No prerequisite to learn English

[WDFORTE]

Walking by the job centre from work today, there is a guy I know who works there; not so much a mate but more of an acquaintance, he was on a break and coming out so I had a quick chat with him.  He said as of today they are hiring full time translators to give everyone a fair crack of the work whip in seeking and gaining employment.  The translator can also attend job interviews with you to translate in the interview real time so you have a better chance of getting a job.

Considering English is the easiest language in the world to speak it beggars belief as to why? surely a condensed course in learning English is the way to go, within 4 months you could practically be fluent if enough classes were attended.  Seems a waste of resources to me.

What do others think? English; easy language, school the none English speakers rather than do it for them.

[myothernameis]

The translator can also attend job interviews with you to translate in the interview real time so you have a better chance of getting a job.

I see a big problem here, if translator taken to interview, and then you get told you've got the job .   If the person got the job dosnt speak English, and its going to be a big requirement for the job, how long will his job last

[WDFORTE]

We have taxi drivers in Wolverhampton that cannot speak English, they cannot understand you.  MYOTHERNAMEIS, to be fair, there are probably others there that can go inbetween and speak both languages.

[maxQ]

Considering English is the easiest language in the world to speak

Not really

[myothernameis]

We have taxi drivers in Wolverhampton that cannot speak English, they cannot understand you.  MYOTHERNAMEIS, to be fair, there are probably others there that can go inbetween and speak both languages.

Same in my work, uber delivery drivers, we have language barriers when they come in, and when we try to explain, there is a notice on the desk, on what tel number to phone.  A few of them have come back, and said, no understand, so we now have to make the call for them

We have also had complaints from customers, for some reason haven't received there order, with the undelivered order, we now take note of who the delivery driver was.   After some questions, we found out the delivery driver delivered the order to the wrong address

And unfortunately this driver was removed from our delivery collection service, as we had to refund the costumer there lost order

[WDFORTE]

Not really

I read somewhere it was? there is no 'The' gender, it's logical and straightforward compared to say Spanish or French.

Same in my work, uber delivery drivers, we have language barriers when they come in, and when we try to explain, there is a notice on the desk, on what tel number to phone.  A few of them have come back, and said, no understand, so we now have to make the call for them

We have also had complaints from customers, for some reason haven't received there order, with the undelivered order, we now take note of who the delivery driver was.   After some questions, we found out the delivery driver delivered the order to the wrong address

And unfortunately this driver was removed from our delivery collection service, as we had to refund the costumer there lost order

Speaks volumes.  It's a sad state of affairs, in Germany you have no choice BUT to speak the language if a resident immigrant, if not, you're out, you get a reasonable time to make progress.  If you fail you fail, end of.

[fudi_maar]

Considering English is the easiest language in the world to speak it beggars belief as to why?

Really? I'm a non-native English speaker, and I can tell you, learning ANY language is hard. I'm trying to learn Spanish, and you would think it should be easy for someone who knows English, but I'm struggling with it. And I have a friggin GCSE in the damn thing from years ago.

English; easy language, school the none English speakers rather than do it for them.

I hate to be "that guy", but looks like you still need some lessons :-). Just messing with you bro, pls don't take it personally.

Have you learnt any foreign languages yourself, OP? How long did it take you?

Back to the question - yes, I firmly believe that every person should learn the national language of the country they are in.

I think this whole taking-a-translator-in is all part of the woke culture, political-correctness bollox. If I was an employer with a customer-facing position available, and I had a person able to communicate with myself and the other workmates in English, then I would always employ them ahead of someone who cannot speak the language, all other things being equal of course. If it's a non-speaking role (eg I wanted a plasterer), then it doesn't matter too much.

[myothernameis]

Back to the question - yes, I firmly believe that every person should learn the national language of the country they are in.

When Im on holiday in Italy, I try to learn basic phrase, but that is as far as I go

[WDFORTE]

Have you learnt any foreign languages yourself, OP? How long did it take you?

English, I'm Swiss.  I came over here in 1985 and learnt English at School before coming over, my father was in the Automotive industry and worked for British Leyland at the time.

[maxQ]

I read somewhere it was? there is no 'The' gender, it's logical and straightforward compared to say Spanish or French.

I think it depends on where you start from, Germans will always find English easier than Russian for example, a French man will find Italian or Spanish far easier than English

[Punterperson1971]

Not really

I was always told English was one of the hardest to learn because of some words spelling & meaning different things.
Like
Look,luck
Four,for
There,their
And so on

[WDFORTE]

Hidden Image/Members Only

[willie loman]

i will be surprised if this facility will be used much, and have no problem about it being introduced, the huge waste of money on a daily basis is court use of translators, foreign criminals have a right to have an interpreter beside them throughout the trial etc, british trials go on for weeks, unlike say france, where even a celeb serial killer will be dealt with in 3 days max, french courts also sit until midnight and later.

