смысла, он был сильно более скучный чем русский, потому что передать эмоциональный настрой и пошутить на иностранном языке намного сложней. Если говорить о знании иностранных языков у русских людей, то обязательно нужно обращать внимание на возраст. В России всегда была сильная лингвистическая школа, но в советские времена она была для избранных. Для моих родителей выбить для меня место в школе с углубленным изучением иностранного языка (уже в начале 90х) было подвигом. СССР был изолированной страной и свободно говорили на иностранном языке (причем обычно на одном) только те для кого он был профессией. После развала СССР ситуация очень резко поменялась и существующая лингвистическая школа стала доступна практически всем. В школах сейчас везде учат иностранные языки по учебникам иностранных издательств и английский, естественно, самый популярный. Платных языковых школ по довольно доступным ценам пруд пруди (по крайней мере в Москве). В моем кругу общения английским уже никого не удивишь - приходится учить японский:-) А в каких городах Вы были?
В Москве я со всеми говорил на русском и только раз мне кое-кто ответил по-английски... Это мне сильно мешало, так как она владела английским гораздо хуже чем я русским и она даже не знала, является ли английский для меня родным языком (я родом из США, но после более 5 лет в Германии все говорят, что у меня по-русски немецкий акцент, а не акцент англоговорящего. Проверьте сами в моих видео ахах). Но я не испытывал такого только в России, в странах в Европе как Чехии, Франции и пр. я получал намного чаще ответы на английском. Надо просто притворяться, что ты по-английски не понимаешь) Я это всегда так делаю, чтобы люди думали, что на самом деле не ВЕСЬ МИР говорит на английском ахах. Но тем не менее такое на путешествии сильно раздражает, это правда.
Vasya Bublikov Я думаю, что судить только по своему окружению из академического института - неправильно. Ваше окружение, очевидно, очень интеллигентное. Но не забывайте, что даже в Москве далеко не большинство имеет высшее образование. Также и я работал в компании с долей иностранного капитала и большинство наших поставщиков были иностранные. Знание английского языка было чрезвычайно важно для работы. В то время мне казалось, что по-английски разговаривают вообще все в моем городе. Но на самом деле тех, кто не говорит на иностранном, намного больше.
Question for non native English speakers, what English speaking country's people (USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand etc) are hardest to understand?
Liam McIntosh I have a hard time understanding people with heavy accents if you see what I mean. The kind of accent you never hear in the media though I guess even native speakers may struggle sometimes x) if you want a more specific answer: the Irish, the Scottish, and the Australian accents. The American accent is overwhelming so we get used to it pretty quickly. The British accent is the accent we're taught at school though most people speak American English anyway. The accent from the North of England is a bit strange at first but I'd get used to it after spending a week in Liverpool. And New Zealander's have a pretty "normal" mainstream accent dont they ? Here you are ^^
Funfact; English is also the lingua franca in Star Wars
Galactic Basic
Captain Haddock What about Star Trek?
Captain Haddock And also in Game Of Thrones (therefore It's called the common tongue)
And Star Trek.
Ikr
As a native speaker (I'm British), speaking English is an easy way to communicate with new people I meet on my travels. But the down side is that, even if you are determined to learn their language, foreigners will insist on speaking back at you in English! This can be a frustrating barrier to learning a foreign language. As a German language learner, I therefore found it necessarily to mask my English accent (not a bad idea anyway) and try very hard to sound like a native German speaker. The result was that many Germans then asked me "So, are you Dutch?" Funny but frustrating!
Philc854 still better since no German would even try to understand Dutch.
Philc854 OH MY GOD, IT DRIVES ME MAD
I have a group of friends online made up of Americans, Germans and Dutch folk, and I'll try to speak German (we all do) to practice and everyone just replies in English and it makes me crazy
So true!
Funny.
I speak dutch. But when people (except germans ) hear me speaking dutch, they always think that I am german.
But have fun wth learning german. I also learned german, it's quite easy if you want to make the effort.
But never learn dutch , our language is worldwide known to be useless and everybody always expect us to be excellent english speakers ......... sometimes I would wish that I was a native german or english speaker
Dac.
I am brazilian and I learned English when I was a teenager. I have never been abroad but I use pretty much my English on the Internet by reading and watching videos.
My friend is the same. Totally self-taught using sports, chat rooms, and English media online in Brazil. Agora estou estudando portugues nos estados unidos, que desafio
@@c.moriarty1178 That's pretty cool
Same, poverty is a thing in Latam...hard to travel without money
Yeah its probably worth it for any non-English speakers to learn the language for the internet alone
My cousin is learning English too because in Japan they force them to the sad thing is its American English not English English which is my native dialect
broken English is the most used language on earth.
bruh
😆yes you right
exactly
hate to say it, but it's true. even native english speakers sometimes have trash grammar and can't speak properly.
Broken English is better than no English
I'm a native Spanish speaker, and ever since I learned how to speak English as a second language, it definitely changed my life in so many good ways.
Now you can watch English spoken videos
@@dexter99999 Yeah, that's right
Me too. But I speak fluently arabic and French. But I admit English change my life in different ways
@@mahamatissachoueb nice. I spoke Spanish at home and learned English in school in Chicago
@@dexter99999 good one. Always try to learn something different. As far as I grow up I always feel dodge the barriers can improve our life deeply.
Its also the language of computer code.
So if you want to be a programmer....
Sometimes I wonder if China had been the first civilisation to invent computers, what would their software code even look like? Would they begin by inventing some system like Ascii that encoded many thousands of their language's characters instead of topping out at 256? Would these have any practical use in programming or would they have to simplify their writing system drastically to adapt to early computer screens?
And what about the keyboard? Since the keyboards used by almost every language today are an adaptation of the ones used to write English in the Latin alphabet. Imagine if it had been the other way round and the keyboards used in English-speaking countries were a modification of the devices made to type Chinese characters.
@@holger_p "yield", "volatile", and "void" are all normal English words to use. Yield is on street signs when you are supposed to yield. Volatile would be on a warning. And void is important for bank talk. I'm a software developer, and while I agree that you don't have to know English to code, it will definitely help. It will be the most useful with libraries. It is easier to remember something if the name makes logical sense, rather than just memorizing.
@@holger_p void in programming means you aren't returning anything. The return value is void, meaning "empty". A normal sentence using void would be like "space is a void". Yield return is returning values one at a time. Yielding means to wait your turn, basically. Someone obviously doesn't need to learn English to code. I'm not really arguing against you about that. But those words are more common than Shakespeare, laws, or contracts. Even just knowing the meaning of the words, helps with remembering them versus memorizing letters to type to put down to do a task. All I'm saying is it is easier to remember a word if it means something.
@@JontyLevine I'm curious too. Any language that does not use an alphanumeric system but rather has symbols that morph and change depending on meaning and position are very challenging for computers. I kind of think that if China invented the first computer systems, they would've come up with a very simplified version of Chines just for computer stuff, I man, with very early computing, you wouldn't have the luxury of using something like unicode. Who knows, maybe Chines today would be very different because of that.
@@JontyLevine There's a Chinese version of python called "zhpy".
github.com/gasolin/zhpy/blob/master/zhpy2/examples/teashop/teashop.tw.py
I will add also that in some places, English is perceived as “neutral”. For example, modern India is actually a confederation of many different peoples and languages, with a long history of conflict. In south India, there are many mother tongues (Kannada, Telugu, etc), and Hindi is associated with northern aggression. “Why should Hindi be our national language? Then all the northerners have the advantage, as it’s their mother language. If we all have to learn something new, like English, we all begin the same.” Seems to be the attitude. I am sure that the same preference for English could be found in many “new” countries which have united previously opposed groups.
That is why, in 1975, when three companies from France, Germany and Italy formed Iveco (the truck makers), they chose English as their corporate language. As one of the directors wryly observed: "It puts us all at an equal disadvantage."
thanks to the fake aryan invasion theory
I agree, altough IAL Conlang Esperanto would be much more neutral, and neutral in more countries.
@@SpiritmanProductions yes, true
In other places, like Quebec, English is perceived as a threat
I am Korean but I could unterstand this very well. and it was really nice. My academy teacher said watch this video for my homework and I watched it!!!! and I have to do speech with this video on this Friday.... oh I'm soooooo nervous....
I am sure you will do well. As you are learning English can I offer a few corrections to your sentence?
Hope your speech went well
Speaks German to a German
German replies in English
I throw myself into the Atlantic
germans still feel superior, they think we can't get any word in their "extreme difficult language" and end up saving us from the headache, so lame...
@Anti SemiTHICC superior to whom? u guys have lost 2 world war, I'd feel ashamed.
@@charlesdesouza9139 I'm proud of you my boy
Helloo I can not speek english can u help mee
@@charlesdesouza9139 Regarding the economic power and influence that Germany has today I would say they might lost the battle but didn't lose the war ;)
(which btw was actually a British war AGAINST Germany in order to not allowing them to become the global superpower).
take a shot every time he says lingua franca
It’s party time!
Soon you will be able to speak fluently in Drunkeneese. I never had a problem ordering a beer anywhere in the world! Now that’s a lingua franca ! Lol
Lingua Franca bitches 🤣🤣🤣
Katelyn Lee I have alcohol poisoning
Oops liver cirrhosis!
I think native english speakers have one big disadvantage: They just learn english and not any other language(often) .
Sadly it's true. I wish in our education system we were encouraged to learn another language in a more practical way and at a much younger age.
@Paul Li They might take beginner level courses in high school or something, but the vast majority never learn to speak it at a fluent level.
Paul Li the American education system is a MESS (and that’s putting it lightly). I can go on and on about why but one of the main reasons is that the education system isn’t standard at a federal level, it is left to each individual state on what should be learned and what not learned. For example, here in California it is required for students to take at least 2 years of a foreign language to graduate high school and there is the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam) which is a test students have to pass in order to graduate, but many of those foreign language class are introductory level and once they graduate colleges have different requirements to graduate and may or may not have more advanced classes for that foreign language so few people actually continue to learn or practice a second language. I can’t speak for other states and what their requirements are but it can be totally different, they might only require one year of a foreign language, maybe no foreign language at all. Each state varies in their requirements. Not to mention that some schools are very underfunded, the high school I went to I graduated in 2013 and my brother who is 7 years younger than me had the same textbooks as me! Same thing for middle school. Plus, depending what part of the country you find yourself in you might be discouraged to speak a second language.
Agreed. It's a matter of us taking for granted the accommodation of the English language, I think it's formed communities/cultures that don't see the need to learn another language anymore. Maybe someday this will start changing!
