yong321 wrote:
> The French are less supportive towards learners and it is not just switching on people in France. It is an attitude represented everywhere. .... It often feels snobbish.
It is a stereotype but has some truth in it: the French-speaking people may be less tolerant of or friendly to any one not speaking their language while in France or even Quebec than, say, the Spaniards to one not speaking Spanish in Spain. President Macron's "gran plan nacional dedicado a relanzar el idioma como lengua global" probably does not contain a passage suggesting this attitude be changed. (Personally though, I still like to study French, just for fun if nothing else.)
That stereotype is no longer true. The Spanish natives are much more welcoming to people speaking various level of Spanish. The French natives are definitely not less tolerant to people not speaking their language. Quite the opposite. They expect people to suck at French, so they prefer to switch even when the foreigner's French is several levels above their English. This stereotype is not true anymore. It is the opposite. It is actually hard to practice French in France even at the higher levels, especially if you have some things against you (for example having a clearly foreign family with you).
A stereotype I have observed to be true is not just the switching (which is a rather common expericence, if you listen to people who have actually tried it out instead of just parroting what generations before them used to experience) but also when it comes to attitudes of teachers (native and non native), coursebooks (not only prefaces with weirdly discouraging passages but also the curriculum they choose, I really think the French ones are not far from creating a self fulfilling prophecy of everything being hard and people unlikely to succeed), the general natives's opinions on learners (this is not just switching, but the honest surprise anyone could actually talk better than a neanderthal expressed directly or indirectly), the attitudes of the French eshops with books and similar stuff (Just a few years ago, the amazon.fr was offering much worse delivery conditions than amazon.de or amazon.es or amazon.it, it is a bit more equal now), and it goes on.
The Spanish natives are not making such a big deal of it. They switch less, but of course it can happen (especially if you are not too advanced). The teachers and coursebooks look at the learner with more optimism, and the amount of astonishment a competent learner provokes is much more reasonable.
> Wikipedia says that the second most commonly studied language in China is Japanese. I don't think the match between Spanish and French is even being really played on this field.
I found that statement about Japanese in China at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages ... _languagesBut it's not giving any reference. It's an interesting fact nonetheless. I want to add that nowadays public safety in France is a big concern. It negatively affects French learners that intend to go to France to study. Among these learners, female students are overwhelmingly in the majority. No doubt personal safety in some Latin American countries is even worse. But Spanish learners, whose gender ratio may be more balanced, do not really have a clear destination to study the language as in case of French when they plan to study abroad.
Public safety? Excuse me but I disagree, based on experience. There are places you won't like in any country. But in general, vast majority of Europe is very safe. And from all I have heard from people either travelling to the south american countries or from their natives in Europe, these two still cannot be compared much, even though the situation in the SA seems to be improving over time, with regional and national variability. And you might also notice an extremely horrible case being discussed in Spain these days and the theme of women's safety being very much alive.
I am a young woman (ok, not that young anymore, but still under 30). Yes, I am sometimes afraid, I am a potential target of violence. But I realise extremely well that I live in the safest region of the world, which is Europe, except for smaller islands of trouble (which tend to not be that safe for men either). I don't find much difference in my safety and well being as a woman in the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, or Austria.
This is definitely a valid concern in general, it is one of the reasons why I would definitely hesitate about Arabic, the african languages used in generally unsafe regions, and perhaps some others. Don't get me wrong, but I find this rather laughable, when talking about Europe in this context. In many aspects, Europe is also much safer than the US by the way.
From my observation, the women/men ration among Spanish and French learners is similar. Mostly women. My guesses why: men tend to "make the rational choice" and are likely to go for something else unless forced to sign up for a particular language other than English. In Europe, it can be German or Russian, or sometimes even the asian languages, or a totally different skill than a second or third foreign language. But you are probably right that French is even more "not manly enough" than Spanish. But it is just a marketing fault in my opinion.
And we are back at the original point: the marketing of the countries and languages. Both the French and Spanish speaking countries have tons of stuff traditionally considered interesting for men. Science, industry, and so on. But France is presenting itself far too little and too much in English, from my observation. Sure, I am oriented mostly on medicine, but I am interested in other areas too. And I find it fascinating, how underestimated the country is. For example, people completely underestimate the amount and importance of the French companies in the Czech Republic. And both the French library and the Spanish one here in Prague and vastly more focused on humanities than on science. It's a ton of little things like this, which makes certain kinds of public not appreciate the language enough. And when it comes to switching the science to English, I am afraid French is much more endangered than Spanish. It is not just about the articles, it is also about the languages really spoken by the people.
It's like "hey, want to learn German, the language of BMW, or Spanish, the language of one of the continents with oil? Or you can learn French, the language of art."
garyb wrote:I usually avoid these kinds of topics, but Cavesa's post is great and as soon as I read the subject line I also thought that it's surely a fight that French cannot win. I thought that Africa was its only chance, but between the article and Cavesa's reply it seems that even that might not be a strong case.
