The Independent has come out with an article talking about tonight's game. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...age-respect-insists-jos-hooiveld-8083908.html
Why do people possess so much difficulty at spelling foreign words? It's about time that every english student is taught a second language in school and must be fluent in it.
I spent 5 years studying French...I know a lot of nouns but don't know those 'connecty' words like verbs. Language teaching is wrong in this country. They act as if everyone is going to take exams in a subject with a view to studying at University. Better to teach conversational language.
For me the good thing about seeing Jos's article was the fact that we are getting more attention. It may not always be good but it is there.
Indeed Fran. I was taught French and Spanish, and continued with Spanish at the expense of French. I had little choice as I had to take a modern foreign language at GCSE as my school had achieved the title of "Language College". I can use key words and work out what people are saying but my connecting words are always atrocious. I managed an A in listening and reading, but writing was always poor, a C or D. I can speak a bit, at a level B or C. As said, the problem is they teach unnecessary stuff like "how to talk about your day at school" and "talk about your holiday" rather than teaching useful conversational language that you are likely to require on holiday or when travelling. As of this summer I am no longer studying any foreign languages. From all these foreign articles I've translated I can only imagine what my Spanish teacher must have thought!
To be honest there's an awful lot of English people who struggle to spell, or form coherent sentences, in English, let alone bringing in accents and unusual phonetics.
Many years ago I had to take german..........As you can imagine being about 5 years after the war ended things were pretty raw as to the germans and they us. We had a German as a german teacher who had just come over as an exchange teacher. From the moment we entered the class room German was the only language we could speak. he obviously spoke to us in English but all our replies were supposed to be German. It was every Day German and we soon got hold of the language or at least enough to get us by. Exactly one year later my Step father was posted to Germany and about a half dozen of us kids that had been taught german tried our luck when we went out and about. The people refused to acknowledge our German or should I say most did so I have never bothered to use it since. The same thing happened more or less with French When I was at Business college part of the course was French. For about 2.5 years I battled through that language and I got my grades. We have since been to France many times but as soon as I open my Gob they tend to speak in broken English. Now I know that my Hampshire accent does get in the way sometimes when speaking different languages......but hey I did try. My wife speaks fluent French but often gets the same reaction. Strangely the only time it was useful was on the spanish boarders with France and Andorra. I could speak very freely and understand easily there replys. Made it all seem a little worth while at times that I had bothered to have a go at learning the Froggies language.
I used to be married to a French National and the only time I found the French difficult was in Paris. I didn't/don't have a huge grasp of their language but if I tried to ask for something in English they blatantly ignored me and I would be forced to try broken French much to their delight.
History Repeating I used to have family in Puylaurens a little village near Revel in the Mid-Pyrenees. I used to have a great time speaking broken French to a couple of relatives while they responded in broken English. Sometimes took for ever to get our meanings across but time passed quickly as we were always at some barbie or other.
Had a lot of fun travelling around, but just found the French in the North of the country would be a little more patient, whereas some of the offthe beaten trackplaces in the South showed far less effort. My spacebar is causing me troubletonight. Apologies.
