Meet-Up! There we go! AGAIN! Tonight's Apéro time in Paris :-)

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Having gone in other country, it's true we French have a bad record when it comes to English...

Actually, it's my fault, because I never managed to learn French My English is decent, my German passable, my French non-existent. So, I don't like going to France...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Yes. The answer was "soon".
Don't really get us anywhere...

Having gone in other country, it's true we French have a bad record when it comes to English...

Not nearly as bad as we English-speakers have when it comes to speaking other languages. It's shocking how bad most of us are at speaking other languages.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Patricia

I can confirm that the answer was that the firmware update is coming "soon". Bookeen don't want to release it until they have ensured that any bugs are removed. They don't want to be tied to a date, but anticipate releasing the update in the very near future.

Thank you .

[Slite]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Not nearly as bad as we English-speakers have when it comes to speaking other languages. It's shocking how bad most of us are at speaking other languages.

Isn't that a consequence of you not needing to learn other languages? Most people do speak a passable english, so you can survive with english quite nicely.

As for us, well, we can possibly use Swedish in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and parts of Finlad, but apart from that... We need a second language, and English beeing the only one we are required to learn in school it's no choice really.

Even though I took both french and german in school, I couldn't speak german or french if my life dependent on it today. Apart from a few phrases that is

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Slite

Isn't that a consequence of you not needing to learn other languages? Most people do speak a passable english, so you can survive with english quite nicely.

I just think it wrong (and rather rude) to visit another country and expect the people there to speak your language. It's a form of "cultural imperialism", to my mind.

Online forums such as this are rather different, in that it's helpful to use a common language, and, like it or not, English is the most wide-spread one.

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by Slite

Isn't that a consequence of you not needing to learn other languages? Most people do speak a passable english, so you can survive with english quite nicely.

As for us, well, we can possibly use Swedish in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and parts of Finlad, but apart from that... We need a second language, and English beeing the only one we are required to learn in school it's no choice really.

Even though I took both french and german in school, I couldn't speak german or french if my life dependent on it today. Apart from a few phrases that is

I truly wish our schools required students to learn another language and would start that process in elementary school. Of course, the biggest problem with that is choosing one language when there are so many from which to choose. Many high schools require at least one year of a language, but that is completely useless since it's hardly an immersion course. Both my older children took 4 semesters of Spanish in High School and Shannon took 4 semesters of Spanish in college as well. She can read and understand it, but she still has trouble with speaking the language, probably because she rarely has an opportunity to practice it.

Back on topic: Yeah, Paris meet-up!!!

[Sparrow]

I admire and envy polyglots; but the education system in the UK doesn't do language learning very well imho.

They were undoubtedly the most tedious lessons of my school career; and I can only recall one student out of my entire year who did reasonably well at French and German.
I think ghastly school experiences put most people off learning a foreign language for the rest of their lives.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I admire and envy polyglots; but the education system in the UK doesn't do language learning very well imho.

They were undoubtedly the most tedious lessons of my school career; and I can only recall one student out of my entire year who did reasonably well at French and German.
I think ghastly school experiences put most people off learning a foreign language for the rest of their lives.

i completely agree, a good teacher makes all the difference, and the biggest problem with language classes in schools is that most often you concentrate on grammar and vocabulary but very little on actually speaking and understanding it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I admire and envy polyglots; but the education system in the UK doesn't do language learning very well imho.

They were undoubtedly the most tedious lessons of my school career; and I can only recall one student out of my entire year who did reasonably well at French and German.
I think ghastly school experiences put most people off learning a foreign language for the rest of their lives.

Modern "adult education" languages classes are completely different to the way that languages were taught in British schools 30 years ago, thankfully! These days, language learning is all learning through speaking, not "rote learning" of grammar. I'd encourage anyone to "have a go".

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i completely agree, a good teacher makes all the difference, and the biggest problem with language classes in schools is that most often you concentrate on grammar and vocabulary but very little on actually speaking and understanding it.

That's probably why I never learned French (while my German was, well, not good, but at least better). I never liked my French teacher! I rather disliked her with a passion, as a matter of fact

But I agree with Harry, I don't like visiting a country where I hardly speak the language. We do go to Hungary, but that's because my mother lives there.

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i completely agree, a good teacher makes all the difference, and the biggest problem with language classes in schools is that most often you concentrate on grammar and vocabulary but very little on actually speaking and understanding it.

Being a teacher who has taught English or Language Arts as we now call it, I can admit that we do the same thing with our own language. When Shannon was much younger, she told me that her band was going to play a concert at the Ep-i-sco-pal church. I had to think about it for a minute and realized that she meant the Episcopal church. She started reading at a very young age and tended to sound new words out phonetically. Zack did the same thing only with a twist. He was convinced the word pint (pronounced with a long i sound) should be pronounced with a short i and refused to pronounce it correctly. Thankfully, at 21, he has now conceded the point, but I was very concerned there for awhile.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kazbates

Being a teacher who has taught English or Language Arts as we now call it, I can admit that we do the same thing with our own language.

My experience of guiding other people in the study of foreign languages has been, in recent years, that one of the major hurdles that many people have to overcome in learning a foreign language is that they've never been "formally" taught their own language. If you're not equipped with the "vocabulary" to talk about your own language ("verb", "noun", etc), and you don't understand how it "works" from a grammatical perspective, then it's difficult to discuss any other language.

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by HarryT

My experience of guiding other people in the study of foreign languages has been, in recent years, that one of the major hurdles that many people have to overcome in learning a foreign language is that they've never been "formally" taught their own language. If you're not equipped with the "vocabulary" to talk about your own language ("verb", "noun", etc), and you don't understand how it "works" from a grammatical perspective, then it's difficult to discuss any other language.

Yes. And one of the major advantages of learning a bit of Latin is that it gives you a head-start on the grammar and vocabulary of the later romance languages.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Yes. And one of the major advantages of learning a bit of Latin is that it gives you a head-start on the grammar and vocabulary of the later romance languages.

definitely. i only took one year of latin, and i had the worst teacher ever (she actually made me understand *less* than before her explanations, and she confused me so much i had to redo every lesson at home by myself to understand what we were studying) but i got a lot of insight into both french *and* english thanks to that.

[Slite]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Yes. And one of the major advantages of learning a bit of Latin is that it gives you a head-start on the grammar and vocabulary of the later romance languages.

Pffft... grammar, as you can plainly see from all my posts around here. Grammar isn't my strong point!

I have something in my brain that goes completly blank whenever the word grammar rear it's ugly head!