FYI - Putin speaks fluent German - and Merkel fluent Russian - and did you know

[Mira]

that the Big Dog speaks an acceptable conversational German, and when on the phone with Merkel conducted most of it in German because he wanted to?

I just had a conversation with a childhood friend who lives in Germany who is politically interested and follows what's going on - especially the markets - because he has money.

He enlightened me that Angela Merkel is from the former East Block in Germany and speaks fluent Russian. And that as the head of the KGB Putin was stationed in Dresden Germany for a long time and except for the Russian rolling r speaks grammatically correct, unaccented, fluent German.

Now this may not be of interest in general on DU. But I wanted to share it anyway. Everyone can in their own minds assign some thoughts and importance to this little bit of information.

There are many things we miss in this country, vast as it is, with its universal one language. I'm disregarding Spanish for a minute and considering our lack of assigning value to it in general there are actually obvious reasons for doing so. In our mentality when it comes to our station on earth WE'RE Number ONE.
I never will forget the time a 50 year old American woman stood in front of a world map affixed to my kitchen door. After being asked I showed her where the US of A is.
"When did we get so small?" she asked.

It infuriates me to see an allocation of 14 dollars per student for school books in my town, in a state where teachers are so underpaid they personally have to subsidize the needs of students while it strangles their own needs.

I grew up in Germany, the West of it at the time, and at age 9 a second language was taught (English) and then at age 12 a third (French). This was mandatory.

I know we don't have a need for being multilingual here in America to the degree that it benefits the Europeans. But the sheer fact that we have so little exposure keeps me being surrounded by many who believe the SHIT that gets spewed on the Fox "news" channel, and makes them think they are learning something.

I just want to hold my face in my hands for a minute.
They have a nice word for that and here's a visual

So I laugh, because it's all I can do.

[elleng]

1. Thanks, very interesting

and useful. So those 2 have no need for translations, know exactly what the other said.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Yeah I knew that

even in Mexico we learned a second language, by law.

And since I went to a private jewish school I learned a third. I need to really brush up on Hebrew, but I do the Spanish and English (and American) well, I think. Though will never say I have no accent.

[1000words]

3. I studied five years of Latin

Last edited Tue Mar 4, 2014, 11:36 PM - Edit history (1)

Outside visiting the Vatican, I'm screwed!

Seriously, Latin gave me the foundation to pick up conversational skills in several languages.

[Mira]

6. It's astounding

how much more connected one feels when there is a grasp of that language connects us

[1000words]

7. Indeed.

I've always felt it important to learn other languages and to make music, for the sake of greater connectedness.

[NYC Liberal]

13. Same. Eight years of Latin here.

Latin poetry is beautiful.

[1000words]

16. Eight? ... Impressive.

We were encouraged to attempt translation like it was writing poetry. Style and tone is so important to the process. Really polished my writing skills.

[ReRe]

47. Latin helped me to learn...

... medical terminology quicker than others who had not taken it...

[No Vested Interest]

51. Four years Latin, French - 4 yrs high school, 3 yrs College

I have always felt the Latin helped give me a command of English, where so many words have Latin roots.
The French language I enjoyed studying, but never could get past my Midwestern accent re speaking French, so didn't do it well.

I knew Mrs. Merkel was from E. Germany, but hadn't put 2+2 together to figure out that she would thus be fluent in Russian.
Also wasn't aware of Putin's time in Germany.
Thanks for passing this along.

[sabrina 1]

53. Lol, I HAD Latin for a few years, wouldn't say I studied it because I was not very good at studying.

And we were bi-lingual from childhood, then had French for five years. When I went to Italy everyone there could speak English, but one very stubborn guy tole me 'you are in my country, you speak my language'. Lol, it was good in a way because I learned a few phrases in a very short time.

Learning other languages, even if don't become fluent or use them, opens the mind to other cultures, and helps people to become more open minded.

[spanone]

4. k&r...

