I have yet again just managed to un-glue myself from the latest episode of “Junior Apprentice”, and what an episode it was!!!
Leaving last week’s cheese-selling task behind them, and again splitting into two teams, girls v. Boys, Lord Sugar now set them the next mountain to climb: come up with, design and successfully pitch a piece of original camping equipment to three different retailers, and the team with the most orders at the end of the day wins. Simple. Well, not quite...
To start with Lord Sugar threw an immediate cat amongst the pigeons, for no sooner had the girls and boys split into two teams and chosen their leaders in Hannah and, Adam respectively did Lord S promptly switch each team’s project manager. Thus, the girls Emma, Zoe, Hibah and Kirsty were led by the cheerful Cockney Adam, whilst the boys Arjun, Rhys and Tim were led by the not-thus-far-seen-much-of Hannah.
I was apprehensive at first of Hannah as a team leader, and thought she would fall at the first hurdle, but she proved quite adept – she took control, managed her team well and acted decisively, even if it was the over-enthusiastic-having-survived-last-week’s-firing-by-the-skin-of-his-teeth Tim who came up with the majority of the ideas. After a lot of suggesting, they settled on sledge-trolley hybrid, a piece of camping equipment designed to ease the hauling of your other camping equipment from car to tent, particularly useful, as Tim was keen to point out, at muddy-terrain festivals such as Glastonbury.
The biggest shock of the evening was in Adam, who I from last week I had sketched out in my mind as a strong and focussed if cheerful leader, but (perhaps understandably), when confronted with leading a team-full of the most carnivorous girls in young enterprise seemed to shrink away from being a strong and confident cheeky chappy to a flustering, stuttering headless chicken.
It was obvious from the start he was fresh meat for these girls, and they didn’t waste any time in sinking their teeth in. Whilst he enthusiastically waved his arms about trying to generate ideas, he was met with steady and cool female eyes who were casually making up their mind just how to tear him to pieces. Poor Adam was left trying to generate enthusiasm while they started by flippantly throwing criticism his way, accusing him of relying too heavily on them and blatantly openly showing their disrespect for him even through their body language of scowls and sneers (although later on, this turned out not to be true of Emma, who emerged as Adam’s ally). No sooner had Adam split Hebah and Zoe off to conduct market research than it emerged that these two girls were the most flesh-hungry, and, instead of supporting their project manager, began sniping away in the back of their chauffeured car. It was ironic that these two girls of all people should have allied themselves as bitching buddies, because only last week Zoe had caused Hebah, then project manager, to sob in the marketplace by overruling her whilst doing a sale. At the actual focus group itself the girls wasted no time in pushing Hebah’s idea of a collapsible family board game onto the “researchees”, and having rigged themselves a convenient unanimous opinion in favour of it, phoned their team leader for “feedback”. The girls turned their wrath onto their team leader, with Zoe declaring condescendingly that “we have had 100% feedback on this idea, and if anything goes wrong it will be your head on the block”. “And”, added Hebah supportively, “you need to make a decision about this, Adam. You’re the team leader!”.
With such playground bullying going on, I felt sorry for poor Adam who only went redder and redder and got more and more flustered. “Erm ... I don’t know if it’s original!!” he stammered. Clearly, this was an example of a genuinely decent guy trying hard not to be completely steamrolled by two girls who were not treating him with the respect that he deserved as their team leader. It was eventually left to Emma to take charge of a phone call to make the final decision of the product and swiftly tell the two cats that there was no time for this sort of thing. Good on her!
In order to try and appease everyone and to not rock the – already rolling – team boat, Adam eventually also chose a hybrid, although of a slightly rarer breed: a reinforced-cardboard-storage-device-with-built-in-tabletop-board-game facility. You couldn’t fault his enthusiasm – he genuinely believed this product would work and was positive to the bitter end - but Hebah and Zoe proved right on this one - in that it was an utter shambles. Even though Adam wisely delegated the pitch to the silver-and-acid-tongued Zoe, who did a marvellous job of promoting a pile of cardboard to some of the biggest retailers in the land, the seasoned commercial buyers were having none of it and in the boardroom it was revealed that not one of them bought a single one. In contrast, Hannah’s team successfully managed to flog over 3,000 of their sledge-trolleys, leaving her team with grins as wide as a Cheshire cat’s.
