I studied the native language of my own country for eleven years at school, along with five years of German. I absolutely could not claim to be an expert in either subject when I finished my education. So, what is it that sets Scandinavians apart from anyone else wishing to achieve fluency in a foreign language? The main reason Scandinavians push to become fluent in foreign languages is unsurprising.
Knowing the language native to your country brings many benefits, in a cultural and community sense. The Scandinavian languages have a rich history and the fact that they have not fallen to extinction as the East Germanic languages have done is to be commended. Scandinavians recognise that there is a need to learn foreign languages, particularly if they wish to maintain relevancy on the global stage.
As English is considered the main international language, there is a particular emphasis put on learning this language, above all others.
In a recent poll, all three Scandinavian countries made the top five in terms of nationalities who love to travel. Consider this. Although this is a number that is on the rise, do take into account the diversity of the landscape within the United States.
The Nordic countries make for visually stunning getaways, with unique cultural experiences such as the midnight sun and northern lights. I believe there are many advantages to travelling without using English. However, it is the third most common native language in the world. For people who love to travel, there is no argument against English being a smart choice for a second language.
With the growth of China, the Mandarin language is also becoming more important, but for now English is still the number one language for business. Therefore if young people want to open up more opportunities for travel and work, having fluency in English is a crucial skill to increase human capital. Scandinavians tend to accept this readily and are happy and willing to embrace English in their education and culture whenever they can.
They see that it is ultimately beneficial to them long term and are happy to take any chance to practice it, even if it is just watching an English language film or TV show. This contrasts to other countries, which sometimes have a cultural mindset that is resistant to learning English. The learning of English is not always encouraged so much in other countries, for a number of reasons, which include:. Lots of countries like Japan are pouring public money into trying to teach youngsters English in schools, only for spoken proficiency rates to remain very low.
Some South American countries have the same problem. How can governments there make better use of the money they are spending on English teaching to actually get competency rates up in the general population?
Here are some general pointers that we think other countries could take from Scandinavian countries to increase the proficiency of English among their younger populations. Their model seems to work very well in producing youngsters fluent in English:. Rigorous teaching of English — Teach youngsters lots of English from a young age, making it a core subject which is studied most or all days and not just for a few hours a week. Make teaching focused on practical, verbal competency and not just learning dry vocabulary lists and basic written English.
Also give youngsters plenty of practice understanding spoken English, with different accents and dialects, since this is the hardest thing to pick up learning any language. Use cultural influences — Encourage the use of undubbed English language media like films, TV shows and sports, both in the classroom and in the wider culture.
It makes the learning more fun to have some practical resources and also helps young people to get better at understanding different accents, tones, slang etc. Scandinavians are constantly exposed to spoken English from a young age and this is what makes them so good at understanding it.
Emphasise the importance of English — For business, travel, job prospects and so on. It is a noticeable aspect of Scandinavians that they do not seem to resent having to learn English, but instead accept that it is necessary to better their prospects and embrace English language influences into their culture.
Their mindset is very open and not so resistant, and so they are much more willing to learn English. Italian is in many ways one of the most beautiful and flowing languages when we hear it spoken, but it is also not one of the easier ones to learn in my experience.
Learning vocabulary, verbs and Malaysia is a very vibrant and growing country in South East Asia, with a tropical climate and plenty of lure for tourists. But how widely spoken is English there? The researchers posit that countries where English-language television and films are subtitled rather than dubbed into the local language see a boost to the English-speaking skills of their people. Subtitling is particularly helpful with viewers' English listening skills, the study suggests.
This is by no means the only factor. A country's investment into education and how similar its native language is to English are very important. But the effect may be pronounced enough to account for much of the difference between otherwise similar countries. The researchers highlight the Netherlands and Austria as two small countries with similar expenditure on education. In the Netherlands, 87 percent of the population say they can hold a conversation in English, whereas in Austria this number is 53 percent.
The Netherlands subtitles much of its English-language programming, whereas Austria tends to use dubbed German. Interestingly, the researchers suggest that, typically, the choice of particular countries to opt for subtitling over dubbing tends to date back to around World War II, and be influenced either by cost subtitling is cheaper or the tendency towards subtitling in countries with a native language less widely used internationally.
This is important, because the researchers argue that countries that opted for subtitling would not have had a higher baseline for English proficiency to begin with. In other words, they argue causation, not correlation.
And according to separate research, no country in the OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has made the switch from subtitling to dubbing, or vice versa, since the war. Poland comes closest, with the switch to subtitling made for its TV channel TVP2, aimed at young people. A more widespread switch was met with strong opposition. Polling various populations, the European Commission found a strong preference for dubbing in countries that dub, and subtitling in countries that subtitle, which would help to explain why switches from dubbing to subtitling haven't happened.
They almost never need to ask you to repeat anything you say, even if you talk quickly, use slang or have a strong accent. This is the crucial difference we found between the Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Norway, which have very high English fluency across the board, and some of the Asian countries which pour huge amounts of money into teaching English in schools, but still have very low spoken proficiency levels among the general population. Visiting places like Thailand and Japan for instances, you are lucky to find English speakers, and have to speak very slowly to be understood even when you do.
Teaching has to be regular, focused on verbal competency, and supplemented by undubbed English language cultural influences such as films and TV for young people to really pick it up to the point they can be confident and fluent speaking and understanding it by the time they are adults. This is a consistent factor which separates the countries which have high English proficiency from those that do not.
That said, despite the very widespread prevalence of English in Denmark, it is generally advised that people moving there longer term for work or retirement should still learn some Danish. As with most countries, it opens up more social and work opportunities and integrates you better into the culture to learn the local language.
Danish will generally be needed if you are staying there more permanently. Despite Danish not strictly being needed for tourists visiting, it is still nice to learn some basic everyday phrases to show your appreciation for the culture and the language.
For people moving there longer term it is also a good idea to learn some Danish to open up more social and work opportunities. As you can see, the pronunciation of Danish is not always straightforward or how it appears on screen, with lots of letters simply dropped or pronounced very differently to English.
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