What every European country is Worst at

exactly. of course, i won't be around to hear it.

 

I'll add a second issue. The opportunities to really learn a second language in the US are very rare. I know, I've tried. My In-Laws native languages were Hungarian and (Low) German. Yet every time I tried to engage them, their viewpoint was English was the language of the land, so we will speak English. Dang. Hungarian is a really intriguing language. You cannot learn a language unless you can spend extensive time with a native speaker. That is actually hard to come by in the US except for Spanish. That is about the only foreign language taught (formally, not effectively) in most schools.

 

In my experience, the greatest language-school of all, for any language, can be found at the bottom of several very large bottles of beer.

Except Arabic, maybe.

But honestly, drinking really was crucial to the development of my Mandarin.

Plattdeutsch is horrible: learning that would have been a struggle. It's more like Dutch than German. And Hungarian is apparently immensely complicated, and is part of this tiny language group, with Finnish and Estonian and Sami (and some say maybe Japanese and Mongolian). It's supposed to be very hard to learn as a foreigner.

But yes, the native speaker thing is crucial. The reason my Cantonese is not as good as my Mandarin, is that, in Hong Kong, my colleagues and friends, and government people, and even a lot of shopkeepers, spoke English, whereas in Taiwan and Mainland China, most of them didn't. So I wasn't forced to speak Cantonese every day in Hong Kong like I was forced to speak Mandarin everyday in Taiwan and Mainland China. It really does make a very big difference.

 

How about 'Worst' *
or ending a sentence with 'at' ?

*Oxford says it is a word, so I tentatively retract my first criticism

 

If one can't end a sentence with "at", how can an Ewok tell me what piece of the Empire's armoury his team has destroyed?

 

Considering how many times I have watched that movie I should know an answer.

 

Mind you, for clarity, it is clearly best not to end a sentence with a preposition in the case we're talking about (ha!). "Where's the AT-AT at?" would just confuse matters horribly.

 

Really? I'd have thought Spanish would be an ideal language to learn - for so many reasons.

I suppose having one large country with everything in it, there's really no reason for most people to travel elsewhere and thus learn another language. My second language skills are poor, but I always try to learn the basics of any country I travel to - works a treat. People are much more likely to help and/or smile if you at least attempt to speak their lingo.

 

My experience too, including Paris.

I also found that learning to read whatever alphabet used in the country I was visiting was extremely useful and was a connection to the local culture and history. I am only fluent in two languages but over the years I learned to read a handful.

 

I'm glad you mentioned this. I've studied French and Japanese only to find it allows me to form new concepts English-only can not handle. But I also grew up in Oklahoma where the American midwest, south, and cowboy west meet. This kept me from getting stuck in any one regional culture ... except Southern cooking. Sad to say, I've always lived where I have so little opportunity to practice language skills and they atrophy.

One language remains a mystery, Mongolian. I once spent an afternoon listing to their music and was enthralled. Sung, it was and remains, thanks to Internet radio, well worth listening.

Bob Wilson

 

True that!

French Canadians became much more English proficient when my high school French and Oklahoma accent cracked them up.

Bob Wilson

 

Grammar myths #1: is it wrong to end a sentence with a preposition? | OxfordWords blog

The short of it. Someone two centuries ago insisted on applying Latin rules to English.