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  1. #41
    Even if it is required Unless you use it regularly you will forget most of it anyways and thus waste the money invested in learning it
    "How you build your character is not a feature of a MMORPG, it is the feature. Everything else is secondary even the gameplay itself is secondary to building your character, its the kind of stuff you think about when you are at work or school and couldnt wait to go home to play WoW or Diablo 2. We have all done it." ~Into, 2016

  2. #42
    To get your "Abitur" (A levels, high school diploma) you even have to learn two foreign languages. If you leave after 10th grade one is enough.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ghostpanther View Post
    and I expect anyone visiting the US to speak the main one we do. English.
    Funny thing btw, German publishers make a distinction between English and American:


  3. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by matheney2k View Post
    It's only useless when you only care about yourself and want to be excluded from the rest of the world, such as Americans love to try. I also speak 3 languages (english, spanish, and arabic), but I can't read/write arabic.

    I am of the mindset that all children should learn a 2nd language, of their (or parent's) choice if possible, as only good can come from it it is far from being useless what a silly thing to say. If you want to talk about useless information we are on a gaming forum absorbing a metric shit ton of information about said games it can't get more useless than that, so with that argument out of the way, there are no down-sides to learning a new language.

    EDIT: Hell Spanish should almost be required in the US at this point anyway, and it's only going to get more prevalent in the coming years don't kid yourself.
    I mean...no?

    If your work is important enough its conducted in english at the moment. It might be mandarin in the future but for now any work of note is done in english with translations required when necessary.

    While we can argue on what is and isn't useful to learn I'm of the mind most mandatory education is redundant as is and specialization should happen earlier then it does now.

  4. #44
    It more or less already is, at least Swedish and English are near mandatory to pass in (to be able to continue your studies). A third language is also studied, but not required I believe (last I checked, which admittedly was about 15 years ago ).

    Studies show that knowing multiple languages increases your ability to learn in other subjects, so it's definitely something that should continue.
    "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." Paradox of tolerance

  5. #45
    Immortal Zelk's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Monster Hunter View Post
    Is Spanish even offered?

    My high school had French and German with optional latin.

    Don't know of any school that offered Spanish, its a bit useless compared to French or German here.
    Spanish is offered more than German in my experience. It's certainly the more useful considering how many people speak the two languages.

  6. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by Dezerte View Post
    It more or less already is, at least Swedish and English are near mandatory to pass in (to be able to continue your studies). A third language is also studied, but not required I believe (last I checked, which admittedly was about 15 years ago ).

    Studies show that knowing multiple languages increases your ability to learn in other subjects, so it's definitely something that should continue.
    Do the studies show that or do they simply filter out the slower kids to get better overall results. Careful with your confirmation bias

    I actually find the push for bilingualism or beyond a strange and arguably outdated goal to achieve.

    We move closer and closer to having a universal language and as communication becomes easier and easier I would argue it is a inevitability.

    The man who can speak English right now is more valued then a man who can speak six other tongues but not a word of English...

    I would much rather we aggressively force a singular language world wide then wasting time and energy preserving dead languages to squander the time of future generations.

    It looks like it will either be english or mandarin depending on who controls the world stage in the future.

  7. #47
    *shrugs*
    The person that can speak six languages but no English isn't likely to be as lost in the US as as the one that knows only English in a foreign country.
    The perspectives gained from knowing more languages should be priceless.

  8. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowferal View Post
    *shrugs*
    The person that can speak six languages but no English isn't likely to be as lost in the US as as the one that knows only English in a foreign country.
    The perspectives gained from knowing more languages should be priceless.
    Not really... there isn't many countries without areas that speak english and those lacking pay very well for even people only mildly versed in it to teaching.

  9. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by Krakan View Post
    I would much rather we aggressively force a singular language world wide then wasting time and energy preserving dead languages to squander the time of future generations.
    Yeah...those who push "English only" don't typically speak the language well to begin with...
    My take...is be smarter by learning more, not less.

