Immigrants, and also all of mainland Europe: Momentary confusion until we remember that secondary language is optional and frequently opted-out in some cultures.
secondary language is optional and frequently opted-out in some cultures
When I (United Statesian) went to college, I was able to take a programming class (in Pascal) and use that to satisfy the foreign language requirement for graduation. Just absolute nonsense.
Sometimes three if you live in a zone where there is a second language on top of the more generalistic ones (talking about Catalunya, or Euskadi in Spain, for example).
That’s a bit of an overgeneralization, at least in the Netherlands kids learn a couple words of English in elementary school, but for most I wouldn’t say they speak the language until well into highschool.
Whether you learn to speak a language has very little to do with school lessons anyhow. We had french from elementary school in the UK till I was 16, and I’d estimate my fluency at A2-B1. A combination of excessive focus on grammar, painfully slow lessons, and utterly no exposure outside of the classroom means nobody learns it. As an adult I’ve moved to another country speaking another language, attending language lessons, and I’m seeing this pattern again- the classmates who never use the language at home or work barely seem to make progress beyond a certain point, whereas those using it at home, socially or at work are making lightning fast progress.
Incidentally this is a big reason that it’s common for wealthy people to hire nannies or tutors that speak another language to live with their children and teach them.
It’s not as though passive exposure is enough on its own though - without at least some effort on behalf of both the learner and others, people don’t learn
Immigrants, and also all of mainland Europe: Momentary confusion until we remember that secondary language is optional and frequently opted-out in some cultures.
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When I (United Statesian) went to college, I was able to take a programming class (in Pascal) and use that to satisfy the foreign language requirement for graduation. Just absolute nonsense.
Sometimes three if you live in a zone where there is a second language on top of the more generalistic ones (talking about Catalunya, or Euskadi in Spain, for example).
That’s a bit of an overgeneralization, at least in the Netherlands kids learn a couple words of English in elementary school, but for most I wouldn’t say they speak the language until well into highschool.
Whether you learn to speak a language has very little to do with school lessons anyhow. We had french from elementary school in the UK till I was 16, and I’d estimate my fluency at A2-B1. A combination of excessive focus on grammar, painfully slow lessons, and utterly no exposure outside of the classroom means nobody learns it. As an adult I’ve moved to another country speaking another language, attending language lessons, and I’m seeing this pattern again- the classmates who never use the language at home or work barely seem to make progress beyond a certain point, whereas those using it at home, socially or at work are making lightning fast progress.
Incidentally this is a big reason that it’s common for wealthy people to hire nannies or tutors that speak another language to live with their children and teach them.
It’s not as though passive exposure is enough on its own though - without at least some effort on behalf of both the learner and others, people don’t learn