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Just as it says...
#44235
There is a genuine laziness in the British Isles and there always has been. The British and Irish governments are getting things totally wrong. The standard of language teaching in schools is diabolical, and that's coming from somebody who has been through the system. The powers that be need to step in and increase the standards of language teaching and do something to change the mindset of Britons and Irishmen.


The government messes around so much with our education system, I think it's really tough. As an employer, I haven't got a clue what is equal to what any more, what with the Baccalaureate, A-Level, A2 level, AS level, GCE, GCSE, CSE, HNC, HND...it's a total mess.

Aye, not to mention that there numerous exam boards and that some subjects are more difficult than others. AQA's exams, for instance, aren't worth the paper they are printed on, but OCR and CCEA's are high quality - there's at least grade's difference between those two and the others.
#44278
The only thing I know about Eurovision is that Abba came second in 73 and first in 74, narrowly beating Olivia Newton-John.
#44281
They are passionate about their language and culture, which is fair enough, but it's why I was so surprised they even considered singing their song in English, let alone go ahead with it! In terms of their air traffic control, it has caused accidents and there are more waiting to happen. They need to do something about that, for people's safety is paramount, although that's not about the Eurovision song contest, so I'll button it now.


Umm that brings me down to my real question then. Why does the language used in air traffic and other things have to be English? This is why the French insist on it being French. Who gives English the automatic right to be the chosen international language. I prefer English over French but at the end of the day it is not about me and those others who prefer English either. No natural language should be the common international language. As far as I am concerned it gives those who (in this case English) have spoken it from birth or at a very young age an "unfair advantage". For example Chris (That is your name McLaren Fan correct?), you have an advantage over me when usung English in the sense that you can express yourself better and clearer. I have spoken English for only 10 years and at times I would struggle to express certain things that you wouldn't and that I wouldn't if I were speaing Italian. If you made Italian the International tongue for example then the problem would be the same except reversed. This is why no natural language should be allowed to prevail as an international language and only Esperanto should be chosen for this purpose. Esperanto is neutral and also easy to learn for all and is the most successful of the artifical languages designed for international purpose. If everyone used Esperanto for international communication then no one can ever gain an advantage over no one and everything will always be equal.
#44282
stubborn French frogs :twisted:


Very arrogant English first language speaker. :(
#44284
Aye, not to mention that there numerous exam boards and that some subjects are more difficult than others. AQA's exams, for instance, aren't worth the paper they are printed on, but OCR and CCEA's are high quality - there's at least grade's difference between those two and the others.


Is OCR's better quality because they print the answers to the questions on the exam papers? ;)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20080522/tuk-answers-printed-on-gcse-exam-papers-dba1618.html
#44285
i won't be watching but will be interested to see who wins.

I took a level maths aqa exams and got an A. Is MF saying that my maths ability is useless and would be better if i did it with OCR. Fact is most students don't get a say with what exam board they take exams with it is decided by the school
#44292
Umm that brings me down to my real question then. Why does the language used in air traffic and other things have to be English? This is why the French insist on it being French. Who gives English the automatic right to be the chosen international language. I prefer English over French but at the end of the day it is not about me and those others who prefer English either. No natural language should be the common international language. As far as I am concerned it gives those who (in this case English) have spoken it from birth or at a very young age an "unfair advantage". For example Chris (That is your name McLaren Fan correct?), you have an advantage over me when usung English in the sense that you can express yourself better and clearer. I have spoken English for only 10 years and at times I would struggle to express certain things that you wouldn't and that I wouldn't if I were speaing Italian. If you made Italian the International tongue for example then the problem would be the same except reversed. This is why no natural language should be allowed to prevail as an international language and only Esperanto should be chosen for this purpose. Esperanto is neutral and also easy to learn for all and is the most successful of the artifical languages designed for international purpose. If everyone used Esperanto for international communication then no one can ever gain an advantage over no one and everything will always be equal.

In my own experience of learning languages, English is a superior language in the sense that there are more tenses, synonyms etc.; you have more ways of expressing the same thing, which is useful, although mastering them takes more effort than other languages. I don't think we should use a language just on the basis of not giving an advantage to people from the British Isles. The main criterion has to be about the quality of the language. Most people would need to be ablt to speak English often seem to know it as well, so it's not that drastic a difference. Where people whose first language is English come into problems is not, say, in international business, but when they go to a particular country, say France, and are unable to communicate in day-to-day life
I took a level maths aqa exams and got an A. Is MF saying that my maths ability is useless and would be better if i did it with OCR. Fact is most students don't get a say with what exam board they take exams with it is decided by the school

Your maths A level won't be be useless. Far from it. It's just that OCR and Northern Ireland's education system are of a slightly higher standard. In Northern Ireland, many high schools use AQA because it's slightly easier to get a better grade, whilst the grammar schools will always use CCEA. Problems exist at British universities as well. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland you do one or two subjects in your three-year degree. If you go to a Scottish university, you do a four-year degree made up of three subjects for the first two years and one or two subjects thereafter. Again, that gives people who went to a decent university in Scotland an advantage because their degree will have more in it. I feel sorry for employers and people working at universities' admissions offices having to decide which qualification is worth more, factoring in the type of qualification, the quality of the subject, where it's from, what exam board were the exams taken with. It's a complete fiasco. The system needs totally streamlined.
#44294
English is the modern day Latin, the fact that the United States (the modern day Roman empire) is an English speaking nation makes English the prime International Language.