[wheniwasincongress]

5. Mitt Romney speaks fluent French

But he would refuse to speak it on his presidential campaign trails, because he knew, I'm sure, that his base wouldn't be impressed with it. As well as some non-base who might think French a stuffy language and culture. Sad.

[Mira]

8. Yes - but in my observation of American's interpretation

of that fact it is quite diluted in value.
French is the gorgeous language that American's think of as debauched. And his learning French as a Mormon Missionary in Paris is really not that effing impressive or rounding him out as a citizen of the world to Americans.

[DonViejo]

10. George Bush, Sr., destroyed Pete DuPont...

simply by calling DuPont by his real name, Pierre, during a nationally televised debate. I remember watching it on television, when Bush called him Pierre, you could hear the audience gasp. It was good politics. Wealthy Northeast Yankee Republicans, both of them, Bush and DuPont.

[icarusxat]

39. Mitt speaks Mormon French...

If he can't use it to take your money, he becomes mute.

[moondust]

52. That's a liability in the GOP.

Last edited Wed Mar 5, 2014, 01:36 AM - Edit history (2)

Jon Huntsman apparently speaks Mandarin Chinese and it probably cost him some GOP support. He's part alien!!! Can't be trusted!!! Commie!!!!

Nope, it helps to be a committed linguistic (and every other kind of) chauvinist in the GOP.

[Ikonoklast]

72. It came in handy when living in a French chateau while avoiding the Viet Nam war.

Easier to scold the help in their native language, doncha know.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. I just cringe when I realize

that students 100 and 200 years ago were taught latin, at a minimum, but also Greek was considered necessary for those who could afford higher learning.
and even tho a 2nd language was taught in my high school ( French or Spanish), just having a year of a foreign
language was sufficient for college entry,no actual ability to speak or understand it was tested.

folks for the last 2-30 years have been getting even less actual education than us boomers did,and we, as a group, pretty well suck compared to Europe.

[Cha]

11. So Merkle knew what she was talking about when she said Putin "was not in touch with reality"..

"In Sunday's New York Times, Peter Baker reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had tried talking some sense into Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader has an affinity for the Germans and Merkel especially: He served in the KGB in East Germany, where Merkel grew up. And yet, nothing:

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama by telephone on Sunday that after speaking with Mr. Putin she was not sure he was in touch with reality, people briefed on the call said. “In another world,” she said."

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116852/merkel-was-right-putins-lost-his-mind-press-conference

That's what I "assign".. Interesting.. thank you, Mira.

[SunSeeker]

18. Indeed. Good point (and scary). nt

[2naSalit]

35. I think that

because of what the OP is talking about this very interpretation of what Merkel actually said about Putin has been skewed for reasons of demonization... it happens a lot.

What Merkel said could be interpreted as "... what Vladimir perceives is different from what the rest of the world sees." And I have heard that translation in several places that do not buy into the "Putin is always wrong, always bad" meme. I understand her comment as telling the rest of the world that Putin has his perspective and it is not what many others have but all the same, he has a right to call it as he sees it whether we agree or not.

I'm not so willing to jump on a bandwagon that is playing a tired song out of tune.

I was once rather fluent in French, don't get to use it much so I haven't retained what I would have liked to in bilingual traits (and I spent ten years performing classical voice in seven other languages - other than French). But having been familiar with a foreign language has helped me understand that American English speakers who snub all other languages are prone to misinterpret and sometimes with malice of forethought. I suspect the latter may be the case with Merkel's comment.

[Cha]

60. What part of "not in touch with reality" is so vague? From what I've seen

of Putin's actions.. from his brutal stance against Gays and Journalists who disagree with him.. or a Girl's Rock Band.. I'm going to go with "not in touch with reality" unless of course.. it's clarified that's not what she meant at all.

Why would anyone jump on an out of tune bandwagon?.. personally I'm looking for reality and not jumping on anyone's stupid "bandwagon".

[2naSalit]

64. I think there's

a problem we americans make when trying to judge others by applying our values and norms as if there is no other set of values and norms in the world. We may not agree with how that country's governing entities go about their business and some of it is pretty cruel in our eyes, but it helps to recall that there are some pretty dicey things we do in our country that others find wrong or offensive too.

