Chinese (and other) pilots unable to speak English pose danger for air travel (CNN)

Wolfgang Schwanke writes:

Americans who speak perfect English are rare too.

They speak it far better than Germans, for obvious reasons.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Wolfgang Schwanke writes:

Americans who speak perfect English are rare too.

They speak it far better than Germans, for obvious reasons.

Not obvious to me. Every german I know speaks perfect english, although with
an accent.

El Maximo writes:

Not obvious to me. Every german I know speaks perfect english, although with
an accent.

I hardly know any Germans who speak perfect English.

Mxsmanic wrote:
El Maximo writes:

Not obvious to me. Every german I know speaks perfect english, although
with
an accent.

I hardly know any Germans who speak perfect English.

You live in France.

I live in a third country, neither Germany nor France, but with a large
number of expats from both.

Most of the Germans I know arrived here with decent or fluent English
and within a few years were perfectly fluent.

Most of the French I know arrived here with almost no usable English and
had to spend evenings doing tuition in order to catch up. All but one
have thick accents and use very strange constructions on a very regular
basis.

On the other hand, they are much more interested in the language and its
eccentricities than the Germans, who seem to just regard English as a
basic skill to be mastered and then taken for granted.

miguel
--
Hit the road! Photos from around the world: http://travel.u.nu
Detailed airport information: http://airport.u.nu

"Miguel Cruz" wrote

On the other hand, they are much more interested in the language and its
eccentricities than the Germans, who seem to just regard English as a
basic skill to be mastered and then taken for granted.

Today, most Germans learn English in school from an early age, and speak very
good "British" English.
--
Jim in NC

Morgans writes:

Today, most Germans learn English in school from an early age, and speak very
good "British" English.

Many people learn English from an early age in school. Unfortunately, this is
no guarantee of competence in English.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
El Maximo writes:

Not obvious to me. Every german I know speaks perfect english, although
with
an accent.

I hardly know any Germans who speak perfect English.

The fact that you hardly know them not surprising. The Germans I know are
also pretty bright, therefore they would steer clear of the likes of you.

"El Maximo" wrote ...
"Mxsmanic" wrote...
El Maximo writes:

Not obvious to me. Every german I know speaks perfect english, although
with
an accent.

I hardly know any Germans who speak perfect English.

The fact that you hardly know them not surprising. The Germans I know are
also pretty bright, therefore they would steer clear of the likes of you.


As a group, I suspect that Scandinavians are more likely to be "effective"
English speakers than are Germans, and in my experience the Dutch are more
likely to be at least semi-fluent in English than are other nationalities.
Obviously, the English and US citizens (other than Hispanics) are among the
most likely to be mono-lingual. Were it not for tourism and commerce, I
have my doubts whether more than a half-dozen French residents would speak
English....

I'm fairly fluent in a brand of Spanish spoken in San Luis Potosi, Mexico,
before 1914, the place and time of origin of most of the early
Spanish-speaking residents of my home town, but likely to draw smiles in
Madrid. After a few days of stumbling, I can once more "get by" in a sort
of Italian quite understandable to Italians in Central and Southern Italy.
My French consists of long lost and hard to reclaim bits of a maritime and
littoral lingua franca, good at ship-chandlers, agents, port services, bars,
restaurants, hotels, transportation services and, I suppose, in the
occasional maison du tolerance. Vietnamese? Once terse, inadequate, and
minimally functional. Now, none of the above and any remaining much clouded
by the passage of time.

That's not much to be proud of, but a clear leg up on most of my US
contemporaries. My father who spoke fair Chinese would be proud of my
youngest daughter who speaks a barbarous brand of "Post Hole" TexMex, but
decent commercial Chinese (Mandarin?) for the marketplace in which she
works. She claims that her commercial contacts are more and more likely to
speak English.

TMO

TMOliver,

As a group, I suspect that Scandinavians are more likely to be "effective"
English speakers than are Germans, and in my experience the Dutch are more
likely to be at least semi-fluent in English than are other nationalities.


One of the more interesting reasons for this: In Germany, TV shows/movies are
dubbed to German language. In Scandinavia and the Netherlands, they are
subtitled. This has been shown to influence English literacy greatly.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

TMOliver writes:

As a group, I suspect that Scandinavians are more likely to be "effective"
English speakers than are Germans, and in my experience the Dutch are more
likely to be at least semi-fluent in English than are other nationalities.

My experience is that the Dutch are the best at English overall. Of course,
they have no choice, since nobody is going to learn Dutch. However, the
notion that everyone from the Netherlands is fluent in English is quite false.
Unless they have reason to use English regularly, their English is often very
spotty, and hardly fluent. Still, when one compares their competence in
English to that of people in many Latin countries, they shine.