@Patrick True. However, as a result, American travelers who speak a foreign language at more than an elementary level are especially well received in countries where that language is spoken. Example: I'm running in a park in Hamburg and see people entering the planetarium. I'm curious about what the planetarium looks like inside, so I enter, too. A lady taking tickets tells me (in German) that a show about the universe in 3D is about to start, and tickets are 5 euro. I say (with an obvious American accent): Ach, ich habe kein Geld, weil ich renne. (Oh, I have no money, because I'm running.) She can see I'm in running attire, and who goes shopping or needs money while running? She says: Wir können ein Geschenk machen. (We can make a gift.) I say: Wirklich? Das wäre sehr nett von Ihnen. (Really? That would be very nice of you.) So I got the last and an excellent seat to a sold-out show for free, and had an interesting conversation in German with a woman, whose daughter at the last moment couldn't make it (hence this one seat still available). This sort of thing happened to me on almost a daily basis, while I was in Germany. I really love the German language. That's why I kept learning it even after 4 courses at university.
When you realize that all the aliens in the marvel universe speak english, meaning that britain colonized the entire galaxy:
*LAUGHS IN BRITISH*
Close, but almost all of their accents are American. At least you guys got J.A.R.V.I.S.
*LAUGHS IN TEA*
The queen should be proud
I'm mean....... yesn't
@@abrahamlinkin2414 technically anything that speaks English is because of England
I live in Brazil and practically no one speaks english here, everything is dubbed and quickly translated to Portuguese so some people just don't want to learn English.
In Brazil they teach English in school but it's very bad and you don't really learn much, just the verb "to be" and that's it.
Finding someone that can speak English is hard, but not impossible, most of the ones that speak English live in big cities.
Filipe Brazilan passport are in Portuguese english and Spanish I think
I want to learn Português badly. Português has the most romantic accent.
R B M oh really, most people think it's Spanish haha
Filipe I think Spanish is the 2nd. hehe. Hablas español?
R B M Not even a word lol
"Will Esperanto become the international language?"
"NOPE"
LOL
It seems you need to have a superpower which speaks the language for this language to spread. As long as the Esperanto-Empire does not exist, i guess the answer will be "nope"
Maybe if a superpower adopted Esperanto as their official language but we all know that's not going to happen :/
Interlingua fits better as international language.
It will never win sadly. :(
In a perfect world it would be but the world isn't perfect. I wouldn't learn it.
Question of the day: "How well do the people in my area know English?"
Well considering that I live in England, near London, I would guess that at least 1/5 speak some English.
LOL, best sarcasm ever!
Accessless lmao
Hmm, that bad eh? ;P
I'm guessing it's all Polish, Urdu and Arabic if what they say on the news is right.
yep too true, same here live in London and I hardly hear English
Accessless It's the "native British" who can't speak it well. All the foreigners speak it very well.
As a Malaysian, I would say most of the people around me understand English but not everybody is comfortable with speaking in English. We use a lot of english words in our everyday conversations though, because Malay has a lot of borrowed words from english.
CUZ Britain COLONY your country SO HARD
My brothers fiance is from Malaysia . Greetings from Germany :)
Are any of those borrowed words not for technological things?
I'm from South Korea. The education system here places much importance on English. Almost any Korean will agree that in order to get into a prestigious college, mathematics, English, and Korean are the top three most important subjects. So people tend to equate English proficiency with academic excellence, and I think that puts even more pressure on students. TOEIC (Test Of English for International Communication) scores are not optional but mandatory for a majority of companies in Korea. So college graduates and job seekers spend a lot of time and money learning English. I have heard statements that English proficiency and standard of living go hand in hand, and that most well-off countries tend to have high English proficiency. However, I think the South Korean society is putting too much emphasis on English. Not everyone needs to speak English fluently, but everyone is spending so much time and money on it, which seems unnecessary in my opinion. And the English proficiency does not seem that high compared to the money this country spends.
Same in Japan... exactly, so much money with little result.
You've got better grammar than most native speakers I know. O_O
but... but your english is so so beautifully written :-). (그런데 저는 한국말을 배우고 있어요! ㅋㅋ. 사실 한국에서 영어를 가르치고 한국말을 관심이 있어졌어요! 하지만 한국말을 배우는것이 오래 동안 걸리 는 것 같아요.... I hope my Korean will one day be as good as your English)
There are many more reasons for learning and using English beyond test scores, and therein lies the answer to why S. Korea spends so much time and resources on English education with so little to show for it. The other problem is the culture - nobody expects perfection, but it seems that unless they think they can speak perfectly, Koreans won't even try out of fear of making mistakes. It is a shame, because it is self-limiting.
Ginnie M, It isn't that way only in South Korea. I can attest the same attitude in Israel as well. Furthermore, when I was a child we started learning English in the 4th grade. Today's children already begin by the 1st grade coinciding with Hebrew or Arabic.
Even Autobots and Decepticons which are from unknown galaxy use English as their second language.
Underrated comment
@@AbhishekJuyal Actually it's because he British Empire colonized those galaxies and dimensions.
@@AbhishekJuyal America doesn't have an official language
They also use Cybertronian.
@@TengkuAmier but its technically English... and this is very obvious in so many levels.
-Speak to random stranger
-Read news papers
-Watch television
-Read signages
-Read any document presented in government
-Read and watcg literaries like books
-Listen to radios
-Study there, and I wouldnt hear English as taught being foreign langauge
...etc.
Even history speaks for itself.
- Will Esperanto be a world language?
- No!
** Esperantists TRIGGERED **
Jes, vere
Whether they like it or not, Esperanto has failed, and if people would stop speaking it entirely nothing of value would be lost.
@@TaiFerret Ĉiukaze, esperantistoj uzas la lingvon ĉiutage. Malfermu la okulojn.
@Ozyc Ĝi (aŭ iu simila artefarita lingvo) devas esti, aŭ homoj estas stultuloj, kiuj ne kapablas paroli eĉ iun komunan lingvon. La angla kaj iu ajn alia natura lingvo estas tro malfacila por esti VERA 'lingua franca'. Kion do signifas 'lingua franca'? Ĉu ĝi estas io alia ol internacia lingvo? Ĉu 'lingua franca' estas nur lingvo por elito?! Homoj, kiuj facile ellernas lingvojn, ofte pensas ke Esperanto estas ludilo, ĉar ili kapablas ekbalbuti en ĝi tre facile. Sed ne estas tiel por la plimulto de la homaro.
Mi estas tre malfelicxa pro tio.
Pri tio*
Sorry, my Russian kicked in
I'm Indonesian, and everyone speaks English (good or broken) 😂 because we have to learn it from the first grade. I'm currently learning French, but I still love the practicality and the simplicity of English.
Yeah same, in India we have to learn English from nursery/kindergarten 😂
You are the only person so deceive English as simplistic. Native speaker here and upon learning new languages I have realized English is a cumbersome language.
thomas emeryiii Actually, English grammar is simpler than most languages I know of, since it lacks cases that languages like Ukrainian have a lot of and have simple conjugation and not much tenses unlike French
Edison Kendrick yes but the pronounciation is very hard
@@thomashaapalainen4108 compared to russian or even french, etc. English is very easy brother. There are no gendered words.
I really apreciated the fact of knowing english when I met an Egyptian guy, he was kinda bad at spanish and I was really bad at Arabic so we spoke English lol
Nobody is good in the spaghetti language except arabs
@Plague Doctor spaghetti language?
@@hanoisme7858 many people say that Arabic writing looks like noodles
Plague Doctor the real spaghetti language is italian
@@thebigguy2757
As an Arab, I also find those latin letters wired for me😞
I've been to many, many hostels in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa, and I've spoken to travelers from all continents and from many, many countries (including China). I'm fluent in English. And English was always the default language we all used when we communicated with each other. It was automatic. That, to me, shows how English is the behemoth lingua franca. Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, French and Russian--the only credible competitors to English--are left way, way in the dust. You can use those languages in their respective spheres of influence, but you can't outside them. Only English works this way as a true lingua franca.
In fact, there are more Spanish native speakers around the world than English native speakers, but there are more people who study English as a second language, yeah, English is so useful to me for comunicate with almost anyone out of my contry!
@Frx bx01 Flase, also LangFocus confirm what I just wrote, The language with more native speakers is Mandarine, followed by Spanish, and in third place is English, but English is the language that more people learn as a second language
As far as French is concerned, it's all the same useful in numerous countries outside the French-speaking world , it's well spread in Maghreb, Lebanon, Egypt, it's often the first foreign language in English- speaking countries ( Britain, Ireland, New-Zealand, English Canada) and even more frequently the second foreign language (Italy, USA, Australia, Germany, Mexico and so on...)
@ Marc Moulin I've been to Morocco and Egypt. I saw a lot of French signs throughout. But the only language other than Arabic that came out of the mouths of people I met was English. I remember staying in this riad in Morocco as the only guest, and the host was this very kind Moroccan man. He spoke to me in English with a French accent. I tried to speak in French with him, but he insisted that we speak in English instead. So I obliged. Sorry to say but even in the French sphere of influence in North Africa, French is losing its hold over the people.
I just went to Japan. Most people there speak only broken English at best. Some who work with tourists speak it well. But I did hear overhear a German speaker and a Spanish speaker getting by pretty decently in English, and also a Japanese speaker and an Italian speaker communicating using English. It certainly is the first language people try if they don't speak the same language. No question it is the world's common tongue.
Here's the thing: Europeans learn English using textbooks published in Oxford or Cambridge. The "British English" they hear and learn is the Queen's English or Oxford or BBC English. However only about 5% of Britons speak that way, and when foreigners come to the UK, most locals they encounter speak with a Cockney, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham or Scottish or Irish accent, which they may find difficult to understand.
Mind you, we also learn English pronunciation from American movies with subtitles. After hearing a lot of them, the British accents sound a bit weird to you and take some time to get used to. Some are harder than others, of course.
no. we learn english basically how everyone else speaks it, and the pronunciation is flowing from the tap (like this video) so no need to feel special about your accent
Nope, I've learnt English watching British TV series. You are talking about a time before Internet, when you had only the books and a teacher who would tell you what to do.
Nobody outside the UK understands Cockney or Manchester. It needs subtitles. American English has many varieties too but they're all understandable.
Here's the actual thing: Europeans learn British English (non-hillbilly English) in schools and the mass media is full of American English, resulting in a mix between the two.
I am a Indian.I study in an English medium school.English really unites the country.All the formal letters, e-mails we write in English.We are even taught Shakespeare in the higher school.
Shakespeare is awesome
@@jlouis4407 he is awesome, but I'm not sure if it is good for foreign high school students.
One of the Plus sides of Being an English Colony. People tend to only focus on the Negative of Colonialism..
Same here in the Philippines. Although we have Tagalog as a national lingua franca but English is still more widely used in every administrative and commercial communications. Hence, it is not surprising that someone from the provinces, most especially Visayans, are more adept in English than Tagalog.
Funny enough I am an Arab (Egyptian) yet whenever I speak with a Morrocan or Algerian we end up having to use English as their dialect is not understandable by me even though we supposidly speak same language.