I'm not outright defending US or Russian practices, I just think that rushing to judge without facts and actual knowledge of what is actually being said and understanding the context is much like the pot calling the kettle black. That's how we work ourselves up into a frenzy that leads to wars.

From what I've seen here and everywhere else that anyone is talking about this issue, nobody has the whole story, therefore, making unfortunate accusations is inappropriate. I wouldn't trust our media at all, not even our usually well spoken Ms Maddow. I don't think she's viewing this with an unjaundiced eye... or she's been advised to stick to the "script"... that script is the only one we're hearing from the corporate media everywhere right now. When everyone is sounding like Fuxnooz, I smell rotting fish coming from the production booth.

[Cha]

66. That's right.. we can't know everything now.. it's all unfolding. All we can do is go by past

actions.

You're really not going to like Luckovich's toon on Putin..

[2naSalit]

67. Actually, I do like it

I even rec'd it in the original OP it appeared in.

[Cha]

69. All right then. :)

[cprise]

57. Speaking of reality

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=178804

She thought she could negotiate behind the back of a sitting democratically elected ruler to groom a forced replacement before the elections (which had just been moved up). This is tantamount to plotting a coup. While playing this US-inspired game, she was spurned by both the US (who didn't like her choice of replacement) and Russia (who got wise to her second-rate meddling).

Merkel actually ended up looking quite foolish.

[2banon]

58. Yeah, I heard that reported several times, but I think we should not assume that report is accurate.

Could be someone is trying to put out the idea that Putin is a crackpot... that's a dangerous assumption, imo.

[Cha]

61. For now he's just a mean ol asshole who cracks down on Gays and Journalists in Russia.

[jakeXT]

12. Sounds ok, a bit too fast

[1000words]

20. German words, Russian cadence

[CK_John]

14. That's why her phone was bugged.

[jakeXT]

15. Which one ? Stasi or NSA ?

(Reuters) - When Angela Merkel was growing up in communist East Germany, she recalls her parents getting nervous whenever she talked for too long on the phone. "Hang up! The Stasi is listening and it's all being recorded," warned her mother, according to one biography.

But somewhere along the line between her childhood behind the Iron Curtain and becoming chancellor of a united Germany, Merkel apparently lost her fear of eavesdropping

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/29/us-germany-usa-idUSBRE99S0XL20131029

[JVS]

37. Actually there is some suspicion that the Merkel family was well connected in East Germany

From wiki on her

Merkel's father studied theology in Heidelberg and, afterward, in Hamburg. In 1954 her father received a pastorate at the church in Quitzow (near Perleberg in Brandenburg), which then was in East Germany, and the family moved to Templin. Thus Merkel grew up in the countryside 80 km (50 mi) north of East Berlin. Gerd Langguth, a former senior member of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, states in his book,[17] that the family's ability to travel freely from East to West Germany during the following years, as well as their possession of two automobiles, leads to the conclusion that Merkel's father had a "sympathetic" relationship with the communist regime, since such freedom and privileges for a Christian pastor and his family would have been otherwise impossible in East Germany.

[2banon]

59. think I recall that mentioned several years ago, and forgotten it.

[pangaia]

17. I took 2 years of Latin in high school in the late '50s

and 2 years of Spanish because 4 years of foreign languages was...REQUIRED! DUH!
In college, as a music student, I had to have 1 year of a language, other than 'American." I flunked French. So I took German. Even in that short time I became fluent enough to get around Germany 15 years later.

Then I learned Japanese before going to and while in Japan in the early 1980's- same as German, I could do it. Learned about 800 kanji. I still know all I need to know in a sushi bar.

Then Mandarin--learned what I could on several trips to Taiwan and China in the early 2000's, but never fluent at all.. terrible pronunciation.

