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

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Not so. There are far more than one billion speakers of English in the
world.

And about two thirds of them are in India...

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.

William Black wrote:

"David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)" wrote in message
...

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Nope.

About 300 million Indians speak some Hindi.

About 700 million speak some English

I was talking about India.

Mind you, in a lot of cases for both languages it's the taxi driver's
'where to?'

Well, I can answer that in Hindi!

--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"Abominable, loyal, blind, apparently subservient."
Pres. Carter on Pres. Blair- May, 2007

William Black wrote:

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Not so. There are far more than one billion speakers of English in the
world.

And about two thirds of them are in India...

Where are you getting that figure?

--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"Abominable, loyal, blind, apparently subservient."
Pres. Carter on Pres. Blair- May, 2007

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

Next to English, Arabic,
Mandarin, Spanish and Hindi are far more important than French.

It's the other way around. If you can't find someone who speaks English,
the
next language you try is French.

Other than in South Louisiana (and then with mixed and amusing result), I
certainly wouldn't try that progression in the US (and if you think so, it's
even more obvious how "out of touch" you are. Second choice would certainly
be Spanish, even in Washington, DC, trusting that in the crowd there are
some for whom it's the first language and for others learned as needed in
supervisory, commercial or self-interest capacity. While the "Taquerias" of
Chicago line the way to Midway Airport, the sounds of Spanish are apparent
inside the fortresses inside the Loop (although spoken mostly by the hired
help).

Back in the early 60s, when I did a bit of Navy courier duty, French was not
only Tehran's second language, it was spoken by most of the elite or those
pretending to be. Even with anti-US feelings these days, English is by far
the prevailing second language in the country.

TMO

"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)

"Miguel Cruz" wrote in message
news:spam-95493A.19290709072007@localhost...

I think the main linguistic consequence of India's economic growth will
be an improvement in the standard of English throughout India.

In what way exactly?

Most Indian undergraduates are already required to have a good command of
English before they can get into university.

The Indians I meet speak good, if rather 'over precise' English.

The major problem with Indians is that they expect people to speak English
with the same precision they use. And people don't.

English in India is usually taught in a way that requires the speaker to
have a slight and distinct pause after each word. many Indians who have
been taught that way have problems understanding people who speak English as
their native tongue

Indians who learn English as their first language (About 10% of the
population) do not speak like this and do not have this problem.

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.

"David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)" wrote in message
...
William Black wrote:

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Not so. There are far more than one billion speakers of English in the
world.

And about two thirds of them are in India...

Where are you getting that figure?

It was in the Times of India some time ago.

But as I said, the level of English spoken is rather mixed.

However every child who has been to some sort of school in India has learned
some English.

It's the major official language, and a lot more popular than Hindi in
school for older kids.

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.

"David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)" wrote in message
...
William Black wrote:

"David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)" wrote in message
...

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Nope.

About 300 million Indians speak some Hindi.

About 700 million speak some English

I was talking about India.

Mind you, in a lot of cases for both languages it's the taxi driver's
'where to?'

Well, I can answer that in Hindi!

I'm still laughing about a taxi ride I had in Bombay this year.

We were thundering along and my wife said 'Which way to Goregor?'

The taxi driver said 'That way, that way' (In English)

My wife shouted and pointed at a roadsign 'No, that way, can't you read
the sign' (Which was in Hindi).

Taxi driver (In Marathi) 'If I could read I wouldn't be driving this
cab...'

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.

William Black wrote:

"David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)" wrote in message
...
William Black wrote:

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Not so. There are far more than one billion speakers of English in the
world.

And about two thirds of them are in India...

Where are you getting that figure?

It was in the Times of India some time ago.

It sounds like an extraordinary exaggeration to me.

But as I said, the level of English spoken is rather mixed.

However every child who has been to some sort of school in India has learned
some English.

It's the major official language, and a lot more popular than Hindi in
school for older kids.

I spent a couple of months in Delhi when I was a teenager, and did a lot
of school visits there, as a sort of cultural 'ambassador.' Almost
anyone I had any dealings with in Delhi spoke fluent English- and
certainly the kids in schools did- though it was a potent mix of Hindi
and English on the whole. However, if you're saying that nearly 700
million people in India speak English, then I think that's severely
exaggerated. Unless "hello" and "goodbye" counts as speaking English.
Maybe the situation has changed since I was there, but just in terms of
encountering people in shops (outside tourist areas), servants, scooter
drivers and the like- hardly any spoke any kind of English.

Oh, and I think that Miguel's point was that as the economy grows, more
kids will go to school, and on to University, speaking English and so
on.

--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"Abominable, loyal, blind, apparently subservient."
Pres. Carter on Pres. Blair- May, 2007