  10. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowferal View Post
    Yeah...those who push "English only" don't typically speak the language well to begin with...
    My take...is be smarter by learning more, not less.
    I would argue it doesn't really matter and knowing the most valuable language is better then knowing many useless ones.

    That said I wont lie I never really enjoyed scholarly pursuits and always measured the fincial gain of them against the time it would take to complete them.

    If you want to learn a language as a hobby or a source of entertainment all the more power to you. I just don't see the benefit of making languages other then english mandatory as part of required education.

  11. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by CastletonSnob View Post
    Here's my hot take of the day: Students should be required to take foreign language classes in school to graduate. Knowing how to speak more than one language is a great skill that will make you more attractive to future employers. Studies show that foreign languages help critical thinking skills.
    Disagree.
    I'm german, i had to take english and french in school.
    While i wanted to learn english for obvious reasons i always hated french and it made my time in school miserable. I hated it for many years and only now, in my 40s, i can appreciate that french is a really beautiful and elegant language but i don't speak or understand much of it.
    So forcing me to take french had the opposite effect on me then what you are proposing.

  12. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by Krakan View Post
    Not really... there isn't many countries without areas that speak english and those lacking pay very well for even people only mildly versed in it to teaching.
    Considering the loss to music, art, theatre, literature, and just how to teach people to reason that'd be?
    That'd be probably the worst thing that can happen to humanity. We must always keep multiple languages alive, even if we get a truely universial lingua franca.
    Just look at the differences between German music from the 17th century and Italian music from the same time. Why is the music different? The languages work differently.

    If everyone spoke in the same way, that would be lost.
    - Lars

  13. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Krakan View Post
    I would much rather we aggressively force a singular language world wide then wasting time and energy preserving dead languages to squander the time of future generations.
    So, basically an active program of cultural genocide against languages you don't deem important.

    'Kay. It's interesting how it's always Anglophones calling for this nonsense. Also: "Multiculturalism has failed!" angrily types a person of European descent living in the Americas in a Germanic language using Roman characters on a device coded with Arabic numerals before leaving in a huff to go watch cartoons made in Japan.
    Last edited by Elegiac; 2020-10-19 at 10:24 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
    The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk and understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.

  14. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by Krakan View Post
    Do the studies show that or do they simply filter out the slower kids to get better overall results. Careful with your confirmation bias

    I actually find the push for bilingualism or beyond a strange and arguably outdated goal to achieve.

    We move closer and closer to having a universal language and as communication becomes easier and easier I would argue it is a inevitability.

    The man who can speak English right now is more valued then a man who can speak six other tongues but not a word of English...

    I would much rather we aggressively force a singular language world wide then wasting time and energy preserving dead languages to squander the time of future generations.

    It looks like it will either be english or mandarin depending on who controls the world stage in the future.
    No thanks, I enjoy being multilingual and languages often carry the character of the cultures that use it. That would be lost if we all spoke one language. Besides, English isn't, in my view, a very pleasant language to become the *only* language. I can understand it being the lingua franca of this age, like Spanish, Arabic, Latin, and Greek before it. But my language is so much more precise and expressive than English is.

  15. #55
    Way back in the 90s, in Texas of all places, it was required to take 3 years of a language. Now what was taught might not be the greatest.. because I most just learned junk grammer stuff that isn't so helpful and the fact it focused way to much on spelling the words right rather than carrying on a conversation but I did walk away with the basic understanding of the language. It boils down to practice though. You just don't get any of it here unless you go Spanish or in certain areas of the country French if you near eastern Canada and even then they both usually speak English well enough that it ends up defaulting over to that.

  16. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stelio Kontos View Post
    No thanks, I enjoy being multilingual and languages often carry the character of the cultures that use it. That would be lost if we all spoke one language. Besides, English isn't, in my view, a very pleasant language to become the *only* language. I can understand it being the lingua franca of this age, like Spanish, Arabic, Latin, and Greek before it. But my language is so much more precise and expressive than English is.
    Also a good question: Why should English be the default lingua franca when there are more native Spanish speakers and it gives better intelligibility with the other widespread Romance languages than English? (Hint: It's because calls for monolingualism are almost always based in ethnonationalism and in the case of people gung-ho about making English the sole language it's usually because they're white supremacists.)
    Quote Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
    The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk and understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.