Then the knives really came out as each member of Adam’s team fought for survival from the firing finger of Lord Sugar. Inevitably, these metaphorical knives were pointed at Adam. “You were weak at the beginning of the task and I expressed that to you, and you didn’t delegate properly on the first day” declared Zoe, nicely covering her own back whilst thrusting her proverbial knife into Adam’s. “And he wasn’t as quick on the decisions as he should have been” added Hebah quickly. “I think he was trying to focus on being a team and looked for reassurance a lot”, chipped in Kirsty, as poor Adam found himself floundering again, trying desperately to defend himself as his team turned even more against him, except for Emma, who blamed the product rather than Adam, which made her a another sitting duck for the other three to heap their blame on. Amidst torrents of “it was such a poor product that Emma came up with, Lord Sugar” and “Adam wasn’t a good team leader, Lord Sugar”, Adam desperately tried to fight his corner. Sly Zoe, however, at the very last moment before Adam was due to announce which two he was bringing back into the board room, suddenly changed tone and was lyrical with praise for her project manager in order to try and save her own skin.“I think it’s so easy to blame the project manager straight away” she gushed, “I don’t think he was that bad, he was very passionate about the product”.
This wasn’t enough, and quite rightly so, for Adam did indeed bring the two felines Zoe and Hebah back with him and into the firing line, at which point it began to look like curtains for him. Flanked by the self-assured girls smirking to themselves, he plunged into overdrive about how passionate he was about business – “I’ve even got the blisters to prove it!” he said, hands spread upwards. It looked as though he was crashing and burning, and it would be only moments before he would be heading for the car home, until Hebah signed her own Apprentice death warrant - “I don’t own a business or make profit, I’m not into all that” she professed, whereupon she might as well have said “I don’t want to work with you, Lord Sugar, because I really can’t be bothered”. She was promptly, albeit regrettably, fired.
Back on their drive home, Zoe couldn’t resist another dig at Adam. “I think Lord Sugar empathises with you and sees himself in you” she said, as she held her nose in the air. This is probably true, but she was likely sour at the fact Lord S doesn’t see himself in her!
To be fair to Zoe and Hebah, they were right about the product, and the games table Hebah had come up with would have trumped up with more sales (“as 0-0-0 isn’t hard to beat”, said Lord Sugar). But the girls had such contempt for Adam from the start that I doubt even the most talented project manager would have been able to control them. I am glad Adam stayed. In this task he lost his head as team leader, but he is so likeable and has such a successful business elsewhere that can’t be him all of the time. Besides, a workman is only as good as his tools, as the saying goes, and Adam definitely had a few malignant spanners in the works.
Wednesday 19 May 2010
Tuesday 11 May 2010
This hung parliament ....
If you live in the UK, you’d literally have to have hidden away from the world in an underground bunker not to know the political rumpus that’s been going on. On 6th May the electorate spoke... and instead of telling parliament who they wanted to run the country, told them instead who they did not want.
The media frenzy that has ensued since has been enough to drive everyone to madness. Not only that, but with just about everybody digging their claws into everyone else at every opportunity, the past week hasn’t exactly been full of optimism.
I myself am quite divided on the matter. The Tories are crowing that they won more seats than any other party, which whilst true, was promptly countered by Labour quoting that a clear majority had decided they did not want a Tory government. So with no-one holding a clear majority, the parties battle it out behind closed doors to try and forge a deal. As I am writing this, it would seem a Con-Lib coalition is the favourite, albeit through gritted teeth for both parties, who are as much like each other as chalk and cheese.
