I didn't mean that, for instance, an English speaker might learn Italian more faster than a French speaker. French and Italian are sister languages...or so they say. Just that the English language is so huge and borrowed a lot that the people I see in ESL seem to struggle a lot with the bulky and sometimes impractical uses we have for language. It might be a pride thing, or maybe not. I dunno. Some of the people we met in Oslo or Tallinn spoke better English than anyone I've ever met. If Americans wanted to be really snobbish, we could rename our dialect something less Brit-y. :)
Obviously there are other factors besides the school system, too. It's just that often students don't start learning other languages until high school, and then it's harder, and kids in ESL are taking English lessons from a person who probably doesn't speak their language. We could do better. We ought to try and do better.
Meh. I haven't thought about it all that much, and I have class in a bit, so I haven't got a lot of time to organize my thoughts. That will have to do.
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Date: 2009-04-07 05:33 pm (UTC)Obviously there are other factors besides the school system, too. It's just that often students don't start learning other languages until high school, and then it's harder, and kids in ESL are taking English lessons from a person who probably doesn't speak their language. We could do better. We ought to try and do better.
Meh. I haven't thought about it all that much, and I have class in a bit, so I haven't got a lot of time to organize my thoughts. That will have to do.