[akauya]

What do others think? English; easy language, school the none English speakers rather than do it for them.

I read somewhere it was? there is no 'The' gender, it's logical and straightforward compared to say Spanish or French.

English: easy, logical and straightforward?

Here comes logical English grammar:

'i' before 'e' except after 'c'... then we have:

eight
foreign
height
neighbour
weight
weird

Plural of tooth is teeth, so logically plural of booth should be beeth
Plural of foot is feet, so logically plural of boot should be beet
Plural of goose is geese, so logically plural of moose should be meese
Plural of mouse is mice, so logically plural of house should be hice
Plural of box is boxes, so logically plural of ox should be oxes

We can see the stars when they are out, but when the lights are out, we can’t see anything at all.

Our noses run and our feet smell - very logical!

We fill in forms by filling them out.

The worst thing about English language is that it's not phonetic. That's where phonetically consistent languages beat English hands down for ease of learning. A foreigner learning English has to learn both pronunciation and the weird English spelling. In phonetic languages you can look at a written word and 99% of the time you will be able to pronounce it correctly.

Anyway, I think ALL languages can be difficult to learn (depending where one's mother tongue has its roots) as all of them have their quirks and odd rules.

[akauya]

Back to the question - yes, I firmly believe that every person should learn the national language of the country they are in.

I agree with this. It makes life easier for everyone concerned.

[akauya]

Hidden Image/Members Only

Oh I missed this whilst I was replying. So true

[willie loman]

no real doubt that english is way easier than most languages, no gender for a start, most verbs very simple, compare any english verb with its italian or french equivalent, no subjunctive.

[Marmalade]

every person should learn the national language of the country they are in.

Absolutely. Whether it is easy or hard is unfortunately not relevant (personally I think there must be easier languages but that doesn't alter it). You shoud ideally learn to adopt as much of the ways of a host country as possible. It's the ground beneath your feet, your food, the roof above your head. And it will make your life better and richer.

I'm crap at languages. But I make some effort when I go abroad. When a person is from another country that can be interesting for all of five minutes. After that, it's ffs please can you try to sing the same tune as the choir you're hanging out with.

So maybe if we were as rich as Saudi Arabia maybe we could teach the whole world to sing. Yeah right. 

[Marmalade]

no real doubt that english is way easier than most languages, no gender for a start, most verbs very simple, compare any english verb with its italian or french equivalent, no subjunctive.

That makes it hard Willie if you are used to gendering everything.

[Blackpool Rock]

English, I'm Swiss.  I came over here in 1985 and learnt English at School before coming over, my father was in the Automotive industry and worked for British Leyland at the time.

Presumably being Swiss he was brought in to advise on precision engineering, how did that go then   

[george r]

English, I'm Swiss.  I came over here in 1985 and learnt English at School before coming over, my father was in the Automotive industry and worked for British Leyland at the time.

Lucky he missed red robbo then coz there wouldn't have been much work done while he was there.

[WDFORTE]

Presumably being Swiss he was brought in to advise on precision engineering, how did that go then   

His last job before retirement was working with the British/Germans on the Rover 75 project with BMW.  For the record it was a scam from the get go and the inevitable was planned with precision from the off.  Still, that's another story.

[Thecunninglinguist]

I really don't give a shit whether English is hard or not. You should factor that before you come. If you intend to make your life here, speak the language. All public discourse and forms should be in English. If someone can't read them or understand an interview then it's up to the individual to provide their own help after they have been here 2 years at most.

[WDFORTE]

I really don't give a shit whether English is hard or not. You should factor that before you come. If you intend to make your life here, speak the language. All public discourse and forms should be in English. If someone can't read them or understand an interview then it's up to the individual to provide their own help after they have been here 2 years at most.

Yes this is what the Germans do, after that, if incompetent or unwilling they get given the Spanish Archer.  Works well for them, maybe we should implement this over in England.

*Spanish Archer (El Bow).

[sir wanksalot]

Going slightly off topic but only slightly!

I used to work with a girl who was Czech however, her English was excellent albeit with an American accent.

She was telling me that she was referred one time to a specialist at her local medical centre and whilst booking in with the receptionist was shocked to hear the receptionist make an announcement on the PA for the Czech translator to come to reception.

This girl explained to the receptionist that she didn't need one but was told that she had to have one.

