People don't get enough credit for learning English

[Jar-Ptitsa]

In London, the people are mostly very nice if you speak English and are foreign. They find it great and compliment you. But I suppose this depends on your job, so if you're a doctor like Cavesa or a lawyer etc, then they won't give you credit for learning English, but think that it's necessary and of course you learned it.

Well, there's a reason why you can ask at our International Office for a list of doctors, who can speak English. Just because many of them don't.
Also in Finland some of the doctors didn't have good English skills, but luckily most of them had. I also remember some of staff looked quite disappointed, when I prefered English. However, most of them spoke English really well - but that was in the Helsinki region, so the region with most foreigners in Finland.

Sorry, I meant if they are in England. Of course the doctors in other countries can't speak English or maybe they can but it depends. I didn't ask in Belgium if they can speak English, there they must speak the language of the region where they work.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

In London, the people are mostly very nice if you speak English and are foreign. They find it great and compliment you. But I suppose this depends on your job, so if you're a doctor like Cavesa or a lawyer etc, then they won't give you credit for learning English, but think that it's necessary and of course you learned it.

I'm not a doctor yet . And it is not necessary, unless you want to work in an anglophone country or do research, in which case there is no difference between a doctor and a cook, both need it. I have a lot of classmates, whose English really sucks and they actually find it weird I use foreign textbooks, as it "necessarily needs to take more time" . They will either learn German and get out (like hundreds of doctors every year), or they will be "happily" monolingual (and burnt out and poor), like most czech doctors.

Really, by far not everyone on this planet burns with desire to watch tv series in original or win a green card. I think one of the reasons why anglophones, despite being in general horrible at foreign languages and too lazy to learn one, don't value to investments of others into English is this. An absolutely wrong idea that every non-anglophone country sucks so much we easily learn the language just of pure adoration

Sorry, my post wasn't clear i think (you and another person thought I meant all doctors). I meant doctors who are in England.

You can live in London and not speak English if you have a job that is ok with that, but not doctor, obviolusly.

[stelingo]

I have to agree with the title of this thread. I learnt English as a baby and nobody ever compliments my on my level of English.

[Cavesa]

Moo, no burn intended! Sorry, if it looked so.

[William Camden]

I spent some time in Amsterdam and met only two people who did not speak reasonable English, though I gave learning Dutch a shot. One was a Moroccan, although he could speak Dutch, and the other was a postman. I managed broken Dutch with the Moroccan, who ran an Internet café, and talked to the postman in a sort of mixed Dutch/German.
Having said that, I saw books on sale listing and sometimes mocking common Dutch errors speaking English. I found Dutch spoke English well, but rather lacking in idioms that native speakers would take for granted. Despite England being just over the water, their English was more like American English.

[William Camden]

English is the international language today. There have been different international languages at different periods although the degree of mastery is of course variable. The New Testament was probably written in Koine Greek because that was the international language of the day. Most probably Pilate questioned Jesus in Greek, for example. I have read that the degree of mastery of Greek in the New Testament books is variable, with my favourite book, Revelation, being supposedly particularly odd linguistically.

[Ani]

But in the end, we don't get enough credit for most things in our life, so why care too much about this one

Well yup, definitely. How many things in your life did you put a massive amount of work into just to have people say, "Boy I wish I were talented in xyz" .. as if your skill fell magically into your lap? I think artists might have it worst of all in this way.
I am impressed with the high level of English spoken by the non-native participants on this board, but I think it takes a language learner to realize what a commitment that was to learn it to that level. The reality is that most people in this world don't put any considerable, consistent effort into anything that isn't strictly required of them. Because of that, they have no idea what the reality is for other people.

[moo]

I have the feeling that English doesn't count. This language is completely unavoidable.

It's interesting that you would feel like that despite learning English to C2 (Isn't that a better level than most natives? ) Could you elaborate a bit ? Do you think just because it's unavoidable then it's not worth acknowledging achievements in learning English? That it's something to be expected of people ?

[Cavesa]

I think artists might have it worst of all in this way.

So true. That is one of the reasons why I dislike the "talent" competitions. Superstar was just the beginning. "---country has talent" and all the others that followed just went even further in the direction. Sure, the people there are talented and they get complimented on it. But more importantly, they have put thousands of hours of hard work into their skills, that's what makes them different from many other people with a similar talent.

English is the international language today.

So what. That doesn't mean learning it is easy or necessarily a pleasure The thread is not a discussion about the role of English. We have all been lectured about that ad nauseam for years at school.

[William Camden]

I wasn't saying English is easy. Few of the lingua francas of different historical periods were, and the degree of L2 mastery of the current lingua franca or language in vogue of the time was pretty variable. A character in Lermontov's Hero Of Our Time complains about people in middle to upper class Russian society speaking "terrible French".