In my experience, people from northern Europe (Scandinavia, Netherlands and about) achieve a very high level of proficiency in English through their education systems. Other countries (in particular mine, but Japan is another example) struggle, and miserably fail, to keep up.
I've always known this, but today it struck me as an interesting discussion topic that could be helpful in regards to the study of any language, namely our beloved Japanese.

So, here's what I'd like to hear from the many Northern European fellows on this site: how does your public English language education method work? Surely it must be different from the ones I'm accustomed to. Is it just class-driven or does it imply a large amount of individual study/immersion too?

Thanks in advance for any useful insight!

Sweden:

Well, first of all, we start studying English REALLY early. 2nd or 3rd grade, usually 3rd. From that point on, we have several English classes a week for 7-9 years depending on what you decide to study in High school. Of course, the study methods change over this long time so I can't really remember how we learned in the start... but we used textbooks for at least the first 4 years, of that I'm sure. Lots of listening, lots of reading. I can't remember many speaking exercises but we might have had those as well. In high school, we mainly read English novels, watch English TV and write English essays.

The time invested in English in school is just part of the reason though. Most music on Swedish radio is English. Most TV shows are in English, we have ALL the stuff from the US on Swedish TV including all the crappy sitcoms. Sweden is also one of the countries with the best IT infrastructure in the world, pretty much every single Swede uses the internet every day, and we generally visit English sites.

To the point, our exposure of English is massive. Even the few Swedish people who are horrible at English probably have quite good comprehension, and most of them has probably had a lot more English exposure than the average Japanese.

Note: I typed this up before Tobberoth posted.

I've also wondered about this before.

I have zero experience with any European country's educational system (I'm American), however I can think of one big reason: languages that developed in northwestern Europe all share common Germanic roots. Due to the languages sharing origins and aspects, even if Japan and "northern Europe" shared the same educational methods, I'd presume that the people who already natively speak a Germanic language would find English about four times as easy than Japanese people.

Considering that a Japanese college graduate has studied English for 10 years, I'd assume that someone from Sweden would only have to study for around two to three years to get to the same level of (in)competency.
Site to show I didn't simply pull numbers out of my ass. Primarily Germanic and Romance languages make up the easiest category, with Japanese coming in at the hardest. I can't find that actual FSI site that the wikibook sourced from (they seem to have moved pages around recently), however I remember it putting Japanese as a Category III language PLUS giving it an asterisk, making it effectively the hardest rated language at the institute. While those numbers or for native English learners, for the most part I can see them being useful for reverse lookup as well.

So then, why does the American language system suck? It's because very few people actually care. The American mindset is that if English is going to be the world's lingua franca, then why bother? In high school I took French, and all I really cared about were the special days when we made crêpes. I'm sure there's something about the pedagogy that's wonky, but really I feel that that's the secondary cause, not the primary.

I know plenty of fellow classmates of mine in the US that studied Spanish--seriously--and became quite good at it within the normal education system. The reason for that is simple in that Spanish can be quite useful even if you never leave the shores of the US (the US has one of the largest Spanish-speaking populations in the world).

In short:
related language + usefulness/probability of use + motivation = PROFIT


Now I'll wait for someone actually from stated countries to pop in and say something.

Spoonsman,
while the language similarities may be a factor (especially regarding pronunciation, i think), in my opinion they account to only a small part of the explanation. For example, in the link you gave me Italian is listed among the "similar" languages. However the average level of English spoken here is at least as low as it is in Japan.

Tobberoth,
from what you say I can make some interesting comparisons with the way things are done in my country. For example, we don't have American TV here (well lately it's popping up on satellite/digital TV but it's not widespread). So our listening practice is limited to 4-5 hours a week, at school, and the quality of the material (usually non-native teachers) is very suspicious.
We don't get much reading practice either, outside of some stupid homework (usually consisting in answering a few questions about a 10-lines-long paragraph). The only time we actually read something, as far as I recall, was in the last year of HS with a few of the stories in Joyce's "Dubliners".

Anyway, the AJATT/Antimoon/Krashen/whatever theory seems to be confirmed. That's not a surprise, but it's good to know.


Apart from the exposure thing, however, I think there is also a psychological factor, to some degree. While the people in the northern countries see the use of the English language as a normal and natural thing, elsewhere there appears to be a general "fear" for it, as though it was difficult or impenetrable. Of course this becomes an 悪循環 (vicious circle) or "self-realizing-prophecy" (I've always wanted to use both terms, so excuse me ).

So, to recap regarding the reason why our pals from the North Sea are so awesome, my version of the equation is:
LANGUAGE SIMILARITIES (10%?) + PSYCHOLOGY (10%?) + EXPOSURE (80%?) = WIN

Hmm, I ended up writing an essay, sorry.

If people from Scandinavia have above average English skills, I don't think it is because of the educational system but because only a limited amount of books, TV and other edutainment are translated to Danish. We are simply forced to learn English, no matter we want to or not. And if you are going abroad, you definitely need another language besides Danish (unless you are going to Norway or Sweden of course).
I think Japan has the opposite problem. They learn English in school but has no need for it, since all imported edutainment is translated to Japanese. Then there is no motivation for learning a second language. Back in school I were forced to study German for five years. When I left school I hurried to forget all German I had learned, because I didn't know what to use it for - the same situation as Japanese students taking English lessons.

sprutnik Wrote:I think Japan has the opposite problem. They learn English in school but has no need for it, since all imported edutainment is translated to Japanese. Then there is no motivation for learning a second language.