So the point is, I am 70. A fellow who works for me and is 28, great guy, actually, but has NEVER studied a foreign language. Only been for 2 weeks to Ireland. Can not understand why 'champs,' in French is not pronounced .. CHAMPS as in champions..well.. that's French too, lets see.. C H A M P S.. as in winners..
He has no clue by experience that English is not the language around which all others rotate.
It's horrifying. He can't do math in his head either. Not even adding and subtracting.

[NewJeffCT]

19. I graduated high school in the mid 80s

Most schools around my area did not even offer foreign languages before high school, and when you got to high school, you had French or Spanish to choose from. If you were "lucky" some places offered Latin as well.

From what I've seen over the last 15-20 years, a lot of schools are now offering foreign languages earlier than high school, and also offer a more diverse choice of languages. In my town in Connecticut, students can start Spanish or French in Grade 5, and can take German, Latin or Chinese in high school, as well as French and Spanish. One town we almost moved to a few years back starts Spanish in Grade 1, and adds offerings of French and Chinese in middle school, and then Ancient Greek, Russian, Japanese and Latin in high school, and I think one more language. (the language director in this town just won some national award.)

Not sure how it's changing nationally, but I do think more kids are learning languages earlier than they did back in Ye Olden Days when I was in school.

[2naSalit]

41. I started school

in Key West, FL back during the Cuban missile crisis and those folks could barely handle American English - I was from New England and had been around folks with a better grasp on the language and grammar.

Fortunately we weren't in FL long and went back to Maine. We were introduced to French in second grade and it was taught all through elementary school and highly advanced levels in high school - I remember my older sister studying it and helping we younger ones to learn our grade school French. When I started classical voice, at nine, I was learning the lyrics in French, German, Italian and Latin. In my thirties I went back to classical voice and worked with additional languages.

Learning other languages is important, especially for English speakers since our English is a melting pot language made up of French (approximately 1/3), German and Old/Middle English, mostly though we gather words from other languages still. What's sad is that not only do most Americans not know other languages, they don't even know where English came from and why certain words are spelled the way they are or why we have the grammatical sentence structure we use . And because that grammatical structure is not the same for all the languages our English came from, translations can be easily messed up and terrible misunderstandings can ensue.

Too bad our country/culture is so full of itself.

[KoKo]

21. Merkel also speaks English...with a slight British accent.

She gave a speech in London at EU Meeting last week and she gave the first part of her speech in German with a translator...but the last part of her speech was in English without a German accent ...more like she had a British teacher.

I wouldn't be surprised if Putin speaks a bit of English, also.

[kskiska]

74. Putin speaks English

[Spider Jerusalem]

22. English-speakers mostly don't need to learn another language.

Being a native English speaker in the modern world is kind of like being a Roman in the 2nd century AD. Most international business is conducted in English, English is taught in schools in Europe (I know a good many Germans who are quite fluent in written English, for instance, as well as Belgians and French and Dutch). Most native English-speakers live in areas which don't have a lot of overlap with other language regions, because of geography (the southern border of the US and Quebec being partial exceptions to that, as well as areas of the UK with Scots Gaelic and Welsh speakers); the UK? an island country. New Zealand? An island country. Australia? An island country (even if it is a continent). Compare that with, say, Belgium, which has a French-speaking south and a Dutch-speaking north, or Germany which borders France and the Netherlands and Denmark and Poland and the Czech Republic ...Continental Europeans are more likely to be multilingual just because they're going to encounter more languages and need to be able to communicate in the regular course of things, especially if they live in border areas.

[2naSalit]

46. Yes

but what about knowing where the components of English come from and why we spell certain words the way we do and why? It does help to know English by knowing its origins. And you didn't mention that many of us who may be first, second, or third generation Americans may also have relatives who speak the language of the country of rigin still. I grew up around Finnish and Lithuanian in my grandparents home and many of my childhood neighbors spoke French, Spanish (Castillian), German and Polish. Try Boston and much of New England. I was taught French by a Belgian so I didn't learn the creole of Quebecois (Acadian).

Really, IMO, we lose out by not learning other languages of any other kind than our sloppy hodge-podge English that is composed of many other languages from other lands and cultures. Maybe that's why so many whom we meet in our travels in other countries seem so well informed. That so many Americans are shocked at the knowledge other peoples have is a sad statement about our national hubris.

