English has been my pain for 15 years (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#111

Post by eurg » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #23

petke wrote: post #16

Ever noticed how people from small countries in Europe often tend to speak English well, while people from big European countries dont? Think Sweden vs Italy. Its mostly just a happy accident. You see, in small countries they usually dont dub movies or tv shows, simply because the market isn't big enough. They simply put subtitles on. Subtitles fly past way too quick for young kids to read though. So young kids dont…

> Its mostly just a happy accident. You see, in small countries they usually dont dub movies or tv shows, simply because the market isn't big enough. They simply put subtitles on. Counter argument: everything is dubbed in Austria and yet we're pretty good at English. Why? Education and a multi-cultural background in the last 30 years.

As a fellow Austrian I have to strongly disagree. Outside of the frequently-english-using circle (higher management positions, software devs, language students...), English proficiency is terrible. Generation 40+ more likely answers in French or Latin rather understand the difference between beef and pork.

I'd place myself in the 90% percentile of fluency in English here, but as soon as a native speaker forgets I'm participating I understand jack shit. Nada. Instant game over. Grammar, vocab, pronounciation, emotional expression, speed, comprehension, etc. -- everything takes a 50% hit compared to German.

My coworkers are from Austria, US, Slovenia, Serbia etc. -- often the only shared language is English. It makes meetings excrutiatingly slow and painful (non-fluent talking bringing back memories of 1st year elementary school reading).

And that is the experience in an highly educated multinational team in the software industry. Calling it "best-case" would overstretch it (that still goes to EU interpreters meeting at lunch), but compared to large parts of the population...

If that is "pretty good", what is "mediocre"? Or "bad"? The inability to say hello?

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#112

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

kyberias wrote: post #82

syllogism wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finnish is not a Germanic language.

Neither is Polish or Estonian. What is your point?

[deleted]

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#113

Post by pzagor2 » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

I'm from a small Europen country. I watched a loot of English cartoons and movies when I was in primary school. I never really put time into studying English, and my grades were below average. But I was always able to understand and communicate in English better than my friends. I still struggle with spelling and forming proper sentences. Sometimes I found myself stutter, or I get lost in the middle of a sentence. I work for an English-speaking remote company, and I communicate with coworkers on a daily basis. I think I'm pretty introverted in my native language. Usually, I just don't pay enough attention when speaking to people. But when I use English, I have to put that little extra effort into following a conversation that is showing up as me asking more questions and being a more active participant in the discussion. This is no a 100% rule, but something a noticed over the years.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#114

Post by rachbelaid » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

DonaldFisk wrote: post #99

petke wrote: post #16

Ever noticed how people from small countries in Europe often tend to speak English well, while people from big European countries dont? Think Sweden vs Italy. Its mostly just a happy accident. You see, in small countries they usually dont dub movies or tv shows, simply because the market isn't big enough. They simply put subtitles on. Subtitles fly past way too quick for young kids to read though. So young kids dont…

Not sure it's down to the size of the country. More likely, it's the size of the community speaking the language, and the closeness of the language to English, together with some other factors. During my time in Belgium, I found that few Liégeois spoke English, and one simply couldn't get by in Liège without being able to speak French. However, during visits to Antwerp, I could speak in English and people there were…

Coming from Belgium, petke is also right about the influence of small language community. In example, in the flamish part (where belgian speak dutch), a lot of tv program and cinema is dub from english and even some cartoon. Where in the Walloons part (where belgian speak only french), we have access to the big tv network from France so we never watch anything in English.

But I remember reading that different languages use different sounds spectrum and hearing/understanding languages outside your spectrum is harder. Some languages have overlapping sounds spectrum which make learning different language easier. Now you have also the languages sharing the same roots and as you said somebody who know a germanic language then will have easier to guess/learn new vocabulary.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#115

Post by mortehu » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 5:54 PM UTC

kyberias wrote: post #82

syllogism wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finnish is not a Germanic language.

Neither is Polish or Estonian. What is your point?

Probably that Finland, Poland and Estonia are right behind the small Germanic language countries on the English Proficiency Index[1], and above Germany and Austria.

1. http://www.ef.edu/epi/

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#116

Post by pvaldes » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 5:56 PM UTC

angry-hacker wrote: post #27

petke wrote: post #16

Ever noticed how people from small countries in Europe often tend to speak English well, while people from big European countries dont? Think Sweden vs Italy. Its mostly just a happy accident. You see, in small countries they usually dont dub movies or tv shows, simply because the market isn't big enough. They simply put subtitles on. Subtitles fly past way too quick for young kids to read though. So young kids dont…

For some reason, I thought every country subtitles movies/tv-shows that are not produced in their own language. When I moved abroad, to Spain, I found it amusing to play clips to movie fans in English and ask who is this? Based on the sound. Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio etc. - they didn't know any because the famous ones have even their personal voice doublants.

If you could be Harry Callahan, Darth Wader, Captain Kirk, Terminator, 007, Blad Runner's Roy Batty and The king lion's Mufasa, all in one lifetime, you might look like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantino_Romero

Talking about interesting lives...

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#117

Post by DanBC » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 5:56 PM UTC

xanderstrike wrote: post #21

As a native English speaker, I can understand pretty much every other native English speaker (though I may struggle a bit with Cockney or Nigerian english, the point gets across). I'm also pretty good at Spanish, and living in Southern California I mostly hear the Mexican accent. When I hear Argentinian or Cuban Spanish, I have no fucking clue what's going on. Does that mean Spanish is phonetically broken? It, like I…

> I'd argue the "phonetically broken" nature of English has more to do with his learning it as a second language than anything intrinsically wrong with English.

ough:

Bough (ow), Though (oh), through (oo), thorough (uh), rough (uff), cough (off), hiccough (up)

That's broken.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#118

Post by dragandj » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 5:59 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #77

perakojotgenije wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, I think the reason that user "petke" has mentioned is correct. I know this is only anecdotal evidence, but here it is: I live in a small town near the serbian-hungarian border and we can watch both Hungarian and Serbian TV stations. In Serbia movies are subtitled (so you can hear English language all the time) while in Hungary movies are dubbed (so you can't hear anything other than hungarian language on TV). S…

Wow, that's an awesome natural experiment. Can you share the name of the town? Or would any town near the border do?

That is probably Subotica.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#119

Post by atmosx » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 5:59 PM UTC

I can related with the OP. I guess most non-native English speakers can.

> Before 1950, when the "TV Language Unification" happened, everybody was still taking with their dialects and italian was only mastered by a small percentage of people. Sicilian itself, the language talked the most by my family, predates Italian by centuries.

For a hands-on example about what he is talking about, those of you who learned Italian try to understand what this song[1] says, without actually studying the lyrics. It's an awesome Sicilian tune by an ethnic group Messinese[2] group called Kunsertu (concert).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXQSoTGwun4

[2] Messina is the port-city that gates the most beautiful island in the world: Sicily! :-)

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#120

Post by rachbelaid » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 6:00 PM UTC

I had a similar experience. And event after living in a UK/US for 6y and my partner being a native english speaker, sometimes I struggle. One other frustration that I had, when you have to argue for your case. If you have to justify a solution against a native english speaker that can create some frustration as finding the right wording for the arguments can be sometimes a challenge.