  17. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elegiac View Post
    Also a good question: Why should English be the default lingua franca when there are more native Spanish speakers and it gives better intelligibility with the other widespread Romance languages than English? (Hint: It's because calls for monolingualism are almost always based in ethnonationalism and in the case of people gung-ho about making English the sole language it's usually because they're white supremacists.)
    And then in my opinion German is easier to learn than either and more to the point. (Yes, German grammar has all the rules ever, but they always make sense and follow through! Unlike English. I'm looking at you irregular verbs.)
    - Lars

  18. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by Muzjhath View Post
    And then in my opinion German is easier to learn than either and more to the point. (Yes, German grammar has all the rules ever, but they always make sense and follow through! Unlike English. I'm looking at you irregular verbs.)
    If we're going the "efficiency" route then we should be pushing for people to learn Korean, but we don't because language efficiency arguments are almost always based in sentiment rather than actual ease of acquisition and use, lol.

    The advent of increasingly more sophisticated translation tools (both software and translation schemes like Pinyin versus Wade-Giles) as well as much larger groups of translators (i.e. the internet) have made it the easiest time in human history to conduct business multilingually. If anything we have even less reason these days to push for monolingualism than in previous eras.

    Also: lol @ the people saying "maybe Mandarin" not understanding China doesn't need to translate any of its languages provided they use Han characters.
    Quote Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
    The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk and understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.

  19. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elegiac View Post
    If we're going the "efficiency" route then we should be pushing for people to learn Korean, but we don't because language efficiency arguments are almost always based in sentiment rather than actual ease of acquisition and use, lol.

    The advent of increasingly more sophisticated translation tools (both software and translation schemes like Pinyin versus Wade-Giles) as well as much larger groups of translators (i.e. the internet) have made it the easiest time in human history to conduct business multilingually. If anything we have even less reason these days to push for monolingualism than in previous eras.

    Also: lol @ the people saying "maybe Mandarin" not understanding China doesn't need to translate any of its languages provided they use Han characters.
    Oh, absolutely. I was just pointing out that "size of speaker base" isn't a good argument for any language. Since there are lots of arguments around it was just making an easy to learn argument.
    People knowing multiple languages from the start is far better. Even if you then end up in a situation where no one shares a language but have to communicate through tools that translate you'll get a better translation if you can use multiple language translations to compare and contrast, than just sitting with one.

    And on maybe Mandarin. A lot of what the CCP calls "Mandarin" any other system would call a language in that family. As they are about as a-like as French and Italian. But they are both Mandarin! Don't dare say anything else!!

    But mostly more languages = deeper and better culture, along with more empathetic reasoning. See my earlier post about music development.
    - Lars

  20. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by Zelk View Post
    Spanish is offered more than German in my experience. It's certainly the more useful considering how many people speak the two languages.
    Dunno im 30 so its been a while since I was in high school and every where was French and German around here (Lancashire)

    The idea being Spanish wasn't worth learning as 1. We don't have many Spanish speakers in the UK and
    2. Your far more likely to get work in germany or France than Spain.

    Number of speakers globally is relatively useless when the vast majority of those speakers live thousands of miles away and there next to non in your own nation. If that was the reason to learn it, better of teaching kids Chinese than Spanish.

    Tbh the languages to learn in the UK that would be of most use are Polish, Arabic and Russian. Certainly far more than Spanish. Its more use in America but here and the rest of Europe out side Spain Spanish is pretty rare.

    Hell there's a better argument for all people in the UK to learn Welsh than Spanish as there's more speakers of that than Spanish here.
    Last edited by Monster Hunter; 2020-10-19 at 11:21 AM.

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