The translator duly arrived and escorted the girl to the doctor's examination room and all the time the Czech girl was remonstrating with the translator that she didn't want a translator and didn't need one and that it was an invasion of her privacy if she insisted on being their during the consultation.

The translator finally relented but made sure that the doctor "signed her off" presumably so she would get paid.

The question being..................who the hell pays for that??

[WDFORTE]

The British tax payer foots the bill, as always.  I am a British citizen, obviously.  Seriously though, who wouldn't want to learn a second language? I love going to Germany and sitting on a train speaking English, hearing a German say something about me and a mate and then with an Austrian dialect telling them what I think of them in German, the looks on their faces.  Priceless!  Also English is a rich language, 70% of the internet is in English, you can go anywhere and speak it.  I fail to see how you can live in a country and not want to integrate.

[Watts.E.Dunn]

Well having knocked around with a few ladies over time who were mulitlingual, one had around 14 under her belt!!

They have all said that if there was an international lingo them English was it. So if you are english what language ought you learn?.

It should be Manderin chinese or spanish but very few can cope with the former! so they said!

[maxQ]

They have all said that if there was an international lingo them English was it. So if you are english what language ought you learn?.

One of the big ones, French, Spanish or Arabic maybe, Mandarin or Hindi have a huge number of speakers but are not really global languages like French or Spanish

Or you could do the opposite and learn a small language, Welsh or Irish perhaps

[Aj280]

no real doubt that english is way easier than most languages, no gender for a start, most verbs very simple, compare any english verb with its italian or french equivalent, no subjunctive.

That's a little Euro-centric. Alot of languages, maybe even most, don't conjugate much if at all. Also word order(probably partially why the Japanese struggle so much with english) and myrid of factors can determine the difficulty of a language. That's why linguists don't like saying one language is universally hard or easy.

[JontyR]

Does anyone use the job centre for actual job searches now anyway?

I don't see why this is so much of an issue. Many factories / warehouses etc have English as the common language but will hear conversations going on between those of different nationalities or cultures, once on site they will be buddied up with someone that can get them up to speed.

(putting tongue in cheek) If we are so concerned about the cost of the interpreters we should probably sack the indiginous staff like your mate and employ and train a bi-lingual individual instead. Much cheaper than a contracted interpreter plus an advisor.

[Marmalade]

English, I'm Swiss.  I came over here in 1985 and learnt English at School before coming over, my father was in the Automotive industry and worked for British Leyland at the time.

French or German Swiss?

Many English schools used to teach French as a second language, maybe still do. Many schools abroad teach English as a second language. German though always struck me as quite a difficult language. Do the Swiss learn both?

[WDFORTE]

I’m from Davos. German speaking, we never learnt French at school, we despised the French. We never bought French anything, wrong I know but it was just how it was back then.

At school we were taught that German was going to be the global communication language and Germany would rule the world and all other languages would be obsolete. Laughable I know but it really did happen and as a kid you believed it!

[spiralnotebook]

An acquaintance once told me that he moved to Denmark from Holland where if you wanted to stay you had to sit an exam to do so. Apparently you had to turn up at a police station with packed bags and sit a test written in Danish which if you failed you were escorted by two nice policemen to the airport and off you went.

[Marmalade]

I’m from Davos. German speaking, we never learnt French at school, we despised the French. We never bought French anything, wrong I know but it was just how it was back then.

At school we were taught that German was going to be the global communication language and Germany would rule the world and all other languages would be obsolete. Laughable I know but it really did happen and as a kid you believed it!

I find this fascinating! I’ve spent some time visiting Switzerland, mostly the French side. And what a strange experience travelling by train across the country as announcements suddenly change from French to German!

We have this picture — at least I do — of Switzerland as a country of supreme tolerance. So many things, perfectly structured, a combination of latitude and precision, from Swiss watches to the almost unique semi-direct democratic federal republic. Doesn’t the dissonance you refer to — German vs French — perhaps underline how skilfully the country resolves contradictions?

[VolapUK]

You should factor that before you come. If you intend to make your life here, speak the language.

Years ago I used to tell that to other Brits and Germans who lived and worked in Southern Spain, but... 

[akauya]

Years ago I used to tell that to other Brits and Germans who lived and worked in Southern Spain, but... 

  touché

[lamboman]

English is a pretty easy language to learn compared to latin languages which I can pick up within no more than a month so there's no excuse for not learning it if you live in the UK.
Try learning Welsh as an adult now that is hard.

