Is English an inferior language?

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Get your stats right   Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:19 pm GMT
Lux's 2.3 is not "a long way" in front of Estonia's 2.2.
Damian SW15   Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:52 pm GMT
UK 0.1% Nothing to be proud about...the % crept in when I wasn't looking...yes, it should indeed read 0.1 languages, which does mean only only one in 10 pupils in British schools learns a foreign language up to the level of fluency....or that's how I interpret those statistics contained in that Daily Telegraph article from the way it was reported.

Anyway, the top and bottom of it all is that we Brits are less likely to even attempt to learn, let alone master, any foreign language than the people of any other country in Europe, except perhaps for the Irish....I don't think they're any more bothered about it than we are. Life is SO hard for us you know.....having our native language as THE lingua franca...it breeds chronic linguistic indolence and inertia.

Just imagine how it is for us here in the UK.....people from other countries come here for whatever reason and are expected to know at least some English otherwise they really could be in a pickle because very few of the natives here are even capable let alone willing to converse in the language of the visitors....the British mindset here is this....you come to the UK, presumably of your own volition, so you'd better learn some English or else. Nasty I know, but that's how it is.

On the other hand, and this really is nasty, Brits travelling on the Continent expect the natives there to converse with them in English, as the idea of far too many Brits even bothering to learn even a handful of words in another language is a non starter I'm ashamed to say.

Is it any wonder the UK always comes last in the annual Eurovision Song contest? Le Royaume Uni: nul points....wie schade!
Damian SW15   Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:59 pm GMT
Luxembourg is bound to have the learning of foreign languages high on the schools' agenda.....it's a tiny country surrounded by much larger neighbours....so I imagine French, German and Dutch are high on the list, as well as English I suppose.

Switzerland doesn't appear in any of those statistics for obvious reasons but I'm sure they would rate pretty highly in those tables, too....there are four languages in common use there as it is.
lame   Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:04 pm GMT
<<which does mean only only one in 10 pupils in British schools learns a foreign language up to the level of fluency..>>


NO! 1 in 10 Brits do NOT become fluent in another language. If you exclude people with a non-ENglish background, probably only 1 in 200 or less would be fluent in another language.
John Hancock   Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:12 pm GMT
hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.



DO YOU COCKSUCKERS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH?!







BUTT FUCK!
Adam   Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:43 pm GMT
.....people from other countries come here for whatever reason and are expected to know at least some English otherwise they really could be in a pickle because very few of the natives here are even capable let alone willing to converse in the language of the visitors....the British mindset here is this....you come to the UK, presumably of your own volition, so you'd better learn some English or else. Nasty I know, but that's how it is.
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How is it nasty to expect foreigners living and working in Britain to speak English?

If people come to work in Britain they should learn English. If they want to earn wages here then it's only good manners they should speak our language. If you can't speak English, or aren't willing to learn, you shouldn't live and work here.

If I go and live and work in Poland the Poles would be expecting me to speak Polish.
Adam   Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:46 pm GMT
Is it any wonder the UK always comes last in the annual Eurovision Song contest? Le Royaume Uni: nul points....wie schade!
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The UK finished 5th this year. And the UK has won Eurovision more times than any other country except Ireland.
Guest   Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:53 pm GMT
><the UK has won Eurovision more times than any other country except><

Yes Adam, we know you can remember that. You're THAT old.
Adam   Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:58 pm GMT
Agreed....with the 'net contribution' increasing year on year with the latest UK upward hike in EU outward payments to the Europot being announced only last week, but I think it's all well worth it.....it's just inconceivable that the UK will ever withdraw from the EU, it just ain't gonna happen
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How is being in the EU worth it? The majority of our laws are created by UNELECTED foreigners in Brussels rather than ELECTED MPs in London, including the recently abolished law that made it ilegal to seel bent bananas; we have had our fishing fleet, once the largest on Earth, reduced greatly in size by those unelected foreigners in Brussels, whilst those of countries such as Spain and France have been increased, and then Brussels allows the fleets of countries such as Spain and France to sigh in BRITISH waters, and if they catch much fish they thrown the dead does back; the EU Parliament is a parliament of treehuggers dedicated to saving the polar bears, but for at least 12 times a year the parliament in Brussels, and eveything in it, has to relocate to Strasbourg, just because the French wish to have a major EU institution on their soil, at a cost of thousands to the British taxpayer, and producing what must be one of the world's largest "carbon footprints"; we are a part of an organisation in which the arrogant French and Germans abuse a Member State's government if they don't do what the French and Germans want them to do, such as when Chirac and Schroeder attacked the Baltic states such as Estonia and Latvia when they supported the Iraq War, as though these former Soviet states wouldn't mind being bossed about by larger neighbours; Britain has some of the highest food prices in the world due to the Common Agricultural Policy, a corrupt system in which countries with efficient farmers, such as Britain, has to pay subsidies to inefficient French farmers, who get paid for doing nothing.

All in all, joining the "Common Market" in 1973 was Britain's greatest foreign policy mistake since Suez. Britain WILL leave the EU at some point, and then we'll have our SOVEREIGNTY back and have a country ruled by elected MPs in London, not by unknown, unelected and unnacountable foreign bureucrats in a foreign city.
Jasper   Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:16 pm GMT
Adam, I'm an American who knows relatively little about the dynamics of the EU, but from what little I know, I have to agree with you.

It has always seemed to me that, in a union such as the EU, the stronger countries would always have to support the weaker ones, and many countries would have to adopt practices, decided by another country, that don't necessarily meet their needs (immigration policies, for example).

I'm not sure what good the EU is doing, but I admit that I'm poorly informed on the matter.
Animateur   Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:26 pm GMT
My unmatured brain is losing the point
:-\
Civilian   Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:34 pm GMT
Well, if you just listen to the British point of view you are of course only going to hear about the very worst aspects of the EU.
Civilian   Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:42 pm GMT
I'm not necessarily pro-EU by the way, I don't know enough myself to make a judgement, but I'm just saying be skeptical about where your information come from.
Armada   Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:54 pm GMT
<<All in all, joining the "Common Market" in 1973 was Britain's greatest foreign policy mistake since Suez. Britain WILL leave the EU at some point>>

When UK leaves the EU it will join USA as a protectorate like Puerto Rico.
Animateur   Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:38 pm GMT
I don't think that UK will ever leave EU. If any member of EU leaves it will trigger chain reaction and EU will collapse as USSR did.
The fact is that UK is not fully integrated in EU and won't be (they don't even want to substitute Euro for Pounds)
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