Why are so many Spanish neurotic about their English?
They ain’t the Dutch or Danish, they are probably right when they repeat over and over that they have worse listening comprehension than the Portuguese because most things are dubbed in Spain, and no one is going to outdo the number and ages of Cambridge Proficiency passees in Greece, but the Spanish generally do okay.
Not famous for their modesty, I think the reason for the Spanish beating themselves up in public all the time about their difficulties with the English tongue is more to do with the standards they set themselves. More than any other country I have been in, the Spanish pride themselves on being able to use their own tongue fluently, creatively and with a wide ranging vocabulary (plus a wide range of accents and slang when they get drunk). Not only are their studiously practised Spanish idioms and rude phrases connected to communion wafers unlikely to translate well into English, they are, in common with the rest of the world, unlikely to be able to express themselves that well in English. Therefore, a lot of them get the Cambridge exam of their choice and give English up to be able to be as expressive as they like in a language that, after all, isn’t that bad for international communication either.
In contrast, a lot of Japanese, especially Japanese women, find themselves able to express themselves better in Pre-Intermediate English than they can in their own famously non-expressive and gender-specific language.
Prompted by a post on the View of Madrid blog.
July 15th, 2010 at 12:00 am
That’s a contentious last paragraph, Alex.
July 15th, 2010 at 12:59 am
Contentious, me?
Actually based partly on my reading, although as usual I can’t remember what or where. One thing I remember is research where many female Japanese students said that they liked English language debate clubs because in a Japanese language version they were forever at a disadvantage due to having to use more polite, respectful and indirect language that is “suitable” for their gender
July 15th, 2010 at 1:49 am
There is something in that, but you might find that the new generation of Japanese men is much more passive and that young women are generally taking the lead. It hasn’t quite filtered into the workplace yet, but it will.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/06/05/japan.herbivore.men/index.html
July 17th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Wow, been a long time since if i screwed around in the TEFLsphere, but this one caught my eye!
I think you have a point about the richness of coloquial Spanish, in fact i think thats something that turns off students here quite a bit, when they ask for suggestions of how to render a certain idiomatic expression and arent satisfied with the result, which leads them to the conclusion that “English is boring”.