Kind of but nobody speaks it for speaking, is more formal is called fusha or like pretty speaking, it's kind of awkward to speak in
Imagine trying to speak in the English of shakespeare
Maybe for higher class people is easier
Yes and also politic but even for them is strange,
maybe those bedouins can't speak fusha arabic. sorry for being rude
Singers and bands from Germany, Sweden, Netherlands etc. sing their songs in English....even if the singer does not know English ! ! This, of curse, is because they want to sell in the "big market"
Not necessarily. In the wake of 1066, English lost a lot of grammatical endings. This means that there are a lot of very short words, which makes it easier to write lyrics that fit in the rhythm in English than in some other languages
@@ronaldonmg While true, none of that negates Daniel Gill's point, which has played a major role in languge influence and adoption.
Greece be like:
People in Sweden and the Netherlands, especially those under the age of 60 and most definitely singers and musical artists talk and understand English like a second language. I am not sure if it is that widely understood and spoken in Germany but I guess in bigger cities and among the younger generations it is. (I am from Sweden and have travelled much in Europe)
@@__Paul__ It played a part, sure, but it's not like continental european bands sing in Spanish, Mandarin or Hindustani to access those huge markets
I learned English at school first, and then, I heard my half sister speak it once, and although she is a German, she spoke it with a perfect british accent, and I was like, I *want* to do that too! I Started imenselly getting interested, and a friend of mine told me about great games for the blind, and that the truely great ones are available in English only, so there we go! As for now, I can speak English well enough to do every-day-conversations, but when I read the English translation of "Emil und die Detektive" by Erich Kestner, there are thousands of words I need to look up. Concerning my pronunciation, I can do both british and american, and I'm in a really torn state. Currently, I just speak the accent of the other person, but I tend to speak with an american one when I'm alone.
So, that's me.
Thanks for sharing this great story! But if you're blind, do you have some way of knowing when someone replies and are able to respond?
How exactly do you mean? Replies to RUclips comments? In that case, my screen reader reads the notification when it comes up. And if I miss it, I just look in action center. I'm glad that windows 10 has such a thing.
@@karleick6679 Thanks for the reply. I didn't know about "screen reader." It makes sense that smart software is able to read aloud what you can't see. And I assume other software translates your spoken words into written comments and replies. Someday there will be cameras that can bypass the eyes and connect directly to to the part of the brain that processes images. I think even now there's some way the blind can ride a bicycle on a city street, and I don't mean on a tandem bicycle.
@@alwaysuseless Oh no, I actually write using the PC-Keyboard, using the ten-finger-system. That system isn't as easy to explain for me, but like anything, if you frequently use it, it just gets stuck a lifetime. I do the whole controlling with the keyboard actually. When it comes to Smartphones, navigating is pretty easy, but typing is a pain in the but. That's why I, indeed, use the dictation function, although it isn't as reliable, or, in the case of WhatsApp, just do voice messages.
Thank you for sharing your blind perspective for learning languages. More power to you.
As a Turkish person, although English is nothing like Turkish, English is simple in a way to learn and talk. You don't need to learn a complicated alphabet, you don't drown in cases and its grammar isn't that difficult.
Yes, that's true. It is simpler than many other languages in many respects. But spelling is harder than most languages. This is because English borrows so many words from many languages, each with its own rules for spelling and pronunciation. That is why the spelling is so inconsistent.
Sheep
@@cjsm1006 English is a Germanic language, and has never dropped all the Germanic spellings. "Knight" used to be pronounced Knekt hundreds of years ago, and has since lost the k sound and the g sound, but is still spelled as if it had them. I'm not sure why English speaking countries seem so intent on keeping their difficult spelling. I am learning German, and while it is very difficult grammatically, it is practically phonetic, and that helps a lot. My mother was Italian, and she loved English because "there's a word for absolutely everything." Any word we like from any other country, we just adopt.
"Will Esperanto become the international language?"
"Nope"
Oh Paul, you broke my heart.
You know it's true though
Mine is broken too.
Or...
Mia koro estas rompita ankaŭ.
;w;
Oh, Cecelia broke my heart 💔
She's also shaking my confidence daily 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵
edoardo barbieri li rompis mian koron 😭💔
Leeber Gruber Honestly, Esperanto is a great language. Very flexible and simple. I was essentially fluent in a year with only about 15 minutes of study a day. I no longer care if it ever becomes the International Language, it has been a great experience for me and has opened up options for communication and personal enrichment. To articles on many topics written by individuals from around the world. To music and poetry and podcasts that I otherwise would never have found. William Auld is particularly brilliant in my opinion. And you'll never meet a friendlier language community anywhere.
Phonzo Cisne Jes, estis bedaŭrinde. Sed ni havas la fratecon de Esperanto. Estas bone vidi alian Esperantiston!
Just a heads up to the anglophones who complain about not being able to practice languages abroad because people will automatically respond in english. As an American I see where you're coming from, but I found that if you just lie and deny the ability to speak english they have no choice but to speak to you in their native language. (Lived in Germany as a teen and as soon as Germans would speak english to me I would just say in german that I didn't speak english and if they continued I'd start speaking spanish.) When I moved to France? I'd speak German or Spanish if they tried to speak english with me. I know it is dishonest but doing this allowed me to improve and profect my foriegn languages. Also, if you ONLY speak english fluently just make up a language. I've had friends do that and it works.
I guess it may depend on where you lived in Germany. Whenever I lived or visited there, I only spoke the German Language to other Germans. The thought never crossed my mind to speak English? Of course, it may have helped that I spoke with a dialectal accent of the region I was at or that I spent most of my town in smaller villages or towns.
The only time I actually used some English is when I checked into a business hotel and used my American Passport for an ID. The desk clerk upon seeing my passport started speaking to me in English and I just would answer in German. I was OK with carrying on a bilingual conversation.
>American
Kek, ok Hernandez.
La problema es que tienes que aprender habilidad suficiente hablar un poco antes de puedes hacerlo.
Haha that is genius!!!
@@alternateperson6600 Nice job exposing yourself as an open racist. Go back to 8ch and the Daily Stormer.
I'm a 16 years old boy in Italy, and here English is taught at school for 13 years. Most young people know it well enough (it also depends on how much they study etc.).
Older people, however, don't know it as much as young ones, since before about (1980 I think?) at school you could choose between English and French, and most people chose French because of its similarities with Italian and ease of learning.
Interesting, thanks for the bit of information, I've always wondered what language people in western europe countries learnt, in my country everyone learnt Russian (before the early nineties, when a new regime came in) as their first foreign language. I'd like to know what the situation was also in other western countries, if anyone knows.
Actually in Italy all children study english but french is not the second foreign language in every part of the country.
In fact, in northern Italy many schools decide to teach germany, and in other areas they decide to teach spanish.
Then in secondary schools, students keep learning english and usually can chose another language.
For example, I had to chose beetwen german and spanish back in the days. (I chose the second because I studied german for my whole childhood and I've always been hating it)
I apologize if I commited grammatical mistakes... I'm better at speaking english than writing.
Matteo Carta Yes, but that's not what I was talking about. I didn't mention any second foreign language, I just said the _first_ foreign language was French instead of English before around 1980. In fact I learned German as second foreign language myself.
altermetax Va bene, scusa amico, avevo frainteso.
Figurati! Nessun problema, era solo per spiegare meglio cosa intendevo
My mother, a native English speaker who is also fluent in French, was in Brussels twenty years ago and had to ask two police officers for directions. She spoke to them in French instead of English, assuming that it would be easier because French is one of Belgium's official languages. However, the officers then turned and discussed among themselves IN ENGLISH what to tell her!
I know the language situation in Brussels is a bit of a special situation, but still!
I find it strange that there are Dutch speaking Police Officers in Brussels that don't know French! They were either foreign or it just was a special case.
@@bletrick3352 I believe they understood her but didn't think she spoke English so they spoke to each other in English on how to give her the best directions
French is Just to hard to Spell and complicated Nobody wants to Go through that
Probably one officer was a native French speaker, the other a native Flemish speaker. So they spoke to each other in English.
That 'Nope' hurts me 😭 My Esperanto!!!
@YLR Entertainment Mi ne komprenis kion vi diris.
@YLR Entertainment Sed mi parolas. Cxion bonan!
- Will Esperanto be the lingua franca one day?
- No.
*CRIES IN ESPERANTO*
Esperanto deserved better
xD
I want so bad to Latin be the Lingua conventus (Lingua Franca)
I'm an Esperanto lover, and I also wish more people can learn about Esperanto.
@@lukebrowning4712 No, conlangs are cringe
Make Latin great again!
Ave, true to Caesar!
Albert Böschow yaaay
New latin, the only language could be lingua franca if their countries united: SPANISH!
Lingua Latina perfecta fuit, est et erit
Interlingua
Interestingly enough, I'm a native English AND Polish speaker, and after growing up in England I moved back to live in Poland for a few years (living in Poland now but moving back to England once COVID decides to calm tf down). Me and my boyfriend of a year now speak predominantly English to each other in everyday conversations, which is a bit unusual since you'd imagine a purely Polish couple both knowing Polish natively and living in Poland would use Polish to communicate, but that's not the case. I think part of it is my laziness since my English is significantly better than my Polish. Despite living in Poland for almost 2 years now, i still use English predominantly with my family and nearly all of my friends here, unless their level of English is low enough that they're not comfortable with speaking it. Usually though, even if they don't speak it I will still use a mixture of predominantly English and Polish and have them reply in Polish.
Sounds like my experience with using Bengali in Bangladesh. I use mostly English despite being native in both- but there’s no question my English is better than Bengali so it’s my natural go to to use.
You should be ashamed of yourself
I don't know if it's your laziness, but if I had known you, I guess, I would be glad that you're keen to speak in English with me - and I suspect that your friends from Poland have similar reason as myself in your case.
I'm a native and daily Polish speaker, who mainly practises this apparently _lingua franca_ on the internet by passive consumption. Likewise, I'm also a software developer in Polish team of Swedish company, so I have a few opportunities in a week to try some clear communication with colleagues in different subsidiaries - but you know how it goes, they use Swenglish, we use Polglisz, everybody is happy ;)
Thus, I believe your friends are happy to use English with you, as they can train themselves without any concerns that they will not _dogadają się_ with you - as they can easily try to switch to Polish and rely on your help :)
@@mirzinho8721 how? The USA and UK are the top producers of entertainment and both speak English, so it’s inevitable
Every language is slowly getting irrelevant, to be fair
Right after the video finished, an Arabic ad:
“ _We all know the importance of the English language_ “
Lol
Amra shobai Ingreji'r gurutto jani .
It's Bengali
@@morshedalmahi6250 aapko hindi aati hai
My friends do understand English but they don't really speak that well. One time when I was on a stroll in a mall with my friends I had to buy some stuff while they stayed in a certain spot. A tourist came to them and asked where is the toilet, they understand but couldn't speak and just said,
"Yes yes yes yes yes... YES, yes yes..."
I'm still laughing about it till this day.
hannibal kills haha! And where are you from?
Sergio Soares Good question.
hannibal kills 😂😂😂 and what did say that tourist? 😂😂😂
hannibal kills I expect this only to happen in Indonesia, I bet you're from Indonesia aren't you?