ETA: It's also interesting when Americans figure out that foreigners often know English better than they do.

[Spider Jerusalem]

56. Sure...

which is part of the reason for the confusion of English spelling (it's a Germanic language with a strong Latinate/Romance component from the influence of Norman French).

And first-generation immigrants are usually only marginally fluent in English, the second generation tend to be bilingual, and the third generation only speak English...that seems to be the common pattern, anyway.
(Only 10% of native-born Americans can speak a language other than English; that increases to 20-25% when you add immigrants to the total; around 12% of the US population are foreign-born.)

[2naSalit]

63. Indeed

the lingual transition pattern is well known among linguists. It's one of the indicators that show the process of acclimation to culture. The first generation arrives with in a new land/country/culture with a foreign language, their children (often) devise a pidgin language which contains parts of the old language and the new one. It is the children of those pidgin speakers who apply grammatical rules and either learn the new language or develop/create what would be known as a new language (creole) complete with structure and grammar. It is usually the children who teach new languages and cultural norms not only to their children but also to the generations before them (their parents and grandparents). This pattern is also an indication that teaching the children will subsequently educate three to four generations all in one concerted effort.

And on top of all that some, like myself, actually enjoy etymology... it's how I learned English to begin with. Made it easier to learn other languages. Also, children under ten (some say eight some say twelve) who learn more than one language will retain them throughout life and will have an easier time of it when attempting to learn additional languages. So teaching children multiple languages is best started early.

[Sognefjord]

68. Even during the First World War in the forces of Austria-Hungary

The officers often prodded their polyglot troops into action by speaking English since it was more commonly understood than German.

[UTUSN]

23. There's a thread saying MERKEL tried talking Poot down & said he's out of contact with reality n/t

[TuxedoKat]

24. My teenage daughter

just came back from a cruise with some friends. She met two boys from Denmark the same age as her. She said, Mom! They spoke SIX languages! And they know more about US politics than I do! I had been trying to plant the idea in her head to take French (she's studied Spanish and Japanese) but she wasn't interested until she met these two young men. So now she is interested in taking French in college and will probably be paying more attention to politics too. Not that she didn't before, she's probably more politically astute than most of her classmates. Nothing like the experience of travel to make one realize you need to broaden your horizons.

[Mira]

25. ...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. In Scandinavia, everyone is required to study English, starting in elementary school

and a second language a few years later.

In addition, the countries are too small to have much of a TV industry, so almost all their TV is imported from other countries and shown in the original language with subtitles.

One of my relatives was in graduate school the first time we went to Norway. Since Norway is too small to have its own university textbook industry, he studied out of textbooks written in English and German.

As a result, all the young people speak excellent English. What they learn in school is reinforced when they watch TV or movies or study out of college textbooks.

[zeemike]

44. Early in the internet years I had a correspondence

With an eight grade girl in Finland...who I think wanted a chance to practice her English...and it was impecable...and I ask her about it and she said it was mandatory part of school...as well as other languages.

Lets face the facts, our schools suck and are getting sucker as we privatize education and strip the public schools of resources...i sometimes they want us to be stupid and uninformed...far easier to keep us under control.

[HipChick]

27. I speak 3 languages and also had 7 years of Latin and Ancient Greek..

But of course I was educated in Europe...

[kitt6]

28. Putin stopped WW3.

Now he is the new boogyman.

[awoke_in_2003]

45. To be fair...

he sure tried like hell to start it.

[Hekate]

50. You know, I think we finally found our Putin fan.

How strange.

[awoke_in_2003]

70. I hope you mean...

the person I responded to and not me. I think Putin is nothing but a Russian Bush.

[Hekate]

71. It was definitely an aside to you about her/him. See post #40 & my reply #48...

That's some serious weirdness going on, if a person can't distinguish between Obama and the NeoCons. We've had our disagreements here, I know, but it felt stranger than usual to have a relative newcomer just blurting it out like that. Oh well.

