In reality, how useful are German, French etc

General General

haro124 wrote: »

Do Chinese they said , be grand they said....

The smart, ballsy guys are out there learning Chinese, they said...

1ZRed

doovdela wrote: »

I thought that was a line from moulin rouge or the song beyonce or christina augerllara sang wrong spelling or was it group sang independent women charlies angels iv forgotten!

No, I don't know what you're talking about there >_>

haro124

General General wrote: »

The smart, ballsy guys are out there learning Chinese, they said...

Oh well at least chinas always an option ! Maybe they'll bring it into schools too which wouldn't be too bad !

1ZRed

General General wrote: »

Malheureusement, je suis pressé... mon grand-père, d'autre part...

Qui dépend, votre grand-père chaud?

Je plaisante évidemment... il n'a pas besoin d'être

vamos!

Seannew1 wrote: »

German is an extremely useful language, not only is it the most spoken 1st language in Europe, it's an economic language as such...........Vorsprung durch Technik!

Now if only the schools, Government and parents would cop on to this German numbers at Leaving Cert may not be falling as they are now. Spanish appears to be taking over in lots of schools as it perceived as'easy' and German is being dropped. Such a short-sighted pity.

General General

vamos! wrote: »

Now if only the schools, Government and parents would cop on to this German numbers at Leaving Cert may not be falling as they are now. Spanish appears to be taking over in lots of schools as it perceived as'easy' and German is being dropped. Such a short-sighted pity.

Spanish is the language of the future for a lot of Irish kids... sure they'll all be playing for Madrid or Barca.. even if only for a couple of years of their career.

Seannew1

vamos! wrote: »

Now if only the schools, Government and parents would cop on to this German numbers at Leaving Cert may not be falling as they are now. Spanish appears to be taking over in lots of schools as it perceived as'easy' and German is being dropped. Such a short-sighted pity.

It's crazy,in my year in school, 9 out of 10 people did French,only reason why French is so popular is because of the nuns years ago teaching it because of its Christian connotations and the fact it "sounds nice as a language" or "nice on the ears" as such. Some fella wrote an article recently saying how he thought compulsory German should be implemented from primary school level, when I was reading it,it actually got me thinking that it's a pretty good idea.

1ZRed

Why compulsory German, though? It sounds horrible in comparison to French, I've no interest in the country and the culture doesn't stand a candle to France's, all in my opinion of course. I think German is such an overrated language in terms of how 'vital' it is, or will be in future. We've heard that said about mandarin too.

Seannew1

1ZRed wrote: »

Why compulsory German, though? It sounds horrible in comparison to French, I've no interest in the country and the culture doesn't stand a candle to France's, all in my opinion of course. I think German is such an overrated language in terms of how 'vital' it is, or will be in future. We've heard that said about mandarin too.

It's the most spoken language by native speakers in Europe, 120 million, as you might have realized their economy is doing rather well as opposed to ours at the minute, jobs are very plentiful in the country with only a 3% unemployment rate in cities such as Munich, very cheap 3rd level and masters courses. Do you need any more reasons why more people should learn German?

1ZRed

Seannew1 wrote: »

It's the most spoken language by native speakers in Europe, 120 million, as you might have realized their economy is doing rather well as opposed to ours at the minute, jobs are very plentiful in the country with only a 3% unemployment rate in cities such as Munich, very cheap 3rd level and masters courses. Do you need any more reasons why more people should learn German?

Those are all great incentives to learn the language but I'd still be very against making it compulsory. I have no interest in learning German or even living working there. I'd only despise the language if I was forced to learn it because I have no interest in utilising it. I think a choice of one major European language to be compulsory would be best.

Give options, options are what's best.

Seannew1

1ZRed wrote: »

Those are all great incentives to learn the language but I'd still be very against making it compulsory. I have no interest in learning German or even living working there. I'd only despise the language if I was forced to learn it because I have no interest in utilising it. I think a choice of one major European language to be compulsory would be best.

Give options, options are what's best.

Well that's your choice, and I'm sure there's more people who share the same opinion as you and that's fair enough. There'll always be one against the crowd. In terms of making it compulsory, it's a big step of course and in all probability will never happen but exploring the option would be worth thinking about. Think about all the ridiculous subjects you take in primary school these days, nature studies, religion, arts and crafts etc, all nonsense. Would harm could it do to even expose students to a very useful language which WILL give them better employment opportunities in the future?

1ZRed

Seannew1 wrote: »

Well that's your choice, and I'm sure there's more people who share the same opinion as you and that's fair enough. There'll always be one against the crowd. In terms of making it compulsory, it's a big step of course and in all probability will never happen but exploring the option would be worth thinking about. Think about all the ridiculous subjects you take in primary school these days, nature studies, religion, arts and crafts etc, all nonsense. Would harm could it do to even expose students to a very useful language which WILL give them better employment opportunities in the future?