The person I feel really sorry for, however, is Nick Clegg. Caught in the middle of no-man’s land, he would have been damned whichever way he turned. Swiftly gunned down by the electorate and winning just 55 seats for his party the Liberal Democrats (incidentally taking only 9% of parliamentary seats despite having 23% of the vote). Mr Clegg has immediately come under fire from non-Tories for turning to the Tories first, because in his own words, they won more than any other party. Such action, some claim, has led him to act against the principles of his party. But if he had turned to Labour first, he would have been branded as trying to mastermind a “coalition of losers”. And because he has said he would consider more than one option, he is being branded “two-faced” by much of the media.
It seems he lost the election in real terms and actual terms. If he forms a coalition with the Tories it will only be a matter of time before Cameron uses him to make a majority and then quickly spit him out before another general election is hastily called, which Cameron would probably win, citing Labour and LibDem’s incompetence as the root of all evil of this world. If he forms a coalition with Labour, he will be accused of trying to usurp the “true winner”, the Conservatives, despite the fact that the majority of the electorate voted against them, and of course he will be accused of collaborating with Labour, who according to some at the moment have the blood of an economic crisis on their hands. If Clegg does not form a coalition at all, he will have missed his chance to be in government at all, and it’s back to Square One for him.
The real winner in all this is David Cameron. His party won more than any other (which sounds good no matter what spin you put on it), and he has not had thirteen years of governing in which there was a war and an economic recession. With Gordon Brown hated as a “national traitor” and Clegg dismissed as a minority party New Kid on the Block, the shiny-as-a-new-penny Etonian comes out smelling of roses. He has nothing behind him that we could accuse him of, simply because he has no past as Prime Minister. In short, Mr Cameron has a clean slate, and represents a fresh start, which especially after this mess of an election, is what the whole country will breathe a sigh of relief at.
The media frenzy that has ensued since has been enough to drive everyone to madness. Not only that, but with just about everybody digging their claws into everyone else at every opportunity, the past week hasn’t exactly been full of optimism.
I myself am quite divided on the matter. The Tories are crowing that they won more seats than any other party, which whilst true, was promptly countered by Labour quoting that a clear majority had decided they did not want a Tory government. So with no-one holding a clear majority, the parties battle it out behind closed doors to try and forge a deal. As I am writing this, it would seem a Con-Lib coalition is the favourite, albeit through gritted teeth for both parties, who are as much like each other as chalk and cheese.
The person I feel really sorry for, however, is Nick Clegg. Caught in the middle of no-man’s land, he would have been damned whichever way he turned. Swiftly gunned down by the electorate and winning just 55 seats for his party the Liberal Democrats (incidentally taking only 9% of parliamentary seats despite having 23% of the vote). Mr Clegg has immediately come under fire from non-Tories for turning to the Tories first, because in his own words, they won more than any other party. Such action, some claim, has led him to act against the principles of his party. But if he had turned to Labour first, he would have been branded as trying to mastermind a “coalition of losers”. And because he has said he would consider more than one option, he is being branded “two-faced” by much of the media.
It seems he lost the election in real terms and actual terms. If he forms a coalition with the Tories it will only be a matter of time before Cameron uses him to make a majority and then quickly spit him out before another general election is hastily called, which Cameron would probably win, citing Labour and LibDem’s incompetence as the root of all evil of this world. If he forms a coalition with Labour, he will be accused of trying to usurp the “true winner”, the Conservatives, despite the fact that the majority of the electorate voted against them, and of course he will be accused of collaborating with Labour, who according to some at the moment have the blood of an economic crisis on their hands. If Clegg does not form a coalition at all, he will have missed his chance to be in government at all, and it’s back to Square One for him.
The real winner in all this is David Cameron. His party won more than any other (which sounds good no matter what spin you put on it), and he has not had thirteen years of governing in which there was a war and an economic recession. With Gordon Brown hated as a “national traitor” and Clegg dismissed as a minority party New Kid on the Block, the shiny-as-a-new-penny Etonian comes out smelling of roses. He has nothing behind him that we could accuse him of, simply because he has no past as Prime Minister. In short, Mr Cameron has a clean slate, and represents a fresh start, which especially after this mess of an election, is what the whole country will breathe a sigh of relief at.