I think Putin might be having a hardon for the old Cold War days, rather like some of our own politicians. Anyway he is definitely being the aggressor and daring the US and the EU to do something about it -- hopefully the other nations can "punish" him appropriately with economic sanctions.

[Auntie Bush]

29. Those countries are so small and all their neighbors in all directions speaks a different launguage

It would be if each of our states all spoke different languages...we'd learn to speak a few ourselves if we ever wanted to travel. Can you imagine NJ and NY speaking different languages? It doesn't mean we think we're so important that we don't need to know anything but English...it just isn't necessary and hardly ever needed.

[mackerel]

30. a lot of Americans are bilingual.

Don't discount all those from immigrant families.

[go west young man]

31. We definitely do not invest enough in culture in general.

Sadly we are all military and capitalism at any cost. Hence the reason the world sees us as dumbed down and militaristic. They also see us as quite nationalistic, to the point of being silly enough to shoot ourselves in the foot (Defense spending vs Social programs). The US needs a major restructuring in education based upon principles similar to the Montessori system without the religion attached. As a matter of fact all these states allocating undisclosed money to religious schools need to be reigned in and that money needs to go to improving our teachers and their wages. We need a rebirth...a renaissance of our own. A good start would be requirement of a second language for graduation for all students and a third minor language. Incidentally that is how Russia does it and I have met some amazing highly intelligent multilingual Russians. Our lack of desire to explore this area speaks volumes. Definitely recommending your post.

[Cleita]

32. I think we should be multi-lingual here.

I'm bilingual and I find I understand other cultures better because of it. Americans who only speak English don't. They are very provincial in their thinking. I think making kids learn another language fluently and the culture it comes from would do a lot to lessen the racism in this country.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

33. Tea party is the epitome of American know-nothingness. Imperial measurement system is close second.

Countries still using the measurement system based on the King's Foot:

[icarusxat]

34. I am, as ever, impressed with the company I keep on DU...

German is my second language, French and Spanish are also not unfamiliar, thanks to the Massachusetts upbringing. At times I can also speak perfect nonsense.

We need to all learn multiple languages. Not because we need to, but because we should want to. Our 200 years is over. It is time to join a global community or risk becoming another relic...

[jtuck004]

36. " know we don't have a need for being multilingual..." < I don't know about that. While I

have no proof, I suspect that if more of us knew some Chinese less of us would be looking for jobs, because we would have been paying more attention. And if we did things like broadcast a second language in a small screen on the news like they do in Japan, we would learn things about other cultures that would benefit and profit all of us.

Just FYI, I was reading about China, the other day, where many people know at least a couple of languages, and they feel that they are behind, so they are on a push to make everyone in the country more technically/computer literate as well. So even more languages and protocols/rules/recipes. Not making excuses, not whining about age, not finding excuses or blame...recognizing a need, plotting a course, and implementing a plan.

Hopefully it works out for them like more recent times and not their past, but perhaps we could learn from it.

[lob1]

55. Years ago we went to Switzerland. My wife and I were having lunch

and 5 business men were having lunch at the table next to us. All 5 spoke a different language, and none spoke in English. They all spoke in their own language. For example, the French man answered the Italian in French, even though the Italian spoke in Italian. And everyone understood everyone. It blew us away. I found out Switzerland has 4 national languages. Four. The fifth guy must've been visiting.

By the way, all the businessmen also understood English. When they heard my wife and I talking, they struck up a conversation. They were being polite, but it was a little embarrassing when they spoke to us only in English.

[Democracyinkind]

75. Come and say hi if you ever manage to return!

[lob1]

77. Thank you, I'll do that. I still only speak English, tho.

I loved Switzerland. The country and the people are beautiful.

[Bonobo]

38. Fluent Japanese, stilted German here. nt

[kitt6]

40. This President needs to stop

letting far-right neo-cons control his Foreign Policy. Shit or get up off the pot.

