Foreign Languages in Finland's Educational System - commentaires

Foreign Languages in Finland's Educational System

Well, now it's a different year : 2013. Here I am, trying to find a Chinese or Spanish speaking job in Finland ; and especially since Chinese language is supposedly in vogue (and blah blah... seems only English speaking countries REALLY want to popularize Chinese language). It's been rather impossible, I must tell you. No interest at all, but from a few people here and there who would like to learn Chinese for amateur purposes only (and thus are quite content with simply hiring a teacher on skype). I say, non-native English users make their best to communicate, maybe not to master the language and get creative. Aaand... No luck in Finland for me :(

Foreign Languages in Finland's Educational System

Dear Mr Korhonen,

When I travel abroad, I always learn a few basic words of the language or the country I am visiting. It is generalely quite useful as english is not spoken everywhere.

I agree with Krokodilo, you should have tried to speak to Spanish people in spanish, french, catalan or esperanto.

– r

Staban

Foreign Languages in Finland's Educational System

I am a native speaker and it was not difficult to read the article. The author writes infinitely better than many of my college peers. Colloquialisms plague all languages.

Foreign Languages in Finland's Educational System

the article was pretty intelligible to me. well, perhaps English people can't see the wood for the trees. but English is ligua franca and this (of course) has negative effects as well. sorry for using your language in such a ruthless way.

Foreign Languages in Finland's Educational System

I have travelled all over Europe and met hundreds of people and English hyas always been fine for me. I was able to have conversations with many people, most understood enough for me to communicate according to my needs. Only twice I was unable to find what I needed with English. However I have never seen a place proudly announcing « Esperanto spoken » on its door.

English is lingua franca...

Obviously I have noticed that citizens from the largest countries do not necessarily put all the necessary efforts to learn it properly while citizens from the smaller ones do most often - as far as I have noticed.

I am not opposed to the idea of esperanto but it can only be usefukl if there is a political initiative to propote it and nowadays politicians have lost the habit to take bold political initiatives. I am therefore rather pessimistic.

BTW I have been interested in learning esperanto myself : it is actually easy but still remains a significant amount of work and commitment... with little reward as it does not allow you to use it when you travel nor to access to a specific culture.

Foreign Languages in Finland's Educational System

M. Korhonen ; You said : « In Finland we are told how important language English is : You can use it in all Europe » Perhaps what you have been told was not true ? Your post has proven it, no ? Do you try to speak to them, in Spain, in other languages, catalan, french, esperanto, or any other language of the 6000 on earth ? english is not officially the lingua franca of the EU. Nor of the world. Regards.

Foreign Languages in Finland's Educational System

Mankso : it is by no means a near-impossibility for a non-native speaker to write prose in a foreign language. I'm also Finnish and currently work in the UK -previously I worked in public relations (writing press releases) and also write in my current job. A lot of the time I have to correct the native speakers as the level of skill among (especially) English speakers is appallingly low. Perhaps we should start by getting the native English speakers to perfect their own skills...

Foreign Languages in Finland's Educational System

mmm....., I am not a native english speaker but I found the article immediately intelligible ; even the sentece “the Finnish presidency of the EU is on the run”

Foreign Languages in Finland's Educational System

I don't know which language this article was originally written in, but it is a very good example of the near-impossibility for a non-native-speaker to write prose in any ethnic language (including of course English !) which is immediately intelligible to a native-speaker. I don't wish to embarrass the author (or the translator), but there were several sentences here which I (a native-speaker of English) had to read two or three times before I was able to grasp their meaning. Let one small example suffice : “the Finnish presidency of the EU is on the run,” I think this is not what the author intended to write. "On the run" means "fleeing away from something, probably after a defeat in battle." Surely "in progress" is what was meant ? Idioms are indeed treacherous beasts !

How can one overcome such problems ? There is only one language known to me where fluency and accuracy are theoretically attainable by everyone, and that language is a NON-ethnic one, viz. Esperanto, the use of which treats all on an equal linguistic footing (and removes my unearned privileged position). Why is this fact so rarely mentioned ? And everyone seems to know about the weekly 5-minute Latin broadcast from Finnish Radio YLE, but few seem to know about the Esperanto-language information http://conspectus.wordpress.com/ published by the Finnish EU-presidency, or the daily 30-minute Esperanto broadcasts from Radio Polonia ?

Surely universal bilingualism [YOUR language + Esperanto, for everybody] is the ideal, most cost-effective solution and worth looking into ? It is an already functioning reality, not a project. An English-only Europe is harmful to smaller languages - and besides, it makes me cringe when I have to read « EU English » ! Please don't massacre my language any more !

Foreign Languages in Finland's Educational System

Dear readers, our family just visited Spain on our holiday week. We were rather shocked because people in Spain could not speak English. Neither young nor older people could not speak English at all. The only language to spanish people seem to be their own language spanish. We were surprised. Perhaps this is why they think they do not need any other languages at all. In Finland we are told how important language English is : You can use it in all Europe. Earlier I already knew that people in France only speak french and people in Germany only speak german...