When i hearing someone speak english
My listening skills:100+
When i try to speak english
My speaking skills:-100
Lol. Relatable.
just like indians
Don't worry, that's common for learners of any language
Let's just say that English is truly an eye opening language. My family doesn't speak it though. Also English is not phonetically consistent which makes it a hassle to learn but still I love it.
Traveling in Denmark and Germany, I found that almost everyone spoke good English, especially the younger generation. I was quite impressed.
Same goes for basically all scandinavic countries
Wait until you go to the Netherlands, those people are freaks in their language knowledge. It seems they do anything they can to avoid speaking Dutch. I don't think I even heard Dutch when I was there, and no I wasn't just in Amsterdam, in fact I stayed in Rotterdam, still minimum to no Dutch.
@@behradh Sadly is to say I agree, it seems that English influence is so big that they do not care about Dutch anymore. Even their higher education is in English. Is this a nation ready to commit language suicide? ( If that terms exists)
Dont know if it had much to do with it,but Hollands been able to get british tv for years,long before the internet and satellite tv
Quixotepr well Dutch is pretty similar to English.
I'm a native English speaker from the UK. You can't learn every language so it's really useful to have a lingua franca, and I find that it's really easy to get by in English all over Europe. I don't think that everybody speaks English, but many people do so it's generally easy to find someone who does. The highest level of English I've come across has been in Sweden, where many young people speak English without a discernible Swedish accent. The standard of English spoken is really excellent in Scandinavia and the Netherlands in particular. I was a bit surprised last time I travelled through Charles de Gaulle international airport in Paris though. I ordered a coffee and the baristas, although they understood my English, only replied in French. I was in transit waiting on a long haul flight so I was really surprised they didn't speak English. Also I was a little bit annoyed because I wanted an Americano but foolishly asked for a "black coffee" so I got an espresso!!
Many British people are monolingual and aren't able to communicate well with non-native speakers because they don't know how to modulate the speed they speak at or the words they use. Quite ironic really that their native language is the global lingua franca but they are unable to successfully communicate with non-native speakers... I really hate it when British people say the same thing repeatedly, increasing in volume each time, when the person they are taking to is struggling to understand. They aren't deaf!! Saying the same words only more loudly is not helpful!
Must be different in Norway then, because a couple of my college buddies were Norwegian and while they spoke excellent English, they had discernable Scandinavian accents....
Excellent comments. Yes, we (non native speakers) are not deaf !!!!
just to say, once in Italy a girl asked me something (she needed help), and doing it she was speaking with a strong scottish accent which was absolutely incomprehensible to my ears, and she was just trying to say it louder instead of use the ''standard'' english pronounciation, showing a certain disappointment after a while. So, instead of slapping her face, I started to speak italian, just to make her understand how does it feel.
Matthew Sedotes language of burritos
When you do not know any other language don't criticize people doing the same to you. Because you were talking in your mother tongue (english) But the barman was doing the same while speaking French ... I hope now you feel the way feel while English speakers talk in English to us.
Most Russians don’t speak English in general, most of my non-linguist friends are either unfamiliar with the language or their level is relatively low. I don't generalize actually, there're a lot of smart young people across the country (who are university's graduates, mostly) who do speak it rather nice. There're also a lot of people who can't understand a word and really want to change it (I work as a private tutor sometimes, trust me, I do know it).
However, there're a lot of people, mostly from the working class and/or provincial areas who don’t want to learn English at all due to thinking of it as of an “enemy’s language” - with all this sanction things and international stupidity many Russians don’t wanna expose themselves to cultures of Britain and the US. There’s a phrase said by those who don’t want to let English in their lives: “If somebody wants to talk to me in Russia they must know Russian. If I want to talk to somebody while being abroad... This will never happen because I will never go abroad”.
Another thing is that in the Soviet Union it was pretty useless to learn a foreign language, especially English, as it was almost impossible to leave the country. Therefore, most of the teaching techniques are rather inefficient and/or complicated so learning a language was not only senseless but also quite a challenge. Despite that the USSR is thankfully not around anymore, it has been not so much time left, so techniques and methods remain the same, that is why even if someone wants to learn the language they may find it really difficult, a lot more that it actually is.
I could learn English mainly because my mother was and still is an English teacher. She’s also an incredibly smart person. She knew that knowing the language would be extremely useful in the future and started introducing me to the language and the culture at the very young age by showing some movies that lacked an official Russian translation and taking me to her job (which is actually a military boarding school for boys). At the age of 7 I started learning English at school with two classes per week (later more). I also had additional lessons with mom and grandma quite often, so I had become completely fluent by the age of 12. Currently I’m 20.
I don't know about all the Russians but in Moscow people under 30 with college degrees usually know at least some English (enough to travel and read technical documents). Also the only place where I see English called "enemy's language" is this page. Please be careful with such generalizations. There are more than enough misconceptions about our country around the world as it is.
Let's take it from the roots: both German-Romance language branches and a Slavic one derived from our one common ancestor - the Indoeuropean, so you won't have a headache like you would've had otherwise if you learned Chinese or Arabian, you get my point.
Now, let's sort it out step by step:
- Russian is not lingua franca anymore and probably never will be, not only because the USSR collapsed, but also thanks to the hideous state we fellow Russians live in;
- as such, before making up your mind whether or not to learn Russian, please be aware that Russian main TV channels are run by government and the mind of a common man is often filled with skilfully constructed bed of lies and general misunderstanding about the outside world. That doesn't mean everyone is racist and want to expel/kill you, but surely there aren't crowds of smiling people on the streets. Even so, all things considered, you can centainly expect a warm welcome and common sense from people, as we are nor aliens nor brainsick imperialists and there are both blinkered mediocres and brilliant potential acquaintances;
- now back to the point: you can learn that terrible Cyrillic alphabet in merely one evening and won't be scared by all that frightful ЖЩЪ anymore;
- yet learning the language itself (and the phonetics! oh my beloved palatalization!) will probably fuck you up, so you'll need some solid motivation to wade through all that cases and rules and grammar and oh my god how do you speak that living hell why am I always mistaken in some unexpected way?
- all things considered, learning Russian for the sake of learning might probably suck you dry, but given the case you are truly into Russian language and culture and history and people, you'll definitely be rewarded.
Moscow and the outer Russia are basically different countries, it's always been like that. Many people I know have some knowledge of English one way or another but I can't tell that they're really fluent or something.
English. People do learn it, albeit they don't really like doing it (and the language isn't taught really well, if you don't learn it on your own you won't learn it). Some people who do want to learn it, learn it.
It is indeed worth learning. If you have an interest, learn it. But I need to warn you - it's a very hard language to take up, even us native speakers make A LOT OF mistakes while talking and, especially, writing. Alphabet isn't really the most complicated thing you'll face if you decide to learn it. The lack of articles isn't a major issue as well. I don't want to spoil it for you, so nuff said. CIA gave it a 4 learning difficulty rating for an English speaker. The highest rating is 5, btw. If you want to start learning the language feel free to contact me, I hope there's a link to my Facebook in my Google account. If there's no just use an email, I always reply.
Many Russians are but there's a thing in our culture that they would never tell you. If people find out you're a foreigner they'll be really kind to you, I assure you. Unless they're really dumb but hey, there're dumb racist people all across the globe.
Unlike many authoritarian countries, such as North Korea, Venezuela and China you won't really feel this regime here, if you don't dance in a church (but there's a historical explanation why don't you need to do this and why the people are so crazy about it, I personally don't care). Facebook, Twitter, RUclips, Google and Telegram work without any restrictions (there're some but they're for Russian users only, and the companies, as well as the government don't really care about these damn restrictions, this law doesn't really work, like, AT ALL), you won't need a VPN unless you want to watch some really hardcore pervert horse porn or something. The same will go for most of the stupid laws that work (or don't work) here, so Russia would be a really nice place to visit (I know many guys who visited and they liked it here).
The Sun never sets on the English language.
And why is that? Because the Romans invaded England and turned the language of the Barbarians into a rich and beautiful language with lots of Latin and Greek words. Gaius Julius Caesar should take credit for it.
@@yolamontalvan9502 Dude it's because English is spoken in North America (with the exception of Mexico), Europe (some parts), Africa (some parts), Asia (again, some parts) and Oceania (most parts). All spanning from far west to far east so due to timezones the sun in the English language "never sets".
@@yolamontalvan9502 the English took over England after the Roman conquests. Ironically the French and Latin were largely brought in from Norsemen (Normans) who had assimilated to French culture.
@@yolamontalvan9502 😂😂 you sound like a roman, fantasizing themselves, and cant get over it.
Greek only make up 6 percent of volcabulary in English. French makes up 30 percent of words.
I'm in Ayutthaya, Thailand. A lot of foreign traveller visit here everyday. But not so many people could speak English for daily basis around here. But they actually could use a little of english for trading and negotiating to Travellers. But many could use that same level of communication in Mandarin, Japanese and maybe French too. Also, I found that even though most of the travellers could speak English, It's very often that French, Chinese and German people does not feel comfortable to speak English. And some doesn't understand English at all. French is the most language that I need to use translator app for help (I use EnglishFrench instead of ThaiFrench which is not possible to understand the result.) While people who native to Latin like Brazilian, Spanish that I was met "always" could speak English. Not to mention Malaysian, Indian that obviously could speak English.
Oh, Almost off topics. But very interesting experience about English. There are many of Chinese migration in my parents and grandparents generation lived here, Most of them are from Chaozhou. Then there was a transferred student from China to my school. One of my friend having parents who both came from China, So we introduce them. And surprised that in the end, They speak English to each other. As my friends parents never learn Mandarin. That's the first time I realized that there're many Chinese languages.
I saw this video in my English class yesterday! I just came back here to review and take down more notes for my very first lesson in 9th grade.
Cool. Shout out to your teacher! 👏🏻
I do not speak English, or I shouldn't say I'm fluent. I started watching this channel in order to get extra practice and I must say it worked out well
Great! I'm glad to hear it! It seems that a lot of people watch for that reason, which was surprising at first, but hey - that's a great reason.
English is also the lingua franca in the Universe according to both Marvel, DC and Star Wars. And in Andy Weir's books, it's the lingua franca on both Mars and the moon as well.
"Hollywood"
English as the lingua Franca makes it hard for us English natives to learn other languages. If you're trying to learn French or Spanish and travel to a country where it is the first language, nobody will help you. They all want to speak to you in English because I want to practice English. In Spain it is almost rude. You can talk to them in Spanish and they understand every word but then they answer you in English usually very bad English) without even asking you if English is your native language.
So I am finding that non-english natives are making it difficult to learn other languages.
I have found a solution that works sometimes. I tell the person that I only speak Spanish and Hungarian. Then they are willing to talk to you in Spanish because nobody speaks Hungarian anywhere
Robert Britton Too true. I was once told to speak "ENGLISH". I spoke Irish, that really helped lol.