[Hekate]

48. That is a bizarre and untrue statement.If it were true we would be embroiled in several more wars...

...by now. Have you checked with John McCain lately? He and his cohorts are apoplectic over Obama's "feckless foreign policy", his weakness, his appeasement. Likewise the NeoCons spewing their wisdom on CNN, FOX, and Meet the Press.

You and they cannot have it both ways. We're getting out of Bush/Cheney's wars. We're not in Syria. I know little about chess in any dimension but after 8 agonizing years of Dubya, I can say with confidence that Obama's policies are not those of a NeoCon.

Try again.

[mnhtnbb]

42. The best public school systems in the US still offer

a wide range of other languages to students. Locally, Chapel Hill/Carrboro City Schools
offer French, Spanish, and Latin beginning in 6th grade through 8th grade; in high
school students can take French, Spanish, Latin, German, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese;
the elementary schools have two dual language programs--Mandarin Chinese and Spanish--which
continue through middle school. At the high school level, AP courses are available in all
the languages offered (college level).

My youngest son, the one who is currently in Berlin on a Fulbright Scholarship, majored
in German in college. His high school German teacher here--who has since retired--used to
take some of her high school students and make the rounds of the middle schools
putting on events that she would use to "recruit students" by appealing to their
interests, hoping they'd select German for language study when they got to high
school.

I was amazed at how many people we met when we were in Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, and Berlin
last fall who spoke excellent English. I had been in Germany and Austria in the early 80's and
not nearly as many people spoke English fluently then as they do now 30 years later. I took
French and Spanish in school and usually can get along in both of them when traveling, but
never studied German. I bought a German phrase book to take with us on this trip and I didn't
need it at all.

[DeSwiss]

43. K&R

[NightWatcher]

49. We confuse "ignorant isolationism" and "American Exceptionalism"

My German is horribly rusty at best but I was able to survive in Koln for a bit (mainly through kind, English speaking Germans).

We're not better than the rest of the world, we're kept away from the rest of the world.

I hope I'll get to Europe again. It felt like visiting with adults and not the selfish children around here.

[JDPriestly]

54. THanks. K&R. We Americans should try to learn languages.

Read foreign newspapers.

In the World Forum group, we post news, sometimes original translations, from around the world. We'd love to see more posts. I have not been able to keep up with it lately. But considering that few Americans speak foreign languages, we need a forum in which those who are at least bilingual can share news stories from the foreign press. Please look for the World Forum.

[ANOIS]

62. Latin & Spanish here.

Very interesting thread. Thank you to Mira for kicking it off.

I also love geography & travel, culture, etc. All are essential.
Some do not have a clue.

[MisterP]

65. I mentioned something similar when it came to various countries' foreign policies:

Western Europe stereotypically deals with countries in toto: FP is done minister-to-minister, and the world is divided into fundamentally identical

Russia and China stereotypically like spheres of influence, hierarchies of "tributaries," and concentric buffer zones: the world's a mat made of resources, lines of force and influence, networks of cities and people filtering down to the countryside: : whether Orthodox in the Balkans in the 1910s ,

Washington treats Western Europe like Western Europe does, but it seems confused that the Third World has its own governments: Jeane Kirkpatrick said they're savages not ready for democracy so they need dictators to teach them, the generals get completely floored when what they've always seen as a tiny, outside-backed terrorist group manages to resist us more than a year ("within a few days and with minimum force, the conflict in South Vietnam would have been ended in our favor&quot , and, as Reagan said, "you'd be surprised, yes, because, you know, they're all individual countries"

[Bluenorthwest]

73. Disregarding Spanish while speaking of US languages in use is very odd.

I guess if we say 'Spanish does not count' then fewer Americans are bilingual? I grew up with Spanish everywhere around me in the US. No German, 'cause our neighbors speak Spanish. But let's disregard Mexico, Central and South America for a moment and ask 'why are more Americans not proficient in Norwegian?'.

[joeybee12]

76. I agree...I think it's atrocious young children aren't required to

take a second language in school...they need to start young...most don't start until high school and that's really too late...it's young kids who grasp language quickly.