Monday 10 May 2010
Language learning in the United Kingdom ...
Whenever I go into my local city of Manchester, amid the sights and sounds and smells, I often pass by an enormous billboard decked out in the red and yellow of the Spanish flag, carrying a huge advertisement for the Instituto Cervantes, the official if you will Spanish language and cultural centre in Manchester.
We are fortunate to have such a centre in our city – there are only a handful of others in the UK, namely only in London and Leeds. The centre is funded and supported by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and employs an entirely native Spanish speaking staff. The building itself is located in the city centre, no more than 10 minutes away from the main square. As you go in, the place is divided up into three levels: the ground floor housing the reception team and a large and extensive Spanish-language library, the main – first – floor housing mostly classrooms, but also with more administrative offices, and a couple of large audience halls for cultural events, such as film showings, food tastings, and regular lectures on all aspects of Hispanic culture from cinema, history, literature ... the list goes on. The centre offers regular courses of Spanish made up of twice-weekly 2 hour classes, and ranges from the beginner level to proficiency.
I am all for language learning, and I myself was and continue to be an avid learner of Spanish – so much so I even completed a joint honours degree in the language and spent nine months living in northwest Spain. Language learning can be great fun, and as frustrating as it is annoying. One thing that it is not, is easy. Learning a language – any language, mind – is incredibly difficult. It is not just a question of learning words (that’s considered the easy part), but making these words into phrases and sentences and in turn into entire conversations. Think about how many words we use in English every day. Think about having to learn all that multitude of words over again, each one separately. But then each of these foreign words might have a different meaning altogether as well as the meaning you’ve learned. Or perhaps in a certain phrase it will mean something else. Or perhaps it does just have the one meaning after all. Of course, it works the other way as well – any foreigner who has learnt English will tell you that. Take for instance the verb “to lay”. Lay what? A table? An egg? Lay down? Or should that be lie down? Oh but “lie” is also a verb in its own right. But do we mean lie down or do we mean lie as in to not tell the truth? (and this is without even touching the past and future tenses, let alone the idioms). Knowing this labyrinth of language inside out is a years long, if not decades long, process – knowing how to say your name and ask how many hamsters your friend has in his house is not even touching the bare blocks. People often ask me if I am fluent in Spanish, to which I reply a resounding “No”. There are many different perceptions as to what is “fluent”, but to my mind it would be virtually native status, picking up conversation with a native and it flowing with ease, listening to the radio, television or reading a book and not being caught out by any word, or if you are being caught out by only a very obscure word that even a native could be forgiven for not knowing.
You might want to know exactly why, then, so many people around the world have mastered English so well. Go almost anywhere in the world and at least in major cities, and you will find someone who speaks our tongue. The gentleman at the airport behind the desk will most likely politely greet you and deftly process your tickets without so much batting an eyelid at the pleasant flow of English coming from his mouth. That waitress in the coffee shop will note down your order in the twinkling of an eye and promptly ask you which coffee you would like in your own tongue. That foreign minister will proceed to explain in intricate detail the problems facing his country in an English that might as well have been lifted from the pages of a distinguished economics weekly.
How do they all do it? Are they all masters of disguise, donning their adopted tongue at whim? Well, not exactly. The answer is simple: exposure. Learning any language all depends on the amount and intensity of exposure you have. Watch that news bulletin and learn the word “crisis”. Chat to the lady at the bus-stop and learn how the weather is. Click open the computer and download a torrent of writing or English language songs, of which there are a great many.
