Almost 12% of US Games Biz Laid Off

I would have nothing against more american colleagues. It would be quite unfair tho if the american job market stays as closed as it is for eu citizens. I never understood how the hurdles can be so high for economies that are so closely tied together and the citizens share a similar level of prosperity anyway.

Politics politics....the populist part of any nation will rise against any sign of "these foreigners are taking jobs our own nationals could have". As far as most countries accepting English only speakers, France clearly wouldn't be one of those. Not out of racism, out of fear of not being understood. because very few French have a decent enough level of English to be working day after day with such guys

Quote from Furyo

Politics politics....the populist part of any nation will rise against any sign of "these foreigners are taking jobs our own nationals could have". As far as most countries accepting English only speakers, France clearly wouldn't be one of those. Not out of racism, out of fear of not being understood. because very few French have a decent enough level of English to be working day after day with such guys

Sorry? I didn't understand that at all! Could you please stick to "English" on this board? Thanks!

I never really understood why The French didnt want to learn English.

Then one day, 50 exchange students from france came to our school and everyone of them was lame and just sat around smoking weed all day.

Then I understood.

Quote from Skjalg

I never really understood why The French didnt want to learn English.Then one day, 50 exchange students from france came to our school and everyone of them was lame and just sat around smoking weed all day.

Then I understood.

If you'd replace France with Switzerland, it'd all make sense for me, but French people? Come on!

mmm, stereotypes ftl...

I only wish we pushed secondary language more in our school system. granted I chose to take latin for 3 years instead of spanish or french, so i'm not one to talk

I really do envy you guys for being fluent in multiple languages.

Quote

you're expected to have perfectly fluent English to work in the US

I wouldn't say that is true, or atleast from what I have experienced. The company I work for just hired a loatian guy that doesn't speak very well at all, but his portfolio and talent/skills got him the job. I would guess it all depends on your occupation, though.

I took Spanish in every year of middle school and high school, and it was required (that or Russian or German as alternatives. I think once you had four years under your belt you could replace it from a small list of electives).

Course, I pretty much don't remember any of it. Yo soy mal a espanol!

Slightly off topic here - but I hope within 100 years everyone is speaking a single common languge. In the past it's clear why it evolved the way it did, but now (at least in the western world) it just causes confusion in a digital age. I think English has proved itself as the easiest to grasp. Even religion can't complain, getting the message accross to everyone without learning 30 languages must be a benifit

Doesn't it all come down to TV. Countries that dub English tv suck, countries that don't, well don't. This has been somewhat elevated by the internet and the prevalence of English on various boards, blogs and news sites, and games. But still, any language I had exclusively at school I suck at or have completely forgotten since I never use it, on the other hand I knew English pretty dammed well even before I got to high school due to TV.

Yeah countries that have their tv shows in english are usually a whole lot better at speaking english themselves. I think dubbing is absolutely horrible and I never understood why in gods name you would want to dub something....

And the french definitely dont want to learn

Derailing

Chunks: Latin as second language is no problem - I myself had Latin from 5th year to 11th and only chose english as third language (7th to 13th). With that latin I learned back then I can read most of spanish, portugese, french and italian texts (although it might take a little longer).

2d-chris: I can see your point of one single language being easier, but at least for as far as I am concerned, I'd rather stay with my mother-tongue as it is more than just a bunch of grammar-rules and vocabularies, but a kind of identification and it expresses due to it's sounding and construction alot about the connected society and it's traditions and values. Kind of old example (which I can't prove, but it's something I read in a linguistics book years back): The Eskimos have more than 15 words for snow, while if they translate it to english it just stays "snow" - their special connection to snow and ice is expressed through theyr language. Same goes for german, where we created 20 words for different beer kinds, and if you look at the card in an anglo-sachsian restaurant it just says "Beers". On behalf of the grammar, german is much stricter than spanish for example and it kind of fits the stereo-type of the persons you connect with it. And last but not least: There has been a common language in science twice before in history: Until the early 17th century, most scientists spoke latin, then until some point in the early 20th century german was the language of choice and then english became the major language in scientific communication.

Hourences/Gloglebag: Don't see this. We still dub all of our shows and everyone I know speaks fluent english.

15 words for snow? Sound about time they stopped that non sense and speak english!

Ofcourse people now are going to disagree, but it's happening even if they don't like the idea of it. Every generation brings new views no matter how crazy they might seem at this point in time.

On the other hand english has thousands of examples for spanking the monkey

Quote from e-freak

Derailing Hourences/Gloglebag: Don't see this. We still dub all of our shows and everyone I know speaks fluent english.

There are far more people in the nordic countries or countries like Holland that speak English. I have met barely anyone in Germany that could speak english at a decent level, every time I have visited germany. The germans their english is far from good compared to your smaller neighbors.

Edit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... population

Germany 56% of the population can speak English

Sweden 89% (!)

France 36%

Holland 87% (!)

Spain 27%

Denmark 86%

Italy 29%

make that 99.9% for denmark !

Quote from Warby

make that 99.9% for denmark !

When the PS generation takes over I'd guess we'll have about 99% in Scandinavia. I wonder what Norway is at, I think we're pretty high.

In nearly 2 years in sweden i have only met two natives who couldn't speak fluent english. Hell even the drunk bums can tell you in perfect english how they traveled the Route 66 in the 1970's. I think the swedes even speak better english then the english because they don't have all the crazy accents that are so hard to understand.

Quote from Hourences

Germany 56% of the population can speak English

Sweden 89% (!)

France 36%

Holland 87% (!)

Spain 27%

Denmark 86%

Italy 29%

Display More

Germany 45 million

Sweden 8 million

France 23 million

Holland 14 million

Spain 12 million

Denmark 4.7 million

Italy 17 million

Doesn't look that bad for France, does it? ;D

germans dub their porn

Quote from e-freak

Same goes for german, where we created 20 words for different beer kinds, and if you look at the card in an anglo-sachsian restaurant it just says "Beers".

Beer, dark beer, light beer, Ale, Lager, Mead, do liquors like vodka, schnapps, rum, etc. count under those 20 words, too? Because the eskimo thing is similarly tilted. Those 20 words for snow include sleet, mud, hail, frost, ice, black ice, precipitation snow, snow banks, etc. There's nothing you can explicitly say in the eskimo language you can't in english. You just need a couple extra qualifier words for some cases.