It's a bit of a stereotype but in Europe, and even more so in the USA, it seems like people mostly study French for pleasure (often based on a romanticised and outdated image of France and its culture) and Spanish for utility. Here in the UK, French has traditionally been the main foreign language taught in schools along with German, making it the "go-to" choice for adults who want to learn a language but weren't sure which: picking up one you already have some basics in, even if you barely remember them, is less daunting than starting from scratch. But even that might be changing now.
It's also true that the French are learning English more and more, even if they still have a lot of catching up to do compared to some other countries. I remember that I went to a big music festival in France as a beginner, and it really tested the limits of my A2-level French since I was the only person in my group who could communicate at all with many of the people we met. Yet a few years later I returned there with a much more conversational level but found that I hardly needed it. I did also encounter quite a bit of English when travelling around Spain last year, but my impression was that at least outside touristy areas Spanish is still useful and will continue to be so for a good while. I can't speak for Latin America but very broadly based on what I've heard it seems similar.
Thanks
I think Spanish for utility is mostly an american thing. In Europe, it has always been French vs. Germany and it seems like there is little difference between the UK and Central Europe. But that has a few consequences. A part of the interest in Spanish within the US has consequences outside of it. For example more resources for anglophone learners. But I think a larger part of the growth in Europe is the "coolness". Even if it was just the fact that Spain is a very popular destination for tourists, and the Spanish songs getting abroad more often than the French ones, it would already be a constant tiny influence on people.
The French are catching up already. The young ones are. And all the generations assume that their English must be better than the foreigner's French, from my experience, for reasons we have discussed many times. But the young French natives are overall not that bad at English. I would personally say they are on average better than young Spanish or Czech natives.
I agree about the situation in Spain, and I have less experience than you so I wouldn't doubt you. The language will remain very useful for a long time. An example: I was really susprised by the non-existent English among the Spanish medicine students I was staying with during my student exchange years ago. Young people studying at university are usually the best English speakers of any country. And let's not forget that getting to medicine in Spain depends on the grades from highschool. As far as I know, all the subjects and all the years. So, these people couldn't have been less than above average in any obligatory subject including English. So, Spanish is far from being lost
In France, many universities are even teaching the native French students in English
Such programs are becoming very popular, especially in the fields of business and marketing, and I find it disturbing. I read an interesting lemonde article some time ago, which was finding it disturbing too. Not only because of the rise of English in the country. But also due to the quality of teaching. Simply put: non native teachers plus non native students, that rarely leads to hyper awesome education in the non native language.
reineke wrote:Spanish vs French
They both lose.
Introduzione alla didattica dell’Intercomprensione
“A Europe of polyglots is not a Europe of people who speak many languages fluently, but, in the best case scenario, of people who can communicate, each speaking his own language and understanding that of the other, but who, while not being able to speak it fluently, by understanding it, even with difficulty, would understand the “spirit”, the cultural universe that every one expresses when speaking the language of his ancestors and of his own tradition.”
Umberto Eco, In Search of the Perfect Language (Building Europe). Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.
"Molti (più pericolosi per le lingue romanze di quanto non lo siano l’inglese e gli anglisti) si consolavano con i dati (“lo spagnolo è più diffuso dell’inglese”, “il portoghese ha più parlanti del francese”, “l’italiano è in forte ripresa ovunque”): dati veri, ma decontestualizzati.
Se gli ispanofoni sono più degli anglofoni, ma devono parlare in inglese per commerciare nel mondo, il dato iniziale, vero in sé, è reso falso da un altro dato, cioè la vittoria dell’angloamericano (non dell’inglese britannico, sconfitto come tutte le lingue europee) nella battaglia mondiale delle lingue nel ventesimo secolo.
Le glorie passate sono importanti ma nel mondo darwiniano non sono determinanti; gli splendori della cultura danno prestigio e aggiungono attrazione, ma non danno forza..."
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... ese#p50329Mutual Understanding
https://www.languagemagazine.com/mutual-understanding/
That is an interesting theory. But any ideas about the languages of Europe worded in 1995 are far from reality now. In 1995, there was no widely spread internet(=English). In the 90's, there were far fewer migrants of both european and non european origin and therefore the situation was much more like 1 country=1 language=1 tradition and 2 languages=a dialogue between people from 2 countries. In the 90's, the EU was definitely not what it is now, the general mobility was not that high and I dare say it was not that huge even in the old EU countries.
Back then, you were expected to stay put among people like you and occasionally communicate with a foreigner and somehow get a message across, and enjoy some understanding based on having the same ancestors and tradition with roots a few thousand years ago. Nowadays, it is normal for us to have foreigners around us and/or become a foreigner around someone else in their place of origin. That is totally different.