I wasnt aware that the French air traffic spoke in French, doesnt surprise me though, the French are just being their typical selves when it comes to England/English.... :roll:

its like the FIA has English and French as its official languages, and every ruling and regulation is jointly written in both languages when majority would read the English version! even the French guys at Renault would probably read the English over the French just to better translate with their counterparts in England over the wording of the rules :lol:
#44350
In my own experience of learning languages, English is a superior language in the sense that there are more tenses, synonyms etc.; you have more ways of expressing the same thing, which is useful, although mastering them takes more effort than other languages.


Really?? what languages would those be? i am truly curious...

English is easier to make rhymes and its the language to get on MTV with, that's why most 'artists' use it to write songs on. Its full of monosyllables and ###-nyms(words that sound the same but mean something else) :) such as to, too, two. Easy to place whenever you need a cheap rhyme.

Plus its the language of the Empire. Even though the brits have and use an incredibly rich english, they are outnumbered and outspoken by their Imperial Monosyllabic brothers y'all......
#44351
One of the main reasons today (of course there are reasons in the past such as colonialism) for English to be so successful is its superficial simplicity, i.e., at first glance it's an easy language to learn. E. g., the verbs don't change (conjugation) apart from the third person singular (s) or the plural of nouns is usually very easy to make - just add an s; also nouns don't have a grammatical gender - a big problem in many languages (see der, die, das in German, e.g.).
Anyway, bottom line is that anybody can easily get to a level of English knowledge that affords a basic communication level - that's the key for worldwide success.
Mastering English at a more proficient or even higher level however, is rather difficult for many reasons, some have been pointed out above. I would add that in pronunciation and spelling the exceptions are the rules. It is also the language with the most words, an estimated 500,000 compared to German with about 300,000.
There are easier languages to learn such as Italian.
#44376
There are easier languages to learn such as Italian.

I haven't done too much Italian, however what I did look at of it reminded me slightly of French, which is comparatively easy to learn. You are certainly correct about phonetic and spelling rules in English. They vary across country to country and even within a country. I'm studying English Literature at university and occasionally have to check up them! In French, you can get away with getting the genders of words confused, for they are spoken to so quickly and sound similar. In German, however, Der, Die, and Das sound quite different, so you can't hide your mistakes! :lol:
#44379
There are easier languages to learn such as Italian.


Yeh Otto did not have any problems at all Clicky
#44397
I'm studying English Literature at university


Gee, I always wondered where you got those nice words from.... :)

Anyway.. sorry, but to be fair, German is a lot more complex and difficult than English (i think it has more words and word combinations as well, I saw somewhere on Wikipedia that german has 9,000,000 words but im not too sure). Both French and Spanish are also more grammatically complex and have a richer vocabulary than english. Italian is easier and simpler than english. But from the wider-spread languages (English, French, Spanish and Chinese) English is the easiest.
#44419
I'm studying English Literature at university


Gee, I always wondered where you got those nice words from.... :)

Anyway.. sorry, but to be fair, German is a lot more complex and difficult than English (i think it has more words and word combinations as well, I saw somewhere on Wikipedia that german has 9,000,000 words but im not too sure). Both French and Spanish are also more grammatically complex and have a richer vocabulary than english. Italian is easier and simpler than english. But from the wider-spread languages (English, French, Spanish and Chinese) English is the easiest.

German is a tricky language. I did for a few years in school, but dropped it in favour of French. Basic German is fairly easy to grasp because it's such a logical language. Once it starts to get more advanced, that's when you start to come into problems, which is essentially what DD was saying about learning English. I think English does have more words than German, to be honest. I'm not too sure about Spanish, but I found French and Italian comparatively easy to learn. The rules etc. are almost facile, but what frustrated me with French was that there were almost more exceptions to the rule than things following them!
#44424
The predominant use of English is now so boring, it's even turning native English-speakers like myself off of listening to the music.
That's why the suggestion of a non-national language like Esperanto is even more entrancing. Why should Belgium use a man-made language, when a living language, namely Esperanto is more acceptable? :D
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