Brits don't speak foreign languages

On 06/12/11 00:28, Irwell wrote:
On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 16:34:51 -0000, JohnT wrote:

"Jack wrote in message
...
If it Irish is close to dead, why do they put up those confusing
road signs in Irish?

Similar reasons to why the US labels its money in Latin.


And why do Americans have Super Bowl XLVI?
--


Or the BBC using MMXII?

The BBC is riddled with the classically educated products of the
'public' school system and so expects Roman numerals to be used when
describing a year.

Super Bowl, and other areas of sport in the USA, are not.

Or at least, I am led to understand that they're not...

--
William Black

Free men have open minds
If you want loyalty, buy a dog...

Count on martin to drone on and on


"Martin" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
...

On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 17:32:05 +0000 (UTC), Erilar
wrote:

Martin wrote:
On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 01:27:45 +0000 (UTC), Erilar
wrote:

Martin wrote:
On Sun, 4 Dec 2011 16:24:04 +0000 (UTC), Erilar
wrote:

William Black wrote:
On 02/12/11 20:42, Erilar wrote:
William wrote:
On 01/12/11 19:00, David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) wrote:
.

I never claimed such a thing. I wonder if learning English in
school did
you any good.


Probably not.


People who are native speakers of English do not "learn English in
school".
They may "learn" a different accent, but that's it.


Ah, but I was taught 'English' in school.

The class tends to be called that, true, as if it were a foreign
tongue,
but it's more study and correction of than "learning" in the sense of
learning another language.
You said
"They may "learn" a different accent, but that's it."

I learnt grammar & spelling in English lessons at school. Nobody
taught accents.

No one teaches regional accents, but many children come to school with
very
pronounced ones.

Many leave school with their regional accents intact.

Many can by then, however, also speak something closer to what was
emphasized in school if it's to their advantage 8-)

and many won't.
--

Martin

martin the king of useless trolls.


"Martin" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
...

On Sun, 4 Dec 2011 23:13:02 +0000, (David Horne,
_the_ chancellor (*)) wrote:

Martin wrote:

Was Abs Fab shown on Arte a long time ago?

Bodybuilders?

for old F(ine) Artes.
--

Martin

martin loves this thread, in competition for the longest thread


"Martin" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
...

On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 21:15:09 +0100, Wolfgang Schwanke
wrote:

Josef Kleber wrote in
:

Am 05.12.2011 11:52, schrieb Martin:
On Mon, 05 Dec 2011 10:55:53 +0100, Josef Kleber
wrote:

Am 05.12.2011 09:59, schrieb Martin:
and Wallander is another. I've never seen subtitled foreign
programmes on German, French, Italian or Spanish made for home
consumption.

You have to watch arte after midnight! There are sometimes movies
broadcasted in "OmU" (Originalton mit Untertitel)

Thanks, Josef! I'll try with my PVR. I am not staying up after
midnight just in case. :-)

When the programmes are subtitled are the subtitles available in both
French and German?

No. The subtitels are part of the picture (analog).

I'm not sure if that is always true. There are teletext subtitles as
well.

I assume the french
version of arte has french subtitles if available. Technically,
arte(FR) and arte(DE) are two different stations.

With slightly differing programming. Then there's arte HD which makes it
three versions, or even four(?).

I havn't checked if the
subtitles (both german and french) are also available as "digital"
subtitles in the digital versions. I wouldn't bet on it.

Also, the available audio channels differ between the two versions. Most
of the time it's German/French on both. But when they show a foreign
movie, the German version will have German/foreign language, the French
version will have French/foreign language audio.

The audio has always been French/German even for films which are
neither French nor German.
--

Martin

michaelnewport sends viruses, beware !


"Beer Tricks Potter" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
...

On Nov 29, 5:21 pm, Markku Grönroos wrote:
A recently published study tells that 64% of all the Britons can speak
only English.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...-pain-in-spain

Am 05.12.2011 23:45, schrieb Martin:
On Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:55:31 +0100, Josef Kleber

BTW, while checking for subtitles, i found out that there will be an
"OmU" movie tonight:

23:35 Winterday, love drama, Norway, 2007

In Norwegian?