Robert Britton, beautiful comment. :)
Robert Britton Podrías comenzar por escribir tu comentario en español, y así tendrías (más) respuestas y ayuda en ese idioma. Tu pourrais commencer par écrire ton commentaire en français, et tu aurais (plus) de réponses et d'aide dans cette langue. As you posted your comment in English, I'll do the same. I can't say about other countries, but in Mexico is quite common to get help trying to speak in Spanish. Although it depends a lot on who you speak to. For instance, a salesperson or a front desk clerk will answer in English trying to be polite and making easier the communication (they can speak the language!), but a passerby will help you gladly with your Spanish trying to be polite and because in many cases they don't speak English fluently or not al all. I have had the same experience in English and French, while some people immediately change to Spanish (or even to English in France) to make me feel confortable, mainly in the commercial environment, some others have helped me with my English/French in the every day and academic settings. So "depende..." (it depends) as we say in Spanish. And if you need any help with your Spanish, I'm willing to help you.
gjvarelah Nice comment, like you said "It depends". Regretfully speaking and offering only anecdotal evidence, I have found that not many people are as helpful as you. Kind of like 80:20. I guess I understand to a degree, like why bother fambling about (just get on with it, use English). Of course then non native speakers get confused when I bruit out something and leaves me wondering. Native English speakers tend to underestimate their abilities when it comes to other languages.
bof1701 You have a point. The world wants to speak English to English native speakers. However, that just shows how bad foreign language teaching is in say the USA. People around the world learn how to communicate in a foreign language. I work with Americans that are exposed to Spanish, learn it for 6 or more years in school and all they can do is say a few words. Meanwhile people from other parts of the world, like Asia and Middle East come to the states, live in a Hispanic neighborhood and they learn Spanish by “Osmosis”. Spanish is a language totally different from theirs, with a different alphabet, etc.
Yesssss more LangFocus!
It's good to have a language to communicate with people from all over the world. Today is this language is English, so be it. Whoever doesn't know how to speak it nowadays may get in trouble to find information about stuff. But I believe that there's a downside to this to the native english speakers, because everyone in the world who speaks english as a second language can have access to information and culture of the english speakers, but native english speakers may get themselves in a comfort zone thinking that they don't need to learn any other language and that leads them to close themselves to amazing stuff that other cultures have, because the language is the front door to the wonders of any culture.
I've found that the most interesting thing about learning a foreign languages is that in comparing it allows you ro undestand your own language and how it works a lot more. I've heard, so I don't know for certain, that in english schools learning syntax isn't in the curiculum until the appropriate university. That's a lot to miss out on, at least in my opinion.
Great comment! I totally agree with you.
I find the problem for English speaking people wanting to learn another language is that people laugh in our faces and always answer in English. That causes problems when we live in a country and have as much interest of learning the new language as anybody else. In Scandinavia some speak to all foreigners in English even if they are fluent in Swedish, Danish or Norweigen. This can make the other person lose confidence in their ability. In the end it can also be extremely iritaing. We are wrong if we don´t learn the language and treated like idiots when we do.
@@benangel3268 That is part of learning a language, I am Nigerian and I moved to Mexico 14 years back without knowing a word in Spanish, today I speak about 95% Spanish, in the beginning people laughed at me but they still corrected me, some chose to speak to me in English but I preferred replying them back in Spanish, I know people who have been here for 9 years and can barely construct a statement in Spanish because they didn't want to be made fun of. Keep your head up, people will always look for a reason to make fun of you.
Say there’s a lot of truth in that statement I went to take a Spanish class in Costa Rica being the only American in class with majority of my classmates being from Switzerland they’re used to having multiple languages being spoken around them and I only know the one so it was like crossing a dozen cultural bridges
i am a native english and german speaker who also knows some french. when i was on a trip to spain last year, i spoke english when i could, but there were quite a few instances where i couldn't use it, and french was a suitable backup option. i even ordered a covid-19 test in french on the trip! while english is easily the most useful language in the world, i think this shows there is still some legacy of the importance of french, and plenty of value in knowing multiple foreign languages.
Kitty kitty kitty stardenburdenhardenbacht
I mean Spain is pretty close to France and French is still a pretty widely spoken language. As far as the most widespread and popular languages go, I’m pretty sure French is high on the list with English, as well as Spanish.
I am an Iraqi. In Iraq English is taught from class # 5 all the way to college graduation ( MANDATORY), but students don't interact with so many native speakers of English,(economic siege, war and people afraid in their houses, then no power, slow Internet, International companies advised not to go there...etc). So unless your work involves interacting with the American army there, it is like the physics that you just forget about after each test. Now I am an exception; I came to the US as an international student which is why my English looks better than the picture here. Yesterday, my neighbor- He's in Iraq- posted a photo on Facebook and wrote NOW LOOK for "new look" . So Yeah Iraqis can and are somehow learning it, but there isn't that much interaction and they just can't practice it with the right people. In northern Iraq however, where the Iraqi Kurdish people live, it is the opposite; you can see many international Organizations and people around so the local people and the new generation in particular seem to be more interested and generally better in English. In fact, many of them know more about English than about Arabic which is the first official Language of the country.
Sir or Madam: I understand why you are less than happy about U.S. English...and I apologize! but your spelling of the word "neighbor"..means we have corrupted you!..
disoriented1. I'm a guy & my spelling is right 🙂. Also, I didn't say Iraqis aren't happy about English. The thing is that we can't learn it the right way -only the boring textbooks- and even most of the techers haven't talked to a native English! My point is I hope that changes soon.
I think my position makes it interesting to answer the question of the day:
I am Egyptian, I live and work in Romania, I was married to a Romanian lady, so this means languages spoken with my ex spouse, family, coworkers and people on the street.
- Between me and my ex(s): we spoke English, except occasional times we spoke Romanian in front of their families or friends. We almost never spoke in Arabic.
- Between me and my coworkers: funnily we speak English, not only because it's easier for me but also we work in IT domain, where our work itself is in English (programming and development).
- Between my ex(s) and my family: Broken English indeed. My father and sister speak English but not as fluent as I do, while my mother says only "thank you" and "very beautiful". One ex understood Arabic but never spoke it. This kept the communication (and the drama) limited.
- Between me and my ex-in-laws: Both Romanian and English. I think those who knew English wanted to make me comfortable or show some prestige, speaking English with me, if they can.
- Between me and daily life people (sellers, taxi drivers, etc): Romanian always, except when I am out of vocabulary or except when they want to be nice to me so they respond to my Romanian in English. Romanians, in general, speak English well, but then I live in the capital and can't speak of the countryside people.
- Between me and my clients: English indeed for the majority of them are from all over the world. I barely even had Arab clients.
- Between me and my own Egyptian friends: Mostly we chat in Arabic, but with some we chat in English, simply because faster to type!!
- Between my ex(s) and friends: Good English indeed.
So I think there are many examples and levels, from 2 countries on 2 continents, I can give.
Omg I from Romania, I can speak English, German, Spanish, Italy and Romanian, I wish you the best in our country , I was living in Bucharest Romania, but now I'm in London England I used to live in Berlin Germany when I was 15, Wish you the best of luck, I know is hard when is you second or third language.
@@mihaybmt6193 Nice! A couple grammar errors but honestly knowing so many languages nadie espera que sepas todas las reglas gramaticas de los idiomas that you know :)
@@mihaybmt6193 Nice! A couple grammar errors but honestly knowing so many languages nadie espera que sepas todas las reglas gramaticas de los idiomas that you know :)
soo you finished university in Egypt and came to Romania? Is worth working in IT industry in Romania?
My favorite quote is, “English is an easy language to speak badly.”
And I believe it’s true. Not only do we lack cases, elaborate word endings and “genders,” but native English speakers are usually really happy to try and understand non-native English speakers and encourage them to talk more.
That’s unlike the French, say, who dont actually want anyone else to speak French.
Well, I can safely say that most French speaking Canadians tend to appreciate efforts to speak our language. It's a hell of a lot better than the "say it louder in English" trope (which is thankfully rare but very surreal to watch). We do often break out our own English (if we know it) in an attempt to ease communication. As for the continental French, well, I can't honestly comment since it would be like an American trying to explain British behaviour.
English does have genders but only in pronouns.
Me pasó justo al reves en Francia. Los franceses quieren que todos hablemos su idioma.
@tazpi También sería bueno que los angloparlantes aprendan otros idiomas. It would also be good for English-speakers to learn other languages.
As a person who loves France I haven't dared to travel there yet because my French wasn't suffisant. How on earth could I go there and say "I love France" when I can't speak the language properly? The French certainly expect everybody to say at least Bonjour, merci....
But in my case I feel commited to speak some very solid French when going there. That's why I'm currently working on improving my French skills. And I know that the French love it when you (try to) speak their language.
American here. I did a year-long foreign exchange in Japan a few years back. I had studied the language for some time before going, and was glad I did. More often than not, I found it necessary to communicate in Japanese. There are some individuals with a high level of proficiency in English, but most of the time it was just easier to use Japanese.
3:49 Talking about American music taking over the world, he shows a Philips record player from The Netherlands haha
Hmmm he wasnt talking about the Music Players but the Music emanating from that “netherlands” shit haha
While traveling in Germany it seemed as everyone knew fluent English and it was very easy to get around. The same cannot be said for Italy. In Rome many spoke English well but outside of Rome, it was relatively difficult to get around with knowing a good amount of Latin based vocabulary that appears on signs and such.
The Vatican area everyone is knew English.
Q: Why did English become the international language?
A: People were impressed by the logic of its spelling. :)
The crazy spellings in English come from the fact that English is a mixture of various languages of Europe. The various spellings of the same sound come from their words of origin in languages of Scandinavia France Germany Italian Spanish Greek etc. This RUclips channel has a video about that. Check it out.
Haha nope
Because native english speakers are truly lazy!
Meh...
I prefer Spanish when
it comes to spelling.
French when it comes to phonetics, it's a soft language.
And English because of its basic grammar and verity of romance and Germanice loanwords.
Caballero :) ................ Knight :(
English is my second language. The greatest obstacles in speaking English with correct pronunciation is the irregular spellings i.e. pronunciations usually do not follow the spellings.
I feel like I read a paragraph from my science book because it contains a lot of i.e s
I'm from the UAE. I feel honestly feel English is my other first language. I would speak either comfortable depending on the setting. This is becoming more common. I can see the same trend in other countries and I feel great full I can become best friends with someone from a part of the world that I wouldn't have heard about a few decades ago.
And what's your second language?
@@cdemr arabic
Basically, the way to summarize this for people who don’t want to see the entire video.
British Empire had a really big empire. When America became America, it became a superpower so boom boom English everywhere
You do know what Boom Boom means in Thai right?
@@Digmen1 what?
U made me laugh really hard 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
China is becoming a superpower nowadays, but I think that their language never will be very widespread because they have a very complex writing system and it is not easy to pronounce.
English is not difficult to pronounce, the English grammar is much more simple than the grammar of Latin derived languages like French and Spanish. This makes English a very friendly language to learn.
@@pedroledoux9779 yeah their wriitten system is hell and their pronounciation based on tons which is extremely hard to us. I am from Central Asia.
