Looking For Belly Dance Classes In Stockholm

[Moon]

My American friend had some Spanish lessons at his highschool and he said the lessons were so bad he eventually chose to join the choir instead.

 

[Sara]

In England languages are getting more popular. My sister takes German, I speak French quite a bit, and Romanian and Romany (two dialects) and Spanish a very tiny weeny bit.

A lot of people here in England are foriegn so there's lots of languages floating around.

I understand Eastern European languages better though. No idea about Sweedish or Dutch or anything

I think it's easy for people who speak English and it makes them a bit lazy, like when my family go to Spain or somewhere, even when my aunte speaks Spanish fluently, she still speaks English.

 

[Kiraze]

So, we hear other languages all the time from a very young age already, and often we learn a bit of one or more languages at high school. I think that might make us more curious to learn different languages, and maybe we are more used at the sound of other languages besides are own.

This is very true at least in smaller European countries: in Finland we start first foreign language (usually English) and also 2nd domestic language (usually Swedish) already on lower grades and it is quite common to learn one or two languages more on High School (I had German, French and Spanish although cannot speak any of those well as because of lack of use I have forgotten most of the words and same goes with Swedish too which I can understand without problems but do not ask me to speak or write in it ). But I have noticed that in bigger European countries like UK, Germany and France most people really speak just their own language

English is just so common everywhere that easily it is the only foreign language you really need (unless going to South America) - here in Singapore I have thought that it could be a good to perhaps learn some Mandarin or Bahasa (Malay) but also that would be mostly just for fun as everybody speaks English anyway (or Singlish, which can be quite interesting )

 

[Aniseteph]

....But I have noticed that in bigger European countries like UK, Germany and France most people really speak just their own language...

Good point - can't speak for France and Germany but in the UK we are notoriously rubbish at bothering with languages, hence the old stereotypes of us going abroad and just shouting peculiar English slowly at people. . My husband speaks Dutch (a bit. Slowly), so when he's embarrassed by boorish British tourists abroad he pretends to be Dutch. Only the Dutch pick up on this straight away and start speaking faultless English at him .

Moon's right about hearing other languages being the key - you can see some point in learning it, and you get used to the sound. We have very little of that in our mainstream media, so kids think what's the point?

BTW, seriously impressed with everyone's English on this forum. You guys (sorry, gals and guys) are amazing...