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French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

independent.co.uk

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Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#51

Post by silicon2401 »

heinrichhartman wrote: post #19

The sane thing to do after the Brexit, was to embrace English as main language, since it has not become neutral ground! According to Wikipedia we have: * Germany: 56% English speakers, 14.5% French speakers * Italy: 34% English vs. 19.43% French * Spain: 22% English vs. 11.73% French * Sweden: 89% English vs. 8% French I can't get over how bad this decision is. How can you ignore these kinds of discrepancies? [1] htt…

Anecdotally I can confirm those stats for Sweden. Some of the things I was blown away by in Sweden are:

1) Everyone's beautiful 2) Everyone's super tall. I'm 184cm and saw multiple women every day that were taller than me, let alone men. In the US it's quite rare for me to see women taller than me. 3) Everyone's rather slim. It's nice to see a population at healthier weights than what I'm used to in the US 4) Not once did I find somebody who couldn't speak English, from workers at train stations to museums to airports. It was crazy. In contrast, Germans being about 50/50 matches up with my experience. Italy felt lower than 1/3 even in Venice, but I spent much less time there.

Sweden sure is amazing; can't wait to visit again.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#53

Post by galgot »

madia_leva wrote: post #13

Sometimes countries insist of fighting wars that have been over for a long time. This is one example. American attitude towards China rise is another example. Now more seriously, I think what the French are trying to do is just to avoid a complete switch to English in the EU institutions. Since the start of the pandemic, most meetings which used to be multilingual (with interpretation) are now English only and nobody…

I think from the French Gov it's just a way to express how fed up they are with UK Gov Brexit policy. They very well know that English is now the predominant language, Macron is in fact the first French president speaking English so well in public. Long gone is the "francophonie" policy of the 80's, the number of French peoples speaking English have increased considerably in the last 15/20 years. I see no "worries" about French being less used from the French officials, more a give up, which is kind of sad. So this move is very political.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#54

Post by d0mine »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #10

I'm currently reading a book about the Congress of Vienna and it's amazing that the Russian Tsar argued with the English ambassador in French. Here were all the rich and powerful men of Europe dividing up the continent and there wasn't a single translator needed.

Russian tsars are likely not even native Russian speakers. I listened to a recording recently -- the accent is obvious.

Same family https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/king-george-tsar-nicholas-1...

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#55

Post by ben_w »

throw737858 wrote: post #16

Why not arabic? French is kind of obsolete.

I’ve been trying to learn Arabic since 24 September last year. Notwithstanding that my effort so far has been merely one Duolingo lesson per day, I still can’t even manage the Arabic alphabet.

(Also: Obsolete? What?)

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#56

Post by mannerheim »

Apocryphon wrote: post #42
Tsiklon wrote: post #15

I’d have thought they would have kept English as it’s effectively a neutral language at that point - it would be convenient to avoid accusations of German or French dominance should either push for their’s in English’s place

Shame there's no real-world interest in the powers that be to officialize Esperanto.

What would be the point? Might as well make Klingon an official language.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#57

Post by lefstathiou »

heinrichhartman wrote: post #19

The sane thing to do after the Brexit, was to embrace English as main language, since it has not become neutral ground! According to Wikipedia we have: * Germany: 56% English speakers, 14.5% French speakers * Italy: 34% English vs. 19.43% French * Spain: 22% English vs. 11.73% French * Sweden: 89% English vs. 8% French I can't get over how bad this decision is. How can you ignore these kinds of discrepancies? [1] htt…

In the real time strategy world (eg Starcraft, Warcraft), this strategy is called “turtling”. Perceived as low risk… it’s a defensive move aimed at creating moats in hopes that you buy enough time to out tech your competition; it rarely results in a win against any real player (which the US, Germans, Russians and Chinese are) and wastes everybody’s time by creating unnecessary friction. Reason often prevails over the long term thankfully.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#58

Post by cheph »

dharmach wrote: post #48
heinrichhartman wrote: post #19

The sane thing to do after the Brexit, was to embrace English as main language, since it has not become neutral ground! According to Wikipedia we have: * Germany: 56% English speakers, 14.5% French speakers * Italy: 34% English vs. 19.43% French * Spain: 22% English vs. 11.73% French * Sweden: 89% English vs. 8% French I can't get over how bad this decision is. How can you ignore these kinds of discrepancies? [1] htt…

Everybody should use google because it's the most used search engine.

What is a category mistake?

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#60

Post by yorwba »

moomin wrote: post #24

This is a non-story. There are three working languages of the EU: English, French and German. Everyone in Brussels will roll their eyes, use French for six months and then revert to English because it’s the one most people speak. Would they have done this if Brexit hadn’t happened? Yes, they would. France has a chip on its shoulder about French being replaced as the world’s lingua franca, but stunts like this aren’t…

> Not even in Brussels.

Most people in Brussels already speak French... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francization_of_Brussels

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