Langfocus thanx man. I like how you explaining things. Im the language enthusiast and im learning a lot from your videos.....keep up to good work 😎😎😎
Well, I'm a native Russian speaker who has been actively using English since I was 15. I can't imagine my life without this language. More than half of material I read and watch on the internet is in English. I'm in loooove with this language. It's rather simple and pleasent to the ear. I study English Philology (which is English language + literature) at the university in Georiga (a small country, not a state of the USA) and teach kids this language. I try to convey to them my love for this language.
I live in the middle of Russia and only few of my friends (or people I know) know English well enough to watch this video. Even those guys, who literally lives in the Internet, they know only a little bit of English words and usually cannot put it together to say something harder than Present Simple. It is sad, I can say. Some TV channels even call English "language of enemies", but the main reason why people dont know English is because they dont want to educate. They dont even read science books or at least magazines in they own language, and ofcourse in English too. But anyway I am glad that I can type all of those my thoughts here and discuss it with the man of any nation, who can understand it. That is the power of the Internet.
"Some TV channels even call English "language of enemies""
Seriously? xd
Yeah, I'm glad of that too. There's something magical that as a Polish native speaker I can communicate with some Spanish man in English where for both of us it's the foreign language, it's like we meet on some neutral field.
Do they teach you English in Russian schools as the other language? Is it the most taught second language there? What are the others? German? And how early they start to teach you English in Russia?
S Mosk1tol Which part of Russia do you live in?
Thindorama Ural, Sverdlovskaya oblast.
DuchAmagi In Russian schools, as I know, pupils can teach French, German and English languages.
In my class we were learning English since 2nd grade, but I started when I was 5 in pre-school group. Some of my friend from eastern Russia said that they have started learning it in 7th grade.
But unless I graduated 11 class, I could only listen and read and couldnt speak at all, we had no practice speech. Later I was playing some online games, where I was speaking with foreigners a lot and it helped me sound more clearly.
>Is it the most taught second language there?
I guess so, because some of the students likes west culture and they have stimulus to learn English, and about other languages - there is no point of learning for them, as for me as well. But as I told recently, after graduating Russians usually cannot speak English even fluently.
>"Some TV channels even call English "language of enemies""
Seriously? xd
You saw that video with Morgan Freeman? It is neo-cold-war xd
TheBlack Moon Republican? Maybe you meant republics. We no longer have republics since "the disintegration of the USSR", that caused the separation of republics from the main country - Russia, but even new generations in these countries still learn or at least understand Russian. And besides Russian they all have their historical languages(like Tatar language), even some Russian "states" or "districts" has it.
I'm Japanese living in Japan, and as a native Japanese speaker I can say there's hardly anyone who can speak / understand English well enough to hold conversations with native speakers, even though we start learning English at the age of around 9~12(some elementary schools recently began teaching it from 2nd / 3rd grade, so maybe young children nowadays start learning it at around 7~8 instead). Most of the people over here even have difficulty communicating with travellers from non-English speaking countries in (broken) English with basic vocabularies, and many give up making themselves understood in that language on half way.... there are maybe some reasons for illustrating it, but from my point of view I'd say this is because there's hardly no practical use in actually learning/mastering it. In the book stores we've got plenty of academic books written in Japanese language and in most of the cases the books from overseas(regardless of in which language they're written) are immediately translated into Japanese, so there's no need for people to be able to read in English to gain informations. Plus in schools we can still keep taking classes in Japanese in universities / high schools and a lot of lectures are held in Japanese by native Japanese teachers, so there's practically no need to have a good understanding of it for taking credits to graduate from their school, unless you have to take some classes by those teachers from English speaking coutries who speak no Japanese, or you want to study in the schools / live / work in English speaking coutries in future.
(I live near Tokyo and I'm not precisly sure about other parts of my country, but I guess the situation is more or less similar to where I reside at the moment, as Paul said in his live video that " Japanese people's fluency in the English language is generally quite low". )
Speaking of my attitude toward the English language, well.. if you want to constantly keep in touch with the outside world to enrich your views, I feel it's a bit awkward not to be able to communicate in that language because it's a necessity for international communication with people from different countries with different first languages, for whatever purpose. But I don't think everyone in the world should be able to speak it fluently since I suppose every culture has virtues in it, including in the languages local people speak, and I feel it's better to respect the different cultures as much as possible, no matter how different they are and thereby how displeasuring they might turn out to be to foreigners.
dxm8975 you from Japan but you just wrote English better than me and I'm from America you wrote in a formal English journalism way great English buddy
Is English your first foreign language? How difficult is it for a Japanese native? In my experience learning a foreign language from a different language family is noticeably more difficult than from the same as your native language. One reason, which I never deemed important before I actually tried learning a non Indo-European language, why it is so is that related languages have many similar words. The grammar is usually somewhat similar too. English is the easiest Indo-European language and its being lingua franca is very convenient for Indo-European people, but must complicate things a lot for others. Still you seem to have done quite well with your English - good job.
For most Japanese people,English is hard to learn.Because English and Japanese are totally different languages.There are no similarities between the two.And we dont need to speak English in daily life.That is the reason why English is hard for us Japanese to learn.日本語が英語話者にとって難しいのと同様に、英語も日本人には難しいのです。
it is still surprising to me that a reasonable amount of japanese people don't speak english well. and starting to learn english at the age of 9 is even stranger, i started learning english in scholl at the age of 5 or 6. I am brazilian, from Rio.
the other thing i should add is there are a huge amount of english courses here. Near my home (20 min away by foot) there are more than 4. It appear it is not the same in japan. Am I wrong?
Bernard, I can't speak for Japanese nor Brazilians but experience from my country is, except for people in some jobs (not just catering to tourists, interpreting and teaching but e.g. IT) people don't get many opportunities to use foreign languages outside of school/courses unless they go out of their way to do so. Books, TV shows, Internet sites etc. are either translated or local, manuals and guides are translated too. And the lack of usage is reflected in the fact they forget most of what they might have learned in school.
Even if China becomes the dominant superpower in the future, I think English will continue as a lingua franca, because it's much easier to learn than chinese.
If China will abandon characters and gonna use a pinyin only it might occur.
No. Language complexity is most irrelevant thing for a language spread. Is Latin so easy it dominated the entire European history for centuries?
English is not easy and exceptionally hard to non-Europeans.
Every language, including Chinese, is meant to be spoken by people. It’s unusual at best, but not impossible to learn. It would simply take longer than English to learn.
a550077 English is not easy, it's easiER than Chinese (in fact, no language is easy when studying fully). Latin is not easy either, that's why there was the Vulgar Latin, which developed in the Romance Languages. Even when comparing Romance languages with English, it's possible to see that it is easier. And what I mean by a language being easier is that you can make more mistakes and still be understood. So, of course, it's not impossible to learn chinese, but it being more difficult, it's less likely to become a lingua franca, unless China achieves the same or even greater level of dominance in popular culture, science, politics, etc, than Great Britain and USA have achieved in the past 200 years or so.
Mao proposed switching to Pinyin (didn't happen). Chinese characters are very logical and you can make rapid progress with very little knowledge (not as difficult as you might think). Chinese replacing English (not likely) unless there is a fundamental change regarding the redistribution of wealth.
For entire decades the Chinese governement has been doing everything in its power so that the Chinese culture won’t spread across the country’s boarders. The omnipresent information control and censorship completely eliminates artistic creativity and communication with the outside world. All these measures make the Chinese culture seem to be stuck in history and unattractive. What we actually see in Europe and in Americas are only fragments of what the Chinese culture could possible offer to us. The soft power of Japan, a contry which has 10 times less people than China, has several times greater cultural influence to the world.
EVERY native-English speaking country is the exact opposite of that. These are rich, attractive, populous, democratic countries with a firmly established freedom of speech.
Other reasons why Mandarin won't become the lingua franca:
-China banning a lot of access to everything
-Chinese language is very hard for many people (I love its writing system but Chinese being a strictly tonal language makes it much more complicated and something that I don't really like)
But for real south east or east asian actually mandarin is easier than english,, except if they don't like mandarin at first perceptive.
"The harder" will look easier if we seems like love and a lot familiar (at academics or internet world).
Plus Chinese media is nowhere near as popular as American and British media are.
Movies, video games and TV help spread language massively.
@鄭善澤 mandarin is not coolest language and Chinese culture is also not like american culture. we r cool
The Chinese government is trying to put the Chinese language into the map of lingua francas along with French, Spanish and Arabic despite the rest of the world are not interested of learning it
It should be easier for Korean and Japanese speakers. But for most European speakers...
I'm from Italy and uhh... while nowadays English is taught in schools since the age of 5, many people speak a really bad English, or no English at all, and this is true for young people as well. Try typing "Italian politicians speaking English" on the youtube search bar to get a taste!
Politicians in most countries are not the brightest representatives of a nation. Look at President Trump and his "beautiful" English. Don't judge people by politicians. I know from my personal experience that Italians speak English quite well. Cheers! :-)
iuriius hmmm after 10 years living here I can confidently say that you got extremely lucky to find an italian speaking english
i dont want to be a nationalist but we have a realy good language imho. Ages ago, when i was a kid in school i loved to learn english because everything on my computer was in eng, especially games and it sounded so exotic. Year after year i came to the conclusion that english is an inferior lang compared to ours.
It's easy and fast to learn but it's just that, a way to speak with foreign ppl, nothing else, good for manuals.
If you consider that we have (maybe had) everything translated in italian like movies, games and books and we also got some realy nice singers, english is (maybe was) needed only if you want to work abroad (very likely nowadays to be honest).
In the last years things are changing obviously, internet killed the TV (star XD) where everything is in eng, internationl commerce is "mandatory" (thx EU) for a country to not die especially inside the €uro zone and you have to consider also the lack of jobs in our peninsula which forces ppl to find luck elsewhere so right now, is imperative to learn a decent english and for several reasons.
In 10 years everyone will speak eng in italy too (while dialects will disappear) but you have a good reason to explain our lack of english knowledge: our lang is better and we have\had everything in italian, we also had italian jobs lol.
Forgive my arrogance my dear native eng speakers.
Well, if you want to hear a really horrible English, then google "Günther Öttinger Englisch". After watching this, you'll have to confirm that German politicians sometimes are every bit as bad in English as Italian politicians.
In my opinion the problem is that there is very little focus on teaching English pronunciation, so a typical student might have good comprehension when reading a text, but won't understand much when listening to it.
I find it ridiculous that they have to study Shakespeare but won't even know all the different vowels that exist in English.
the pronounciation of English is chaos
non-native speakers tens to say words as they are written , this helps , really
I’m a native speaker and I agree like in the word island the letter “s” is silent
Nope, English is pronounced : In-gli-sh , while we don't have a word pronounced as ch-ao-s, Chaos is a word pronounced as K-ahs. :-)
@@jamesarmstrong857 I actually disagree here. I would say English is pronounced "ing-lish." There is no emphasis on the N.