To be honest German wouldn't give you the diversity of travel and work that Spanish or French would which would be spoken more dispersedly around the world. Making German compulsory would be gearing students up to a very European-centric niche. That's all fine and good, but I don't see why German should be favoured just because they're doing well economically right now. That's not a guarantee in future that things will be so great there, and if not, your main market is gone, whereas if you knew Spanish or French you wouldn't just be reliant on Europe. Some emerging economies in Africa do speak French and others Spanish across the globe.

I would be in favour of bringing in a more practical language in primary school, it's only beneficial, but I'd give a choice, I wouldn't just make German compulsory alone. Let them decide on their own what language best suits their needs and interests in secondary school. But give them a good, well-rounded base so they can make a better decision between which languages they want to learn or disregard.

playedalive

1ZRed wrote: »

To be honest German wouldn't give you the diversity of travel and work that Spanish or French would which would be spoken more dispersedly around the world. Making German compulsory would be gearing students up to a very European-centric niche. That's all fine and good, but I don't see why German should be favoured just because they're doing well economically right now. That's not a guarantee in future that things will be so great there, and if not, your main market is gone, whereas if you knew Spanish or French you wouldn't just be reliant on Europe. Some emerging economies in Africa do speak French and others Spanish across the globe.

I would be in favour of bringing in a more practical language in primary school, it's only beneficial, but I'd give a choice, I wouldn't just make German compulsory alone. Let them decide on their own what language best suits their needs and interests in secondary school. But give them a good, well-rounded base so they can make a better decision between which languages they want to learn or disregard.

There was a Primary School Foreign Language Initiative years back during the Celtic Tiger. Because of that, my primary school offered Spanish and it has stayed me until my Spanish degree. Sadly, it would be very difficult to bring back such an initiative.

Ideally, you should only study a language because you like it, not because it's the mother tongue of a strong economy.

Yellow121

Festy wrote: »

Both are a lot more useful than bloody Irish

I'm shocked it took till post 10 to get this predictable and sad comment.

Iwasfrozen

Yellow121 wrote: »

I'm shocked it took till post 10 to get this predictable and sad comment.

Why is it sad?

Yellow121

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Why is it sad?

Because it makes me cry.

Iwasfrozen

Yellow121 wrote: »

Because it makes me cry.

Sad things don't always make you cry and you don't always cry because something is sad.

Vincent Vega

I studied French for six years in school, and never found myself getting much out of it. I can barely remember more than the basics now, and it's never been put to much use unfortunately.

However, I became pretty alright in Italian through living there for little over a year. In somewhere between the space of 8mths to a year, just through living there and soaking it in, i found myself able to communicate and understand to a pretty fluent level.

What I'm trying to say is, it's only as useful as you make it to your life. As I was in a small town it became essential to getting by.
I'm glad I made the extra effort to see it through.
It made me connect with some great people that haven't been able to progress their English past a few basic phrases.

tl;dr: Worth it for the sharing of culture.

maninasia

keith16 wrote: »

`

Not sure what your point is?



Not saying that at all, it's as useful as learning any other language. However, there seems to be some sort of herd thinking at play where everyone says, "oh yeah, Chinese, language, yeah, new superpower, we all have to learn Chinese", in the same way people in Ireland were saying just a few years ago: "oh yeah, house, buy buy, property ladder, trade up, economy".

There's no real substance to it. There are no high quality jobs in Europe that require Chinese. Plus, a billion people already speak it.

If you want to sell something to somebody should you speak your own language or their language? What happens with the people the billion or so who DON'T speak English properly.

What's better?

1ZRed

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Sad things don't always make you cry and you don't always cry because something is sad.

Don't listen to him, he wanted to send the tapir to jail for mauling the child.

He doesn't know what he's at :P

maninasia

1ZRed wrote: »

To be honest German wouldn't give you the diversity of travel and work that Spanish or French would which would be spoken more dispersedly around the world. Making German compulsory would be gearing students up to a very European-centric niche. That's all fine and good, but I don't see why German should be favoured just because they're doing well economically right now. That's not a guarantee in future that things will be so great there, and if not, your main market is gone, whereas if you knew Spanish or French you wouldn't just be reliant on Europe. Some emerging economies in Africa do speak French and others Spanish across the globe.

I would be in favour of bringing in a more practical language in primary school, it's only beneficial, but I'd give a choice, I wouldn't just make German compulsory alone. Let them decide on their own what language best suits their needs and interests in secondary school. But give them a good, well-rounded base so they can make a better decision between which languages they want to learn or disregard.

These are good points, IMHO these languages are useful in terms of global communication, you can use them across multiple countries and among their large ethnic groups. For instance many tourist areas in Asia now employ Mandarin Chinese speakers, it is coming up quickly on English. Due to the huge growth in Chinese tourists, speaking Mandarin is also a very marketable skill in Europe or other areas, this is not exaggerated.

