Yeah, this langages are very far away from indo-european langages. It’s not only the alphabet but the words origins and sonorities. Chinese, corean, vietnamian, Japanese people cannot hear and prononce a lot of our sounds, as we can’t theirs.
Didn't mean to come across arrogant at all. I know a lot of people are bilingual. That's why it's "easier" for English people to live abroad because the locals may know at least rudimentary English.
Your brain have more capacities to learn another langage if you speak already 3. I just think Malaysian is much far away as a langage from what your are used too.
It depends of your personality I think. The ones who are open to travel and discovery, who have the curiosity will learn without problems because they will want to meet the locals and know their ways. But others are more confortable at home and don’t like that. Quite a few footballers will rather stay at home and are just moving abroad for work and not to discover anything. So even if I will learn the local language, I can understand footballers who don’t care.
Yeah, there is quite a few of them in every country. I don’t know how they do it !
Plot twist: he lives in Quebec
I think it occurs mostly when there are large waves of immigration from countries that don't have a prior association with the destination. In Canada's case that is especially applicable to Italian and Greek immigrants who tended to stick together and forn tight knit communities where a person could manage most of their day to day activities with little to no English.
Helps if you want to become a manager I guess although of course a player in early 20s wouldn't have that mindset unless injured already a few times.
Plus young age. Kids learn a new language in weeks, if need be. Well, kids can learn anything quickly I guess, shame we only realize that when we grow up.
English is a pain in the ass to learn for sure, everything we write isn't pronounced as it's written so learners have to rote memorise pronunciations.
Oh, absolutely no doubt about that. My partner's niece was 6 (she's just turned 9) when she first heard Japanese via me going through audio lessons and her colouring in her colouring book seemingly paying what I was doing no mind. English - Japanese and vice versa, English not even being her native language (but she's basically immersed in it via Youtube child shows etc.), and answering questions on the revision cue that were far from easy. I took it upon myself to start challenging her with more info per day (colours, counting numbers, days etc.) and she was retaining the information with ease. I'm not around her frequently enough to really push the envelope, but I'm sure she'd have whatever taught locked in far easier than the incessant drilling repetition I have to go through.
The coach readies himself for a motivational talk that will be remembered through the ages.
There are some studies that say whilst a kids brain is definitely more malleable to learning things quickly, if you give a 6/8/10yo and a 30yo 6 months of equal learning time of a new language, the 30yo would learn more of the language and quicker. Which makes sense because as an adult you already understand what grammar is, you understand certain concepts of speech, you already have a wide library of vocabulary at your disposal. So you just need to focus on how the new language is structured etc. Which becomes even easier if its a romance or germanic language for an english speaker.
Spanish level of English is generally poor but I wouldn't say the language is not used. Spain's biggest industry is tourism.
Yes, but the vast majority of the country still doesnt speak it, and even the hosts at the restaurants etc often have a at best rudamentary level of English. Of course nothing wrong with that, but I do belive that in general the amount of English speakers in the world outside of Northern Europe and USA/Canada are not that plentiful
According to the most recent poll I've seen, 27.7% of Spanish people say they speak some English. It's not a lot but I don't know that I'd say the 'vast majority' don't speak English. It is also likely to be skewed by age and region, so realistically a foreigner would not need to interact with the majority of the groups that speak English the least (retirees, rural people).
If you poll any Indonesian they'd admit they speak English because it's mandatory at least 9 years of English education at school.
You getting all this from your anecdotal experience? Because linguistics has plenty of signs pointing the other way. Exposure starts as early as in the womb, as it’s been shown that French and German babies come out crying at different pitches.
I’d say another huge advantage kids have is that they’re way less likely to be too embarassed to try. Even in Norway I know adults that are scared to use English but whose floodgates’ll open if you get them drunk. Kids tend to try and fail at language without getting particularly worked up about it.
The problem is, which language do you translate them into?
Probably the only time I'm going to use this example on the Cafe but in many McDonalds you have Polish or Albanian options for the self service machines!