The beauty of English for those that are learning it is that it is so accessible. Many of the top songs are in the English language. The BBC has roots and offices everywhere and broadcasts to umpteen number of countries. 80% of internet access is in English. The most taught second language in the world is English. Go anywhere in the world and you will find English just one step away – it is the other language. Once I was on a Dutch plane taking off from Amsterdam bound for Hong Kong, and the pilot and air stewardesses all addressed the passengers in English, and then Dutch when needed. The Dutch air stewardess even explained the safety instructions of the emergency exit myself and two Dutchmen in English. In Barcelona I listened to train announcements in Spanish, Catalan and then English. English is everywhere, and you cannot escape it. Because of this speakers of other languages literally queue up to learn it. As a fairly proficient Spanish speaker myself, many of my so-called native Spanish friends have insisted or lapsed into speaking to me in English. I can count on one hand the amount of foreigners I have met with whom I haven’t been able to communicate (and I can count them because I remember them for not speaking it).
The amount of this English exposure is due to a combination of the influence of the United States and in part the United Kingdom. The world’s biggest film industry? In the United States. American films are often shown in countries such as Norway with the original soundtrack but with say, Norwegian subtitles, and that is how the Norwegians learn. I met a Danish girl once who spoke flawless English with an American accent, and I asked her the secret of her success. “Oh that’s easy”, she replied, “it’s TV. We’d watch American movies and tv all the time when we grew up”. This is corroborated by a Welsh girl I once met, who although of course would have been taught English in school anyhow, confessed that “TV was a big influence”.
Exposure is one thing, and age is another. Put the two together and you have explosive results. Expose a six-year old enough to a language and they’ll pick it up sooner than you can snap your fingers. My brother and his wife lived for a year in Switzerland, where his work took him, and his 5 and 6 year old son and daughter were put into Swiss-German schools and began playing with the local children, and within three months they were word-perfect fluent with strong Swiss-German accents. That is to say, they were naturally bilingual in each language. Such exposure is mimicked in countries where there is a multilingual language policy – in Luxembourg, where there are three national languages (Luxembourgish, German and French), children receive intense language tuition from the word Go. German is the language of instruction in primary schools, with 7 hours of French tuition weekly, until in secondary school French becomes the language of instruction. Luxembourgish, a largely oral language, is spoken at home.
You are unlikely to get this kind of exposure attending night school once weekly learning how to describe your bedroom. That is not to say that these lessons are useless, because they are a start, but from there to fluency is a matter of light-years. Even our standard language tuition incorporated into the national curriculum is sadly too little too late. After five years in the system English pupils can ask in Spanish for a glass of water or say the shower does not work, but are left far behind by their German and Dutch counterparts who by the age of sixteen in English will have virtual professional fluency. Kids these days are taught stock phrases and when to regurgitate them but they do not practise mastering the language and learning how to shape it with a variety of words. They might know how to say “I am” but might not know how to say “you are” or “they were” in a foreign language.
If you want to learn a foreign language, then do, but be clear about the reasons that you are doing it. Will it be worth it? Is it worth the hard work, time and effort? When, if ever, are you going to use this language? Are you going to pick up a novel and begin reading in that language? Or are you just going to ask directions in the streets of Rome? If you really do have a desire to learn a language, then do so properly. Do not settle for one or two hours a week. In short, go and live in the country where it is spoken, for then you will be using and, more importantly, living the language - for a language that is not lived may as well not be spoken. I lived in Spain for 9 months and apart from not becoming nearly as fluent as I had hoped, upon my arrival back in the UK I can find no use for the Spanish I learnt.
The sad truth is that here in the UK, as native English speakers, we simply do not have any need to speak a foreign language. When we already speak the global lingua franca, what other language is left for us to learn? English is the default language between cultures, and it just so happens that it belongs to our own culture. Are you going to start speaking French in a meeting with a Frenchman and a Spaniard? That would rest on the Spaniard knowing French. Would you speak German with a Chinaman and a Peruvian? Of course not. The language that everyone speaks, and with good reason, is English. The United States is the world’s superpower. We have no need to speak to the French or the Germans or the Spanish or to anyone else in their own language because the chances are that they will speak our language far better than we will theirs.
Necessity is the mother of invention, it is often said, and for better or for worse, we have no need to speak any tongue other than that which we already speak.
