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[Caxi]

A question to Caxi and other English speaking members and Italians as well: am I right to think that many Brits have problems pronouncing Italian names correct by linguistic nature? Or is it that just the commentators? Sometimes I hear the most horrendous examples...

Native English speakers in general are very bad with other languages. Maybe it's because the accent sticks out more but I've never heard a native English speaker who has perfected Italian sounds, particularly 'gli' and the rolling 'rr'.

Cash is spot on in relation to English.

It's because native English speakers tend not to know the value of pronunciation because they never have the need to learn it. As far as I am aware, you can go through your life in the UK just with the English language at your disposal, so the linguistic skills of the nation is far from impressive. The onus is on non-English speakers to make the effort with you.

Not the same in Ireland - you can't get into 99% of university courses here without knowing English, Irish and a foreign language of some sort and without a decent standard of Irish, you can't get paid by the government. We have to learn how to pronounce sounds, not many, but some. But of course if the country was multi-lingual, we'd be better at it.

[Caxi]

Caxi is correct regarding sounds, but this is not a very big issue when learning a language.

It is a big issue in retaining a language, surely. Everyone in Ireland spends 13 years learning Irish but nobody can speak it. The reason is that we never have to use it in every day life. There are some areas in Ireland where English is not spoken at all, but the onus is on them to learn English, being the minority.

If there's no reason to speak another language, then there's no reason to learn how to pronounce properly.

[Caput Mundi]

It's a fair point about the need to learn a language.

In Australia, it's even worse as not even English grammar is taught in schools any longer. This means that very few Australians can actually use their own first language correctly and basic grammatical errors (which 12-year old Germans who study English would never make) are made often by supposedly educated Australians.

But on the language learning process, I believe the younger you are, the more an advantage you have. As a child, I spent extended time in Italy with my family before I started school. I absorbed Italian like a sponge and essentially was bilingual from the get-go. Obviously it deteriorated as I stopped using it but when I again had the need to use it, it was there and didn't require much relearning.

This is compared to the example of Irish, where I'm guessing it is learnt in schools once children reach a certain age and never used in society. So nobody can speak Irish, because they have never had a need to use it. Nor has the language been 'absorbed'. At what age do kids start learning Irish?

[Caxi]

It's a fair point about the need to learn a language.

In Australia, it's even worse as not even English grammar is taught in schools any longer. This means that very few Australians can actually use their own first language correctly and basic grammatical errors (which 12-year old Germans who study English would never make) are made often by supposedly educated Australians.

But on the language learning process, I believe the younger you are, the more an advantage you have. As a child, I spent extended time in Italy with my family before I started school. I absorbed Italian like a sponge and essentially was bilingual from the get-go. Obviously it deteriorated as I stopped using it but when I again had the need to use it, it was there and didn't require much relearning.

This is compared to the example of Irish, where I'm guessing it is learnt in schools once children reach a certain age and never used in society. So nobody can speak Irish, because they have never had a need to use it. Nor has the language been 'absorbed'. At what age do kids start learning Irish?

4 years-old, give or take (you can start school at 3 if you want, but 4 would be the average).

Irish is a fascinating example, even for me because it is such a minor language that the whole country 'learns' for a sustained period of time and yet can anyone speak it?

The other problem with Irish is dialect - the word 'raibh' for example, is pronounced 'row' (as in your boat) where I come from, but 'riv' or ''row' (as in argument) elsewhere. So you go to school, learn 'book' Irish and then at 12-13, you are taught your own dialect. Imagine the confusion when you are told you are speaking the language 'wrong'.

[Caput Mundi]

I'd think dialect would be an issue with learning most languages, Italian, Spanish, Arabic etc.

The fortunate thing with English is its quite standard - the differences between British, American, Canadian, Australian and South African English are quite minor.

Dialects and idiomatic expressions are all part of learning a language though. Speaking a textbook language is useful for a holiday or meeting people but to really get inside a culture, you need to learn native expressions and understand their meanings.

[ArmLaziale]

Yea, it is much easier to absorb a language at younger age. I remember learning russian in school when I just started it at the age of 7, it took me 3 years to learn the basics, but after that I never really put much effort in improving it, simply because it was always there for me, part of that played the environment, you could hear russian anywhere in Armenia as it was heavily influenced by it's Soviet heritage.
On the other hand I started learning English at the age of 16-17, it only took to learn the grammar and after that I just built on it by forums, movies and so on.
Armenian on the other hand, is a whole another story, it does not belong to any of the linguistic groups, as it's a language of it's own with words that have no similarities to other languages, but it's grammar is not complicated, it only takes to get used to the sounds, we have many of them, which make the language very fluent, I am in Bulgaria now, but my name hasn't been pronounced correctly from the first time yet. Btw, Bulgarian is an easy language to learn, once you get used to any of the slavonic languages, it doesn't take much to learn the others, I can understand serbian, macedonian.
Today I am starting french, it's going to be my first lesson and I have no idea what to expect, but I have the will to learn it, so let's see what happens ^^

[Secret_Samadhi]

I think finnish, corean, japanese, chinese are impossible languages to learn. At least when I hear someone speak those.

[Hadi Van Der Vaart]

The discussion is very interesting for me. I will bookmark these pages because I will need it maybe as for my references for my thesis next year. :D

Btw, maybe some of you who live in Europe don't find many problems in learning English because basically the origin for some languages in Europe are the same, Latin and Greek. And English itself comes from Latin, Celt and Germanic. Beside that, roman emperor and Scandinavian had came to England long time ago. As a result, some of vocabulary will be the same. For me, who everyday use Indonesia, and the origin of my language is far away different with English, it will be hard for me to learn English.

And for the accent, I love Irish accent just because I love The Corrs. I like to watch some of their interviews on the internet and pay attention with their pronunciation and sometimes I try to imitate them. But, it's very hard for my tongue. :D

[Caput Mundi]

I studied Indonesian for two years over a decade ago and it was quite easy to learn, actually. I know a few people who can speak it.

I remember very little now, unfortunately.

[Hadi Van Der Vaart]

Where did u study it? Did u study with native speakers??
Because I only have one lecturer who is a native speaker here. :D