Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

France, Spain, and Italy’s English skills are on the decline: study

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 200 posts

Re: France, Spain, and Italy’s English skills are on the decline: study

#191

Post by nkrisc »

remarkEon wrote: post #174

Fascinating. Native English speaker, here. Can speak “emergency” Spanish and German, but that’s about it (asking for directions, ordering food, making limited small talk in a hideous accent I’ve been told, etc). Tried French for a while but stopped because it’s way too hard to learn without immersion. In a way it’s not really surprising to me that Germany is the country retaining English proficiency - English is a Ge…

I learned a little bit of Norwegian before traveling there. Sure most people we met spoke English but it did help when the trams in Oslo were being rerouted and I was able to read the sign at the otherwise empty tram stop telling us the stop was closed and where to go instead! Or read the Norwegian menu and order appetizers (in English), at which point the waitress realized we weren't Norwegian and gave us the English menus (I didn't realize most restaurants had English menus as well, good for us). I wouldn't have fared well with the main courses. I've found lay food terminology is one the least universal things.

My point is, however, that I found learning Norwegian easier than learning Spanish, which I was fluent in at one point, years ago. There weren't 14 tenses to learn like in Spanish, sentence structure felt more familiar and closer to English, and there were many more cognates than I expected. Sure there were some new things like putting articles before or appended to nouns to denote indefinite or definite. Or even the gendered articles (my favorite thing about English is nearly all nouns are neuter).

Re: France, Spain, and Italy’s English skills are on the decline: study

#192

Post by chinesempire »

Living in Italy, in Milan, I can try to outline the situation in Italy

Even admitting that the study is true, which I don't believe, there are factors at play

- most Italian English speakers have been moving to foreign countries for the past 20 years (between 100 thousands and 250 thousands a year)

- Italy, after Japan, is the oldest country in the World, many Italians have never met an English speaking person and the last one for many of them was soon after WW2

- English has never been important in Italy, unless you had to communicate with anglophones. German, French and Spanish are much more widespread either because they were studied at school, are easier for us to learn and we have the majority of exchanges with those countries (France is the main commercial partner, Germany is the second largest buyer of Italian products, including tourism)

- immigration brought here a lot of people coming from non-english backgrounds, in Milan the second most spoken language is now (probably) Chinese. It's easier to meet a Japanese on the streets than an American and a lot of workers in base services (transport, delivery, cleaning etc.) come from south america, northern Africa or East Europe

Speaking a very good English is almost irrelevant, the majority of the people an Italian needs to speak to speak a worse English than them, assuming they even speak English at all

it's not uncommon to meet a Tunisian transporter speaking with a Bosnian mason in a Chinese bar and they use Italian - their own version of it - as lingua franca

It's fascinating

Edit: forgot to mention that many Italians in the past migrated to Germany or Belgium, that's why they speak German or French, but not English.

Re: France, Spain, and Italy’s English skills are on the decline: study

#193

Post by taejo »

pgcj_poster wrote: post #156
acchow wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and english as spoken in Europe, for which many words are not known to native english speakers. Have some examples of these english words that native english speakers wouldn't know?

I once had someone ask me what the "preterite" of a certain verb was. I was able to guess what she meant, but I definitely did not know that word from my experience speaking English.

This is kind of a borderline case, since the term "preterite" is recognized by English grammarians as a synonym of "simple past tense", but to use it probably is an influence by e.g. German Präteritum or French prétérit (which seems to be used in teaching English even though the syntactically corresponding French verb form is called the "simple past").

Re: France, Spain, and Italy’s English skills are on the decline: study

#194

Post by Arete314159 »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #112
Arete314159 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an American or Brit has passable Spanish, but (of course) excellent English skills, would this help them in the Spanish job market? Assuming of course they could get an appropriate visa?

I suppose you mean in the tech job market? Sure, I think it would help and it would be easy for them to find jobs. Although an American or Brit would find the salaries here very low, and work hours (at least in most companies) too long. Many Spanish tech graduates do the reverse, migrating to the UK (or, to a lesser extent, the US) for better salaries and conditions. Although Brexit is making many of those who went t…

Thanks for your reply. I'm sorry to hear the hours are so long. My family is Spanish-American and whenever we try to accomplish anything bureaucratic from the US, it's impossible and takes forever, as I'm sure you know. I guess I hoped that the culture that makes things impossible to get done was because people were working shorter hours and had an easier work life?

Now I'm really confused. Or is it that bureaucratic Spain works short hours and other workers do long hours?

Re: France, Spain, and Italy’s English skills are on the decline: study

#195

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

somberi wrote: post #144
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #21

As a Spanish person, I can confirm that average English proficiency in Spain is poor in absolute terms. It has often been reported to be the country that speaks English worst in the EU, and it may very well be (although the French also deserve a honorable mention). But I find the claim that it has been declining since 2014 very difficult to believe, to say the least. English is studied in primary school, which wasn't…

I have visited Spain a few times over the last 20 years. I do not speak Spanish and I try to get by speaking English (these are few days at a time visit, and not long term stay). From this one man's experience, it is not that Spain has regressed in its proficiency with English, but I find that other southern European countries (particularly Portugal) has upped the ante - a LOT. To compare Paris (I understand it does…

I agree, it sounds plausible to me that Spain has fallen back in relative terms because neighboring countries have been more successful in improving their English. However, the linked article implies that English proficiency in Spain has declined in absolute terms, which is what I find difficult to believe.

