English isn't enough

[Loki]

In today's Observer the translator Michael Hofmann makes an eloquent plea for British people to learn foreign languages and takes a swing at the official policy of downgrading their importance in the school curriculum.

Agatha Christie's Poirot, in one of her short stories, says: "... he speaks too many languages for a good Englishman! (Pardon me, bon ami, but, as linguists, you are deplorable!)". This was back in 1923.

 

[Eric]

Poirot had presumably noticed that most Englishmen, even honourable ones, tended not to speak foreign languages. So that anyone with fluency in many must either be a spy or a confidence trickster.

 

[Loki]

Well yes, that's more or less what he intended. The "he" in the quotation was Irish, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Eric]

The Irish and the English have not always seen eye-to-eye. But no one nowadays would dare to write a comedy or whodunnit with an Irishman typecast as a rogue or trickster.

 

[Leseratte]

As it is very quite here, I am taking up this old discussion which interests me.

In many countries where the native tongue is not English, learning a second language or even two foreign languages at school is quite usual. The first of these foreign languages is usually... English.

Of course the abilities to learn other languages differ, as the talent for math differs from one student to the other. My experience as a language teacher told me that enjoying to learn foreign languages helps a lot but doesn´t substitute facility.

And why should one bother at all about learning other languages? Here are some reasons
Because one has foreign roots
For professional/research reasons.
Because one travels a lot to other countries
Simply for pleasure
and it helps a lot to know more than one language when one likes to read. More often than not one can find a book, that is not available in one language in another.

 

[wordeater]

Being Belgian I had the advantage of being surrounded by different languages. I can read books in Dutch, English, French and German. I've read Thomas Mann and Victor Hugo in the original language. You're much closer to the writer's thoughts if you don't need a translation.

 

[Leseratte]

Being Belgian I had the advantage of being surrounded by different languages. I can read books in Dutch, English, French and German. I've read Thomas Mann and Victor Hugo in the original language. You're much closer to the writer's thoughts if you don't need a translation.

It's similar with me.I can read Portuguese, German, English and Spanish.