Europeans Have a Tremendous Interest in Foreign Languages

Article by Gloria Walker

I’ve lived in Munich for the past five years, after having lived in the US and in Britain. An aspect of life in Germany which soon caught my attention was the widespread interest in foreign languages that exists here. Although German is still the most widely-utilised language, and one would have difficulties without a excellent information of it, most Germans speak English well. In truth, English is taught to school youngsters appropriate from the first class, and there are a wide number of programs for preschool young children. Most jobs also need a good information of English. On Google, the search term Englisch receives an average of five,000,000 searches each and every month from users in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.

Though the Englischkurs is the most commonly sought after, other languages have a considerable following which not only consists of well-known languages like French and Spanish, but also much less-commonly studied ones like Icelandic and even Urdu. Opportunities to find out new languages are plentiful. Twice a year, the local adult education center publishes a list of classes the size of a phone book. Along with the various music classes, cooking classes, sports, and the like, are a wide variety of language classes. A lady whom I know who teaches English at this school tells me that the classes for basic English are mostly visited by Eastern European immigrants who didn’t get the chance to learn English as schoolkids and who are eager to learn the language, as a information of English is so usually wanted by employers. At the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, there are also a large number of language courses offered. The class schedule lists courses in Tamil and Czech for students who are majoring in Asian Studies or in Slavic languages. For the major languages like French and even Swedish, special courses are provided for students who aren’t majoring in Romantic Languages or Scandinavian Studies, and these courses have a significant number of attendees. This helps to show the larger interest in languages here. In contrast, I do not feel that numerous students in the English-speaking world would take a foreign language course that wasn’t necessary in order to get the degree. The bookstores also have an extensive collection of supplies for learning languages, which also consists of exotic languages like Arabic and Thai. For the major languages, there is also an assortment of specialized dictionaries, such as English-German or German-French dictionaries for the terms used in biology, physics, and medicine.

This comparision reveals the fact that we could location more focus on languages in the English-speaking world. In order to get the Abitur, the German university entrance certificate, the student ought to have at least a good information of three languages, and in some circumstances, the student can speak four. In most English-speaking countries, it’s probable for a PhD to have little or no information of any foreign tongue. As a speaker of three languages, I feel that one is missing out if one only has a information of 1 language. A second language makes an additional world accessible to you. Even although English is widely spoken, with out understanding of a country’s language, 1 can’t read newspapers, realize radio and tv programs, and one’s surroundings in general. A second language makes that world easier to examine and to comprehend, and also, to see more of the advantages which that second world has to give.

About the Author

The author is a freelance writer and photographer.