We are fortunate to have such a centre in our city – there are only a handful of others in the UK, namely only in London and Leeds. The centre is funded and supported by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and employs an entirely native Spanish speaking staff. The building itself is located in the city centre, no more than 10 minutes away from the main square. As you go in, the place is divided up into three levels: the ground floor housing the reception team and a large and extensive Spanish-language library, the main – first – floor housing mostly classrooms, but also with more administrative offices, and a couple of large audience halls for cultural events, such as film showings, food tastings, and regular lectures on all aspects of Hispanic culture from cinema, history, literature ... the list goes on. The centre offers regular courses of Spanish made up of twice-weekly 2 hour classes, and ranges from the beginner level to proficiency.
I am all for language learning, and I myself was and continue to be an avid learner of Spanish – so much so I even completed a joint honours degree in the language and spent nine months living in northwest Spain. Language learning can be great fun, and as frustrating as it is annoying. One thing that it is not, is easy. Learning a language – any language, mind – is incredibly difficult. It is not just a question of learning words (that’s considered the easy part), but making these words into phrases and sentences and in turn into entire conversations. Think about how many words we use in English every day. Think about having to learn all that multitude of words over again, each one separately. But then each of these foreign words might have a different meaning altogether as well as the meaning you’ve learned. Or perhaps in a certain phrase it will mean something else. Or perhaps it does just have the one meaning after all. Of course, it works the other way as well – any foreigner who has learnt English will tell you that. Take for instance the verb “to lay”. Lay what? A table? An egg? Lay down? Or should that be lie down? Oh but “lie” is also a verb in its own right. But do we mean lie down or do we mean lie as in to not tell the truth? (and this is without even touching the past and future tenses, let alone the idioms). Knowing this labyrinth of language inside out is a years long, if not decades long, process – knowing how to say your name and ask how many hamsters your friend has in his house is not even touching the bare blocks. People often ask me if I am fluent in Spanish, to which I reply a resounding “No”. There are many different perceptions as to what is “fluent”, but to my mind it would be virtually native status, picking up conversation with a native and it flowing with ease, listening to the radio, television or reading a book and not being caught out by any word, or if you are being caught out by only a very obscure word that even a native could be forgiven for not knowing.
You might want to know exactly why, then, so many people around the world have mastered English so well. Go almost anywhere in the world and at least in major cities, and you will find someone who speaks our tongue. The gentleman at the airport behind the desk will most likely politely greet you and deftly process your tickets without so much batting an eyelid at the pleasant flow of English coming from his mouth. That waitress in the coffee shop will note down your order in the twinkling of an eye and promptly ask you which coffee you would like in your own tongue. That foreign minister will proceed to explain in intricate detail the problems facing his country in an English that might as well have been lifted from the pages of a distinguished economics weekly.
How do they all do it? Are they all masters of disguise, donning their adopted tongue at whim? Well, not exactly. The answer is simple: exposure. Learning any language all depends on the amount and intensity of exposure you have. Watch that news bulletin and learn the word “crisis”. Chat to the lady at the bus-stop and learn how the weather is. Click open the computer and download a torrent of writing or English language songs, of which there are a great many.
The beauty of English for those that are learning it is that it is so accessible. Many of the top songs are in the English language. The BBC has roots and offices everywhere and broadcasts to umpteen number of countries. 80% of internet access is in English. The most taught second language in the world is English. Go anywhere in the world and you will find English just one step away – it is the other language. Once I was on a Dutch plane taking off from Amsterdam bound for Hong Kong, and the pilot and air stewardesses all addressed the passengers in English, and then Dutch when needed. The Dutch air stewardess even explained the safety instructions of the emergency exit myself and two Dutchmen in English. In Barcelona I listened to train announcements in Spanish, Catalan and then English. English is everywhere, and you cannot escape it. Because of this speakers of other languages literally queue up to learn it. As a fairly proficient Spanish speaker myself, many of my so-called native Spanish friends have insisted or lapsed into speaking to me in English. I can count on one hand the amount of foreigners I have met with whom I haven’t been able to communicate (and I can count them because I remember them for not speaking it).