[myothernameis]

There a youtuber, who stays in china, and has gone out of his way, to learn there language.  He dosnt let on that he can understand the Chinese, and only after they have said something about him, he replies in Chinese, much to there surprise

And in general the Chinese reply after this, you speak very good Chinese

[Marmalade]

There a youtuber, who stays in china, and has gone out of his way, to learn there language.  He dosnt let on that he can understand the Chinese, and only after they have said something about him, he replies in Chinese, much to there surprise

A good technique in any country.

[Colston36]

Walking by the job centre from work today, there is a guy I know who works there; not so much a mate but more of an acquaintance, he was on a break and coming out so I had a quick chat with him.  He said as of today they are hiring full time translators to give everyone a fair crack of the work whip in seeking and gaining employment.  The translator can also attend job interviews with you to translate in the interview real time so you have a better chance of getting a job.

Considering English is the easiest language in the world to speak it beggars belief as to why? surely a condensed course in learning English is the way to go, within 4 months you could practically be fluent if enough classes were attended.  Seems a waste of resources to me.

What do others think? English; easy language, school the none English speakers rather than do it for them.

Like most of us on UKP I learnt English as a child and it was easy. But all experts say it is far from the easiest language to pick up.

[Punterperson1971]

A good technique in any country.

Seen his videos I’m sure he knows more languages or there may be another guy or 2 that go to places like Nigeria and he surprises them too by speaking their language

[WDFORTE]

Doesn’t the dissonance you refer to — German vs French — perhaps underline how skilfully the country resolves contradictions?

As I child I was not allowed to associate in the playground with French speaking children, If a French speaking child could not understand German they were left behind in class room studies no one bothered with them.  Even when they could speak German, they had that accent.
No French owned shops prospered, they were outcasts. 

[Marmalade]

As I child I was not allowed to associate in the playground with French speaking children, If a French speaking child could not understand German they were left behind in class room studies no one bothered with them.  Even when they could speak German, they had that accent.
No French owned shops prospered, they were outcasts.

That sounds quite extreme.
What do you think it's like on the border between German-speaking Swiss and French-speaking Swiss? Is it a hard line?

I had friends in Switzerland for a while but never thought to raise the subject with them.

[petermisc]

My understanding is that English is a hard language to learn.  As a previous poster mentioned, the word order in a sentence is different to many other languages.  And English has a very large number of words, just look in a thesaurus at all those that mean pretty much the same thing due to inheriting both Saxon and Norman words, let alone all the words incorporated during the days of empire.  And due to the way it developed, there are a huge number of inconsistencies.

However, I think it relatively easy to learn to a level where you can make yourself understood.  The difficult bit is getting to a level where it sounds anywhere near natural.  The big give-away is the correct use of "a" or "the", which seems to be very difficult for non-native speakers to pick up.

[WDFORTE]

The big give-away is the correct use of "a" or "the", which seems to be very difficult for non-native speakers to pick up.

The biggest difficulty for me and classmates learning English was the use of the 'TH" sound, three, thanks if it an impossible sound to get right.  Also the correct pronunciation of the letter 'W', so we could not say "Warwickshire beat Worcestershire by three wickets" or pronounce the word Squirrel correctly.  That was my difficulty with English.

[petermisc]

What do you think it's like on the border between German-speaking Swiss and French-speaking Swiss? Is it a hard line?

If you consider the physical geography, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a fairly hard line.  The Swiss seem to be almost as nationalist and patriotic about which canton they live in as they do about being Swiss, with the canton flag much on display, particularly in rural areas.  It would be a bit like if every town in the UK proudly had the county flag on display everywhere - not even Yorkshire goes as far as the Swiss in that respect.

[WDFORTE]

True, each think the whole of Switzerland should be theirs.

[Watts.E.Dunn]

True, each think the whole of Switzerland should be theirs.

Yes .. The Putin disese:(..

[Marmalade]

Yes .. The Putin disese:(..

Given the Swiss have a remarkably stable political system (semi-direct democratic federal republic I believe it's called) the comparison is a bit off. But ok, you could apply it to Putin. But there's a big difference between thinking it and forcing it on someone else.

I believe I am the most important person in the world by the fact of my existence. I also believe just as strongly that everybody else individually has the same right to believe the same about him or herself. We progress through recognising difference. Evolution is based on it. Putin's downfall. Switzerland's endurance.

[petermisc]

I believe I am the most important person in the world by the fact of my existence. I also believe just as strongly that everybody else individually has the same right to believe the same about him or herself. We progress through recognising difference. Evolution is based on it. Putin's downfall. Switzerland's endurance.

I am happy for you to think that you are the most important person in the world, because I KNOW that I am.....