Here's the thing, however: pronunciation isn't nearly as important in English as it is in many other languages. If you're using English as a second language and come up to me and mispronounce something, chances are it will have no impact on my understanding you. Other languages... not so much.
Before watching, my guess: USA and UK influence.
Bingo
In a nutshell, I love your channel. I am English and Italian learner, I enjoy your videos. I always find number of interesting facts. Thank you so much. Good Luck.
P.S: I especially enjoy the historical backgrounds. I love History.
I know a few non english people through playing games on steam and the according to them, the best way they have learned english is through playing computer games as there are very few games with croatian translations, for example. They have a definite accent to their speech and it doesn't flow as well as it could do but in terms of their grammar and vocabulary, it's pretty much perfect.
Yes, that is how many people learned English, we were "forced to" because games, documentaries, websites, movies etc were often available in English only.
I'd recommend them to sing songs in English if they want to improve their accents. I did it and I'm glad. It's not that I sound like an English native speaker now (it was never my goal anyway) but I don't have that hard Slavic accent.
Generally exposing yourself to a language is the best idea to learn it. So, yeah - playing video games is great. Also watching movies and singing songs.
Would that work with learning stuff like Spanish or French? Because I want to try that out.
If that's the case, then does anybody know of any games that are in Korean (preferably RPGs and Shooters)?
Video games helped me with my English too, I’m fluent in English but sometimes I come across big words or words in English that I never heard of so that helps me learn new words to make my English better
In Tajikistan, hardly anyone knows English. The lingua franca is Russian and called the "interethnic language" in the Constitution. On paper, it's supposed to be the language between Tajiks and Uzbeks or Afghans for example. But in reality, Russian is the language of all the metropolitan places exclusively. Why? Because you don't know if the person driving your taxi speaks Tajik. So instead you must use Russian by nature of not being rude and assuming. Half your class may be Uzbeks, and none of them will speak Tajik unless the government tries to impose it again, which caused massive anger last time. In this situation, you must use Russian, even if you're in a Tajik-based school.
Speaking of which, there are 3 school systems primarily - Tajik and Russian and Mixed. There are some Uzbek schools and others left over from the Soviet style of administration, but more and more people will turn to these two, and of those two, Russian is getting popular again. This is mostly because the Tajik schools are very low quality.. So parents demand the benefits of Russian education.
You learn English in school now, but its late and in some areas I think it's optional. But still you will not find people who speak it because there is no practical use.
а што происходит с таджикскими школами? отчего низкий уровень?
Gojo Ţigan, насколько я слышал, нехватка учебной литературы на таджицком - одна из причин.
Could you explain then how come when I taught Physics in one of Engineering Universities in Moscow most of my Tajik and Uzbek students claimed not to know Russian well enough?
Thanks for your comment. I feel like I learned something about your country :)
+ブブリコフバシャ I don't know why that is the case. Probably from a rural area with dominant Tajik majority then. You cannot be from Dushanbe and not know Russian to a good level. Especially because all dissertations are IN Russian. You'd fail school.
Well im in Scotland so the levels of English is pretty bad
depends on wherr ye are.... it varies widely from Easterhouse to Edinburgh......
what part of scotland has the thickest accent?
I'm inclined to think the Western Isles or the Northern Highlands, the further away you go from the high population areas
That's nowt lad, avago at understanding us lot ovver in Yorkshire.
DickTurpin When I read that I automatically read it in a Scouse accent.
I love the fact that, as a non native english speaker, i can understand your speech perfectly
speech*
@@guitarspadeschess6908 ???
@@thefisher612 lol i honestly don’t know
Here in Peru, although the teaching of English is compulsory, many people stop practicing it when they finish school and forget it, and therefore, almost everyone can only speak Spanish (one with lots of jargon)
Well, I'm peruvian and I live in the capital, Lima, being precise, in the smallest district in Lima, called Lince; here only the youth, pushed by their parents are learning English at language schools at a intermediate level, due to the lack of teaching quality at public schools unless you go to a private one.
I live in Canada, so most 2nd generation immigrants here speak English as mother tongue, while immigrants speak English to a varying degree.
With travelling it depends on location. In Japan, using English was useless, I had to sign language all the time... In China, I didn't try to speak English due to my ability to speak Mandarin. In Hong Kong, using English was fine. In the Netherlands, speaking English was fine. In france, the same, but not as much. Same in the Caribbean (Dominican republic, cuba) but I assume that's because we stayed only in resorts...
Over the course of globalization of English, I think it’s really important to notice how much the English vocabulary and grammar has simplified. And that also benefits the expansion of English.
I agree, and English uses the Roman alphabet, unlike Russian or Chinese. Who uses its own alphabet or characters.
@@mardiffv.8775 Technically Russian uses Bulgarian alphabet though, but yes
Do you like phrasal verbs? There is a big tendency to use them in everyday English in the USA. Yet, they are hard to learn and remember, and they have multiple meanings. What about abbreviations and acronyms? Is that a simplification or a complication?
In Sweden almost everyone speaks English nearly fluently.
Ignoscis
But with an accent.
Most of us don't. I took French in school but have forgotten everything.
+FZ Channel what an imbecilic comment!
+FZ Channel - And here I thought your problem was ignorance! Instead, I discover it to be terminal stupidity!
Le français n'est pas un langage inutile !
De nombreux pays utilisent le français comme langue officielle en Europe, en Afrique et en Amérique du Nord (Canada).
Seuls ceux qui parlent anglais ne s'exprimeront que de manière négative sur la langue française.
French is not useless language !
Many countries use French as an official language in Europe, Africa and North America (Canada).
Only those who speak English only will express himself / herself in negative manner about the french language.
I'm very fortunate to be fluent in English and Russian
It helps me communicate to a large portion of the world population
However there are some people that really love their language and culture and so rinds they choose to not talk to you in a foreign language because of that ...
German to English tourists
Ukrainians to Russians
I'm a Ukrainian, a lingua franca is still Russian in our country, and not English. English is studied in schools, but still it's spoken basically by some of educated people, you are unlikely to encounter English speakers among bus drivers, or sellers, or in rural area.
But the main language is Ukranian, right?
Cool
The Lingua Franca is Ukrainian, only Separatists speak Russian, but the 2 languages are related so it’s easy for one to learn Russian.
Russian is the most common first language in Ukraine. People learn Ukrainian because it's forced by government.
6:25 Esperanto just can't take a break in this channel 😂😂😂
I live in St.Petersburg, Russia, and not that many people speak English here, maybe like 15% at a basic level and 2-4% at a more advanced level. That's not the case for the rest of Russia though (except Moscow), i doubt that more than 2-5% of people are able to have a basic conversation.
Which is good in my case, because speaking English massively increases one's chances of getting a high-paying job (given that you have some other skills to offer) =)
Dive These Clips well, you spoke english
Yep, i'm among those 2-4% who can do that.
Dive These Clips
What's the most common 2nd language that the Russians learn and use?
Most russians only speak russian. Those who have access to (somewhat) decent education will most likely learn english. Those who live in regions where large ethnic minorities are present, will most likely speak russian and the language of the corresponding minority (for example, people from Karelia will most likely speak russian and karelian, people from Tuva will speak russian and tuvan, etc)
That's kinda sad. I mean almost everyone in Russia has studied English or German in school for nothing, people just not interested in foreign languages. At the same time, I find it funny that almost 1/3 of the people note on their social network pages that they know English when in fact they can understand only a few phrases like "London is the capital of Great Britain."
Nothing personal but as a Spanish speaker I hope that Chinese never becomes the dominant lingua franca...
It takes too much time and memory to learn it.
Christian Pinto lol why is that?
Christian Pinto no me gustaría que el mandarín fuera "Lingua Franca" sure escritura es muy compleja, el inglés es por mucho más fácil, nuestro idioma debería de ser el idioma internacional jajaja Ñ power!!!
Zharas Kerimbay it's very hard to learn Chinese. Espessialy for people from Europe and America
It's the writing system that gives me the chills, even though it look beautiful. Also there are various Chinese languages so even the Chinese are sometimes unable to speak to other Chinese... I didn't even know that until I watched a video of some folks from Hong Kong testing camera lenses on visit to Taiwan and only one of them could speak the local language.
You can try with "romanji" version of mandarin
I am from the US. I was raised mono-lingual. My parents are multi-lingual but refused to teach me their languages. My mom refused to teach me Tagalog because she did not see her language as useful. I traveled the world and I use English to communicate. I am learning Mandarin and I remember some Spanish from high school. When I travel I seem to use Spanish a lot, but Mandarin has been useful as well. I was in a hostel in Thailand and my French roommate did not speak English, but he spoke Mandarin. I was also once in Malaysia, and found my basic Spanish helped me speak to the Brazilian travelers who didn't speak proficient English. I was in Quebec and I spoke Mandarin as well to all the Chinese travelers and there was a large Spanish population in Quebec as well.
Too bad your parents didn't share those parts of their heritage with you, but it sounds as if you were determined enough and learned several other languages.
Good for you!
¡Bien por ti!
C'est bien!
還行！
My mother and her siblings had a similar problem back in the 50/60s. Both of her parents are highly educated Chinese immigrants (masters and PhD from Ivy leagues) and back then there was research that suggested bilingual children had trouble reaching milestones. So they never bothered to teach Chinese to the kids.
No offence or anything but your mother was right about Tagalog not being that useful of a language, literally everyone in the Philippines speaks English as a second language, a lot of them even speak Spanish
I heard that there is more than one Tagalog and that speakers from different islands can't speak well with each other. Do you know if you that that is the case? Do you think that might be why she didn't want her son to bother with it.
drgn xence I was born, raised and graduated high school in the Philippines. Ive never met anyone that can speak spanish 😂 I know 2 Philippine dialects, english and currently learning Korean btw :)
You forgot one very important factor: simplicity. English is quite simple to learn.Yes, I know: spelling vs. pronunciation is challenge but grammar - well - very simple (e.g. with comparison to other languages: French, Spanish, I don't even mention my mother-tongue: Polish). That why Mandarin WILL NEVER become lingua franca - it's too difficult... I
No, there is so simplest language to learn, i all depends on your current language and perspective. Someone who speaks Spanish might have an easier time learning English than Mandarin, yet someone who speaks Japanese might have an easier time learning Mandarin than English! And Mandarin is not necessarily a super tough language to learn - it is less grammatically complex compared to some other languages - it just seems so from the perspective of someone speaking a non-Sinitic language.
The easiest second language depends on your native tongue, and the easiest first language? That one is debateable.
I have Dutch heritage but I grew up in Australia without my Dutch father, so I never got to learn the language and pronunciation that he uses, English is my native tongue. I've looked into learning a little bit of said Dutch language and that's been pretty easy I just gotta memorise it, pronunciation though? I'm doomed.
It seems to be the easiest because everyone speaks it. Yes, I will agree that it is easier than French, the only other language I have knowledge of.
English is easy to learn depending on your mother tongue.