-English (the Anglo world and Worldwide_
-French (France and Francophone countries in Africa and Asia, some Arab areas)
-Spanish (Spain, South America, Central America, US)
-Russian (Russia, Slavic States
-Mandarin Chinese (China, SE Asia)
-Arabic (Middle East and North Africa)
-Urdu (Pakistan/Subcontinent)
-Hindi (India..although English is also used by many educated folks, Hindi is often used as the vernacular among different groups)



These are the biggies. Then you've got Japanese which is VERY useful to have if doing business with Japanese, and the same to a lesser extent with Korean (simply because Koreans tend to speak English better). Portuguese for Brazil and some African countries. Germany for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

maninasia

Ravelleman wrote: »

Learning a language is a great experience but I'd have my doubts about the utility of learning Chinese. Given that it takes Chinese people roughly 16 years to master the written element of the language (that's according to a Ted talk I watched recently), I'm not sure how a non-native speaker could a level serious enough with which to conduct business or whatever. Of course, part of the process of language learning is understanding cultural differences, so the utility of that can't be discounted.

Unfortunately, the fact is that the level of language attained by people in secondary schools in Ireland isn't very high in the grand scheme of things. If you study languages in university you quickly become aware of the complexities that the average leaving cert student doesn't even have to think about. That being said, a lot of people leave university with language degrees despite having a terrible level in said language so it's all relative.

Regardless of whether or not Irish takes up too much time in schools, Ireland probably doesn't have the language infrastructure available to teach foreign languages in primary schools in the same way that Irish is taught. It takes a lot of teachers and a lot of resources that require years to build up.

Chinese is actually VERY straightforward and logical in terms of grammar, the pronunciation can be a bit tricky, but still not too difficult to be understood. It's incredibly useful to be able to speak Chinese for business in China, because you can conduct the discussions yourself and make a closer connection to your customers. You can also learn a lot more about the culture obviously. Tourism is one of the biggest industries in the world, ergo facto there are opportunities to use Chinese and benefit from it.

In terms of relevance to Europeans, Chinese speaking tourists are the number one growing tourist base in the world. So if you operate a hotel, restaurant or travel service, this is definitely a big help. Some younger Chinese speak English okay, but most older Chinese have never learned any English.

Reading and writing Chinese is a massive challenge, not to be confused with speaking and understanding the language.

The main thing for any language is to have the OPPORTUNITY and the NECESSITY to use it in a natural setting, usually achieved by living and working in the country that speaks it as a native language. It's a completely different experience than learning from a book, but a bit of 'book learning' is useful to get a base to work off first.

starlit

I think unless you good at foreign languages have a passion for chosen language and use for travel and work purposes be beneficial if learning for sake of doing it or add to cv is it worth doing it? Make you distinctive from others for interviews but what else be useful about it unless you fluent?

Lia_lia

The amount of jobs I see these days that require a second language (usually French or German) is crazy!

I was fluent in French as a child, became fluent within a few weeks of living there! But I was 3. I can understand French perfectly, but my spoken/written French isn't up to scratch. Usually when I go back there it all comes back, though..

Kinda wish I did German or Spanish for the Leaving Cert.

starlit

Ya it's annoying when I can't apply to those jobs cause they are jobs I could do most of except for language issue I didn't study one at college wasn't great at them and didn't think I need it had no plans to travel or leave country that was then this is now...only have leaving cert French albeit very basic!! Fluent not really. Would love to refresh the French and do Italian again italian junior cert level and learn Spanish?

playedalive

doovdela wrote: »

I think unless you good at foreign languages have a passion for chosen language and use for travel and work purposes be beneficial if learning for sake of doing it or add to cv is it worth doing it? Make you distinctive from others for interviews but what else be useful about it unless you fluent?

To be honest, being fluent in a language is a rather 'vague' term imo. I think as long as you can get your point across as accurately as possible with the language you have is important. Of course, being able to use the language to a very high level is impressive with a good pronunciation to boot. But, even being a competent intermediate user is impressive.

Of course, people say that you should learn a language because you like the culture. In reality, a lot of foreign nationals learn English because it's beneficial for their careers without any particular affection for the language/culture. To a point, I can understand why they would learn just for professional purposes. But, if you don't like English speaking culture, language learning would be mostly a chore and one that could quickly make you resentful of learning that language.

TL;DR: If you're going to learn a language, of course think about the professional and personal benefits. But an affection for the language will truly make you progress effortlessly.

starlit

Thanks. I suppose if you can converse have comprehension unerstanding and write in the language its a help.

As is my irish my french be very basic but to have a fluent conversation be tricky. Learnt german and italian in school but frech was only foreign language i learnt for more than a year.