The amount of this English exposure is due to a combination of the influence of the United States and in part the United Kingdom. The world’s biggest film industry? In the United States. American films are often shown in countries such as Norway with the original soundtrack but with say, Norwegian subtitles, and that is how the Norwegians learn. I met a Danish girl once who spoke flawless English with an American accent, and I asked her the secret of her success. “Oh that’s easy”, she replied, “it’s TV. We’d watch American movies and tv all the time when we grew up”. This is corroborated by a Welsh girl I once met, who although of course would have been taught English in school anyhow, confessed that “TV was a big influence”.
Exposure is one thing, and age is another. Put the two together and you have explosive results. Expose a six-year old enough to a language and they’ll pick it up sooner than you can snap your fingers. My brother and his wife lived for a year in Switzerland, where his work took him, and his 5 and 6 year old son and daughter were put into Swiss-German schools and began playing with the local children, and within three months they were word-perfect fluent with strong Swiss-German accents. That is to say, they were naturally bilingual in each language. Such exposure is mimicked in countries where there is a multilingual language policy – in Luxembourg, where there are three national languages (Luxembourgish, German and French), children receive intense language tuition from the word Go. German is the language of instruction in primary schools, with 7 hours of French tuition weekly, until in secondary school French becomes the language of instruction. Luxembourgish, a largely oral language, is spoken at home.
You are unlikely to get this kind of exposure attending night school once weekly learning how to describe your bedroom. That is not to say that these lessons are useless, because they are a start, but from there to fluency is a matter of light-years. Even our standard language tuition incorporated into the national curriculum is sadly too little too late. After five years in the system English pupils can ask in Spanish for a glass of water or say the shower does not work, but are left far behind by their German and Dutch counterparts who by the age of sixteen in English will have virtual professional fluency. Kids these days are taught stock phrases and when to regurgitate them but they do not practise mastering the language and learning how to shape it with a variety of words. They might know how to say “I am” but might not know how to say “you are” or “they were” in a foreign language.
If you want to learn a foreign language, then do, but be clear about the reasons that you are doing it. Will it be worth it? Is it worth the hard work, time and effort? When, if ever, are you going to use this language? Are you going to pick up a novel and begin reading in that language? Or are you just going to ask directions in the streets of Rome? If you really do have a desire to learn a language, then do so properly. Do not settle for one or two hours a week. In short, go and live in the country where it is spoken, for then you will be using and, more importantly, living the language - for a language that is not lived may as well not be spoken. I lived in Spain for 9 months and apart from not becoming nearly as fluent as I had hoped, upon my arrival back in the UK I can find no use for the Spanish I learnt.
The sad truth is that here in the UK, as native English speakers, we simply do not have any need to speak a foreign language. When we already speak the global lingua franca, what other language is left for us to learn? English is the default language between cultures, and it just so happens that it belongs to our own culture. Are you going to start speaking French in a meeting with a Frenchman and a Spaniard? That would rest on the Spaniard knowing French. Would you speak German with a Chinaman and a Peruvian? Of course not. The language that everyone speaks, and with good reason, is English. The United States is the world’s superpower. We have no need to speak to the French or the Germans or the Spanish or to anyone else in their own language because the chances are that they will speak our language far better than we will theirs.
Necessity is the mother of invention, it is often said, and for better or for worse, we have no need to speak any tongue other than that which we already speak.
Welcome to my blog
Hi there!!
I am a twenty-something aspiring journalist based in Manchester, in the North of the UK, and I thought I'd create a blog so I can share my thoughts and views on the daily and not-so-daily happenings of the world and the things going on in it.
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I will writing it :)
James
I am a twenty-something aspiring journalist based in Manchester, in the North of the UK, and I thought I'd create a blog so I can share my thoughts and views on the daily and not-so-daily happenings of the world and the things going on in it.
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I will writing it :)
James
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