Re: France, Spain, and Italy’s English skills are on the decline: study

#196

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

fyfy18 wrote: post #172
bobloblaw45 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny because as American kids are learning to read and ask what a word is we are told "sound it out". It usually works. But it definitely doesn't work the other way around, trying to spell a word by how it sounds. I had a Portuguese friend online once that spelled "awesome", "hawsom" and we had a good laugh because he felt embarrassed but we had to assure him it's still spelled wrong but still sounds right if y…

As a native English speaker I could understand dropping the "e", but where does the "h" come from?

I guess it could come from the same place as in "hour", "honor", "honest", etc. :)

Re: France, Spain, and Italy’s English skills are on the decline: study

#197

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

Arete314159 wrote: post #194
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you mean in the tech job market? Sure, I think it would help and it would be easy for them to find jobs. Although an American or Brit would find the salaries here very low, and work hours (at least in most companies) too long. Many Spanish tech graduates do the reverse, migrating to the UK (or, to a lesser extent, the US) for better salaries and conditions. Although Brexit is making many of those who went t…

Thanks for your reply. I'm sorry to hear the hours are so long. My family is Spanish-American and whenever we try to accomplish anything bureaucratic from the US, it's impossible and takes forever, as I'm sure you know. I guess I hoped that the culture that makes things impossible to get done was because people were working shorter hours and had an easier work life? Now I'm really confused. Or is it that bureaucratic…

The latter is quite close to reality, indeed. State and regional bureaucracy offices typically open only 5 hours, from 9 to 14 (their workers work some more, but typically no more than 7.5 hours in theory, and probably less in practice) which makes them really inconvenient as you typically have to split your workday to go. And in many of those they work very, um... relaxedly. With long coffee breaks, smoking breaks, random breaks... but it's something specific of these workers, the rest of Spain doesn't generally work like that.

Bureaucracy is actually the single thing I hate most about Spain. I'm a professor at a university and the sheer amount of bureaucracy is staggering, asphyxiating at times. In fact it's a relevant factor making me work longer than I should as too much time is spent dealing with that. In industry most people don't have to deal with much bureaucracy, though, unless they're company owners or self-employed.

In industry, people tend to work long hours: there is still a culture of presentialism with remote work being frowned upon in many companies, suboptimal traditional work timetables with a long lunch break make many people return home way too late, and the threat of unemployment (not so much in the tech sector) and the need for money in an economy with modest salaries and high housing prices makes workers accept lots of (paid or sometimes unpaid) overtime.

If you're seriously considering moving, maybe it's a matter of being selective (supposing you can search while holding your current job) and taking time to find a company with more modern ways, that doesn't value presentialism and overtime. There is a growing minority of companies like that. If you mention these things as priorities in interviews, companies that want workers in their posts until late in the evening will probably filter themselves out.

If you do score a good company that allows for work-life balance and provides a good salary for Spanish standards (even if it's low for American standards), quality of life in Spain is excellent. Good climate in most places, good public healthcare, amazing and relatively cheap food both in supermarkets and restaurants, good bars and nightlife, nice natural landscapes and hiking places (especially in the north), decent public transport (not stellar compared to e.g. Germany but much better than in America) and in most cities you can go outside at 3 am and feel safe walking in 90% of the city (100% in some). I have had offers to work in America for several times my salary here and haven't even considered them.

Re: France, Spain, and Italy’s English skills are on the decline: study

#198

Post by anoncake »

ricw wrote: post #93
narag wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is studied in primary school, which wasn't the case 20 years ago... That's tricky. Years ago primary extended from 1st to 8th grades (6 to 14 y.o. aprox.) so English, that started in 6th was primary. Now 6th to 8th have been moved to ESO. Anyway I just checked with my son and he started in Infantil , so it's really soon. The real issue is qualification. To really understand and speak English you need to learn…

This! The reason Germany has a high level of proficiency for a country that doesn’t translate media (movies, tv shows etc don’t act as language learning agent), it has a deep and well trained set of teachers. How? Famously the last German emperor insisted that every kid learn English in school. Over 100 years later and this has lead to well trained teachers, who can teach kids properly. I guess the take away is that…

Source? Although that sounds like something Willhelm II. would have done he couldn't make laws on his own and I think education was a state matter anyway.

At least it was according to the constitution but that doesn't mean much. Often laws that modified the 1871 and 1918 constitutions did not change its text but overrode its meaning. Imagine the US constitution but longer you get to hunt down the amendments yourself.

Re: France, Spain, and Italy’s English skills are on the decline: study

#200

Post by Shorel »

narag wrote: post #85
gpderetta wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our English is so bad that we make fun of our own ineptitude ourselves.

That also happens in Spain. A bad joke that requires a little work if you can't speak Spanish: - Advanced English School? - If if, between between.

It's so bad I sent it to all my friends.
Post reply on HN