i just returned from 2 weeks in china, where the english - where it appears - can be even stranger. but i found the original article pretty silly, as it somehow assumes japan _should_ be careful about english. sure, they teach all kids bad english. how many schools in an english speaking country teach their kids _any_ other language to any degree of competence?
while the US is famously monoglot (and the signs in san jose restaurants saying that "employees must wash their hands" in spanish and vietnamese doesn't change this), the contrast is even starker in europe. while most well educated people, politicians and businessmen - or even supermarket attendants, in some countries - in europe speak 2, 3 or 4 languages, the brits are pathetically monoglot. this is becoming a disadvantage for them even when common business is conducted in english - typically, spaniards speaking to swedes will use a form of english that they - and poles, germans and greeks - can understand, but nobody will have any idea what the guy from london (or worse, glasgow) is saying. english dominates as a common, second language, but this means there are already more speakers of english as a second language than as a first language. as is most clear in europe, focussing on "correct" english may sound nice, but in fact native speakers of english are at a disadvantage when it comes to using "communicable" english. non-native speakers typically use less precise definitions of words, speak more slowly and clearly, and use a vocabulary drawn from other languages with meanings somewhat different from similar words in english. best, rishab On Wed, Nov 08, 2006 at 09:00:25AM +0530, Divya Sampath wrote: > > "Thaths" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >http://www.timwerx.net/language/englished.htm >