I did not watch, but i would be surprised if it would have been in
spanish! ;-)

Josef

On Dec 5, 12:59*pm, James Silverton
wrote:
On 12/5/2011 12:30 AM, Orval Fairbairn wrote:









In ,
* *wrote:

*wrote:
On Sun, 4 Dec 2011 16:24:04 +0000 (UTC), Erilar
*wrote:

William *wrote:
On 02/12/11 20:42, Erilar wrote:
William * wrote:
On 01/12/11 19:00, David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) wrote:
.

I never claimed such a thing. I wonder if learning English in school
did
you any good.

Probably not.

People who are native speakers of English do not "learn English in
school".
* *They may "learn" a different accent, but that's it.

Ah, *but I was taught 'English' in school.

The class tends to be called that, true, as if it were a foreign tongue,
but it's more study and correction of than "learning" in the sense of
learning another language.
You said
"They may "learn" a different accent, but that's it."

I learnt grammar& *spelling in English lessons at school. Nobody
taught accents.

No one teaches regional accents, but many children come to school with very
pronounced ones.

Tell me about it! About 25 years ago we visited suffolk and could not
understand the dialect! It was a far cry from standard "BBC" English!

It does not always take a long time to become accustomed to a different
accent in Britain. When I first came to Glasgow, from Oban 90 odd miles
away, I could only understand about half what was said in the street
but, within a week, my ear became attuned to the local speech.

--

James Silverton, Potomac

I'm *not*

I once had to, literally, 'translate', between my Managing Director
from Paisley, Scotland and Americans at a business meeting in
Pennsylvania.

Am 06.12.2011 11:38, schrieb Martin:
On Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:47:14 +0100, Josef Kleber
wrote:

Am 05.12.2011 23:45, schrieb Martin:
On Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:55:31 +0100, Josef Kleber

BTW, while checking for subtitles, i found out that there will be an
"OmU" movie tonight:

23:35 Winterday, love drama, Norway, 2007

In Norwegian?


I did not watch, but i would be surprised if it would have been in
spanish! ;-)

With Arte all things are possible :-)

In an old Arte brochure anything after midnight is described by Google
Chrome's translation as interesting trash movies:-)

Which programme guide are you using?

This
http://www.programme-tv.net/programm...me-arte-1.html

or this
http://www.arte.tv/de/70.html

I use http://www.tvinfo.de and http://www.wunschliste.de for series. I
still use an old school print magazine, where i found the "OmU" info. I
don't know a webpage, which is able to search "OmU".

Josef

On 3/12/2011 13:39, Dan Stephenson wrote:
On 2011-11-29 12:19:09 -0600, mikeos said:

Even if they don't. In my experience, citizens of most Euro countries
speak better English than I do. For example,in Germany, Holland, all
Scandinavian countries slip effortlessly to English if you start
trying to express yourself in the local language. Even France,
although they pretend that they don't!

Something else. I live in Texas in the USA. There are lot of
Spanish-speaking people here, and it is amazing to sometimes hear them
interleave Spanish and English continuously through their speech, so
that half the words in each sentence are in Spanish and the other half
in English. Or one Spanish sentence followed by one English sentence.
Amazing!

Question: for the non-English people in Europe, does this kind of thing
happen, too? I wonder in particular about the Irish who speak the Irish
gaelic language.

It happens in pretty much all the areas where languages meet. It's
inevitable. It's also prevalent in cities with different communities, as
anyone who has heard young people in Paris or Brussels cross French and
Arabic - just like the generation before them would have crossed French
and Italian or Portuguese.

Michael
http://cannes-or-bust.com/

On Tue, 06 Dec 2011 07:13:40 +0100, Runge 131 wrote:

martin loves this thread, in competition for the longest thread

You're certainly helping him along in that effort by doubling his number
of posts.

--
Dave Hatunen, Tucson, Baja Arizona