For native Spanish and French speakers, it's easy. But for say Japanese or Koreans (who I've taught English to), it's the opposite as English is completely different from their language.
The tenses are a chore to master. English has 12. And try explaining "future perfect continuous" tense to a Japanese person. Japanese doesn't even have a future tense!
Half of past tense verbs are irregular and have to be memorized. You can't just add "-ed" to any verb.
And for the life of me, I can never explain perfectly how or when to use the/a to Japanese or Korean people because it doesn't exist in their language. "I play the piano" even though "I own a piano", lol.
@@JKTravelsShow for ur last example, i find it surprising that u teach english but dont know the/a are indefinite and definite articles. "i play the piano" is not referring to a specific, definite piano. whereas "i own a piano" refers to a real physical piano. "i play piano" could just replace the first sentence though, and i think that one might be more confusing to understand when u can drop articles
My first language is Italian and my best friend is Russian, so we both speak to each other in English as a lingua franca :3
Valkomic Something like this has happened to me many thimes, i love other languages but english is very useful.
^Language of love
Valkomic Italian and Russian are so different. Have either of you tried teaching the other your native language?
BATMAN65 We both did. I'm the polyglot between us so if necessary I would be the one learning her language. She's an Italophile though, so maybe she could learn it as well
опера пришла в россию из италии. итальянские оперы так и остаются на итальянском. иногда ставят на немецком, но русские и своих написали немало. а когда-то было много французского языка и французского балета.
I live in Israel, and most people here know english quite well.
I think it's thanks to having many american and british tv shows with subtitles instead of overdubs.
I am from Venezuela and the internet has been my first source for learning english. I think that 30% - 40% of people here know basic things about english, and of that 30%, only a 20% speaks it and understands it well enough to talk to native speakers or watch this video
Ezequiel Primera i know this has nothing to do with the video, but how is the situation of Venezuela right now?
bad really bad and gets worst every day
Sorry about Maduro
@@x24ygu789h Sorry I am answerinf you comment 2 years later!! Well, the situation was pretty bad, and it is even worse now. Let me just tell you somethings: 1) we are the country with the most oil in the world and right now, we have no gasoline! Literally! It is given right now only to hospital workers. 2) our minimun salary is 5 dollars. 3) police officers are here only to rob you in your noses. 4 ) USA is now offering 15.000.000 dollars for capturing our drug trafficking president and his crew!
Thanks for the video !!!
I'm good at learning languages and I find English easy, thought I still don't speak it perfectly. But in France, almost everyone understands English, almost everyone has at least some English vocabulary, but people don't do a lot of efforts to train their prononciation.
We learn English at school but I think the biggest part of my knowledge of English is due to internet. It trains me a lot.
Question of the day: "How well do the people in my area know English?"
As a siberian, I can say that almost all my mates know English at A0-A1 level :D Since here there's no need to know it, in most cases. I myself speak English at B2 level, but it's really difficult to find someone to practice with :)
Алексей Сильверов i would like to learn russian since my parents didnt teach me, and i can teach you english. What do you say?
I'm Spanish speaker. So we can communicate in English only 😁 how can I get in touch with you?
I tried using English in a Starbucks in Istanbul when I was asking for a Blonde Roast Coffee, they thought I wanted a roasted blond girl 😂😂😂
Yes, English can be very hard to understand for many Turks. We've English lessons, but they only teach some grammar rules and boring vocabulary. It became a phobia for most people. "I can't learn that, it's too difficult, what will I do when I learn this foreign language etc. English is kind of different for us, an agglutinative language speaker, so this reaction is not so surprising.
I remember while staying in Tapei, there was a lady working at the hotel who would always corner us in the lobby, asking all about our day and the stuff we saw. I think this was her way of improving English skills.
I live in sweden and the english speaking ability varies a lot but are generally god. and by the young people over 90% have good english
katten7 'generally god' I agree, even better than some native speakers and it's god like
The average Nordic person seems to speak English better than the average American. ;-)
I haven´t met the average American so I can´t confirm or deny that statement
same here in Flanders (Belgium). We speak flemish (=dutch) , and we are also very good english speakers. Of course, our langauge is one if the closest to english and that helps a lot.
But I am afraid that we both have the same destiny my friend : our languages are not so usefull (not many native speakers, not spoken in a wide area) , so we have no choice to be excellent english speakers .......
Based on the fact that most people speak English so well, do they keep translating books into Swedish as well in your country? Do people buy them? Or do they produce TV shows in Swedish? If yes, then why? It sounds like it could be cheaper and more efficient if everyone would buy the book in international language, no need to pay for translation and easier for people who come to Sweden. Or e.g. the TV show in English could be viewed by 100x bigger audience. I'm really curious how you guys preserve your language
Wow, as a native English speaker who studied languages (mostly Spanish and Russian) I have loads to say. Sorry.
I used to have a terrible inferiority complex about what fantastic linguists people in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands were until I went there and realised their TV is about 50% English language so they literally grow up with it as a second language in their homes. Also when I realised my Spanish and Russian is as good as, if not better than Dutch, Swedes etc who I met in Spain and Russia I realised they're not better linguists in general, they just speak English exceedingly well.
I have found when travelling in countries where I speak the language I have to reach a really good standard before I can stop them automatically speaking to me in English. If your Czech for example is basic it's too frustrating for a Czech to speak to you in Czech when they speak English. But on the other hand it's horrible to spend ages learning some language only to have people speak straight back at you in English so I tend to hold back until I can speak the language so well that they don't do that.
As English speakers we are really used to hearing our language spoken with a variety of accents and sometimes quite incorrectly so we're good at understanding people no matter how bad their English is so people shouldn't be shy. I remember speaking to a Croatian once who spoke pretty good English but became really shy and lost confidence when she realised I was a native English speaker. There's no need to worry. We are used to people speaking English but not to everyone speaking English perfectly.
I sometimes wish people would use English less. When you get Norwegians etc. writing their songs in my language if feels a bit weird. I kind of feel "hey, that's MY language. Use your own!" There is now a new kind of mid-Atlantic English based on TV, RUclips and music spoken by young people which to be honest isn't really spoken by native speakers at all. If you said "hey, guys, check it out!" on a street in Manchester you'd sound a bit silly. Also English swear words are overused or misused. We may say 'fucking' all the time among friends but I saw someone in Denmark wearing a t-shirt with FUCK YOU! written across the chest. Nobody in England would do that. It's too offensive.
I have found that in Spain loads of people speak English along the coasts but you don't have to go far inland to find people are really not so confident in it. When my wife's passport was stolen in Spain once the police at the station were so relieved I spoke Spanish they made a fuss of us and were really nice - they made us coffee and gave us biscuits. In Russia I hardly ever use any English as only one of my friends there speaks it well and if you speak it in a public place people always answer back in Russian. People who don't speak Russian don't get to find out just how wonderful the people there can actually really be. Maybe you could say that about any country or language.
"In Russia I hardly ever use any English as only one of my friends there speaks it well and if you speak it in a public place people always answer back in Russian" - интересно. В Москве вроде бы почти все кто младше 30 говорят по английски достаточно хорошо чтоб общаться с иностранцами на простые темы. Конечно же Москва не вся Россия.
У меня на работе (академический институт) все знают английский настолько чтоб выступать на международных конференциях с докладами и участвовать в обсуждениях. Тем не менее, как-то мне довелось прослушать один и тот же доклад сначала на английском, потом на русском - несмотря на то, что в английском докладе не было проблем с передачей смысла, он был сильно более скучный чем русский, потому что передать эмоциональный настрой и пошутить на иностранном языке намного сложней.
Если говорить о знании иностранных языков у русских людей, то обязательно нужно обращать внимание на возраст. В России всегда была сильная лингвистическая школа, но в советские времена она была для избранных. Для моих родителей выбить для меня место в школе с углубленным изучением иностранного языка (уже в начале 90х) было подвигом. СССР был изолированной страной и свободно говорили на иностранном языке (причем обычно на одном) только те для кого он был профессией. После развала СССР ситуация очень резко поменялась и существующая лингвистическая школа стала доступна практически всем. В школах сейчас везде учат иностранные языки по учебникам иностранных издательств и английский, естественно, самый популярный. Платных языковых школ по довольно доступным ценам пруд пруди (по крайней мере в Москве). В моем кругу общения английским уже никого не удивишь - приходится учить японский:-)
А в каких городах Вы были?
В Москве я со всеми говорил на русском и только раз мне кое-кто ответил по-английски... Это мне сильно мешало, так как она владела английским гораздо хуже чем я русским и она даже не знала, является ли английский для меня родным языком (я родом из США, но после более 5 лет в Германии все говорят, что у меня по-русски немецкий акцент, а не акцент англоговорящего. Проверьте сами в моих видео ахах). Но я не испытывал такого только в России, в странах в Европе как Чехии, Франции и пр. я получал намного чаще ответы на английском. Надо просто притворяться, что ты по-английски не понимаешь) Я это всегда так делаю, чтобы люди думали, что на самом деле не ВЕСЬ МИР говорит на английском ахах. Но тем не менее такое на путешествии сильно раздражает, это правда.
Wow! I have learned a lot new things from you. Very happy to hear these all, thanks a lot!
Where did you go in Spain?
Vasya Bublikov Я думаю, что судить только по своему окружению из академического института - неправильно. Ваше окружение, очевидно, очень интеллигентное. Но не забывайте, что даже в Москве далеко не большинство имеет высшее образование. Также и я работал в компании с долей иностранного капитала и большинство наших поставщиков были иностранные. Знание английского языка было чрезвычайно важно для работы. В то время мне казалось, что по-английски разговаривают вообще все в моем городе. Но на самом деле тех, кто не говорит на иностранном, намного больше.
Question for non native English speakers, what English speaking country's people (USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand etc) are hardest to understand?
for me some UK accents are really hard to understand
Liam McIntosh I have a hard time understanding people with heavy accents if you see what I mean. The kind of accent you never hear in the media though I guess even native speakers may struggle sometimes x) if you want a more specific answer: the Irish, the Scottish, and the Australian accents. The American accent is overwhelming so we get used to it pretty quickly. The British accent is the accent we're taught at school though most people speak American English anyway. The accent from the North of England is a bit strange at first but I'd get used to it after spending a week in Liverpool. And New Zealander's have a pretty "normal" mainstream accent dont they ? Here you are ^^
Liam McIntosh Irish (Ireland)
Even native english speakers have told me they have trouble to understand them.
Liam McIntosh Irish accents, hands down. Scottish accents are a close second.
>when you don't even mention Scotland because everyone knows that the Scottish accent is completely unintelligible to anyone else in the world.
Well, there are a lot of people trying to learn Japanese because of anime & manga influences. So you never know...
Karamayu sa-koteru hadamasserai!
There are a lot of people trying, but very few succeeding. It's difficult to learn, which is one of the worst traits to have for a lingua franca.
I love Japanese because of anime mainly and I would love to learn it one day; but it's a really difficult language for it to become a lingua franca.
Already have😅
@@cotygv what's the hard part about it?