Oddly enough, this is exactly why my motivation is having a problem for the last few months. I look at everything I want to do in Japanese and it's translated into English before I've even heard of it. There's very little real pressure for me to learn Japanese.

There are a few exceptions here and there, though. Gundam Musou 2 came out a few months earlier in Japan than the US. In fact, I played and was done with it months ago and my English-only friends are still waiting for it.

Dennou Coil (the light novels) never got translated that I can find... In fact, very few light novels get translated. It was an awesome anime and I'm dying to read the novels.

sprutnik Wrote:If people from Scandinavia have above average English skills, I don't think it is because of the educational system but because only a limited amount of books, TV and other edutainment are translated to Danish.

I see. But could this not be a consequence of the above average proficiency level, instead of a cause? If everybody understands English, there is no need to translate it.

I'm not sure I agree about the motivation thing for Japanese people. From what I can gather, the Japanese are absolutely obsessed with learning English, and try to acquire it in any way possible (except the effective ways, it seems!)

I would say more like some Japanese people are obsessed with the romantic idea of learning English and becoming international, but without much real need for it in their life at all.

Then you have those who are studying it for business and push themselves to decent fluency rather quickly, as there's strong motivation. Their conversation skills kinda lag behind, but they can shoot off technical e-mails about whatever engineering/business job they happen to have no problem. A few of the higher ups in these companies, who will be dealing with face to face meetings (or teleconferences) in English on a regular basis, take classes in the evenings at a conversation school to increase their spoken fluency and do quite well, as they have strong motivation (losing their jobs / not being promoted).

There's a very real difference between the business learner who is doing it to make himself look more attractive vs. the learner who is doing it to desperately cling to their job. The latter finds the ability pretty quickly.

My best student when I worked at a conversation school was exactly such a guy - hard working, but definitely viewed learning English as nothing more than something that allowed him to do his job. If they need to do it, they do it.

Sometimes I wish life in Japan as a foreigner who doesn't speak Japanese was harder.

while this is tangental,


I think that learning a foreign language at first is memorization and drills, but at some point when some level of fluency is reached, it becomes art. Getting a "feel" for words and being expressive with them is important and necessary for continued development.

I think you get where im going with this, but in general, Japanese people are terrible at art and being creative. I'm not saying that people here aren't capable, but I don't think that Japanese society values it as highly as other skills.

Japan is famous for copying and not for creating. I think this creates a ceiling for a lot of people in learning English

My partner travels alot round the world for work and he only speaks English. I have asked him how he manages to get on. He says in most places people speak English to some degree. Then I go on to ask how (as I work hard at Japanese but still struggle to say basic things). And he says that the counties that speak the best English tend to import alot of TV and quite often only subtitle the programmes. That way people watch alot of TV and end up hearing English for hours and hours each week. I think this is probably true. There are a number of words that I have never had to learn in Japanese because they are used all the time in films. If you then imagine those people listening to Western music too when listening to the radio/on the way to work that is alot of input. OK that does not account for all of it, but if you changed 50% of your music and TV/film to Japanese then that would add on quite a bit of learning that you just don't notice. In the summer when I go for a walk each day I listen to Japanese podcasts. I notice that in the winter when I am not walking that my listening skills drop as I don't have that input. Even if I am not purposely listening to the podcasts it is still the rhythm and intonation that you loose.

Hi!
I'm from Finland and what tobberoth told about Sweden pretty much goes for here too.
Everyone studies English the minimum of 7 years in elementary school and of course more study comes into play when you continue your studies to high school and to university but how it is done is pretty much the un-original textbook oriented study.

The real reason why people learn the language is that 80% of the movies and series on TV are in English and half of all the rest too and everyone hates dubbing with the most fierce and murderous hatred imaginable. Childrens cartoons are usually dubbed but that's it!
I once was in Spain on a holiday trip and in the hotel turned the TV on as I knew that some Alien movie was on and I was waiting for someone. I was shocked to hear Ripley speak Spanish the voice out of sync with his lips!!! :O It just felt wrong the way snatching a purse from an old lady is wrong. It's something that you just don't do!

Music too. 80% of the music on radio is in English and even Finnish artist make lots of their songs in English.

On top of that, a very small percentage of stuff gets translated into Finnish in the end.
Books used in university courses are usually in English even if the course was held in Finnish.

In the internet people are as likely to search for information in English as they are in Finnish

Just something off the top of my head! The list goes on but the point is that here you just end up using English every day while in Japan for example, you don't see it anywhere. Often even in the eikaiwa adds..

In the end it always boils down to the amount of exposure.

nac_est Wrote:But could this not be a consequence of the above average proficiency level, instead of a cause? If everybody understands English, there is no need to translate it.

Most of the older people here (60+) don't do so well in English and I feel that this developement is relatively recent.
Perhaps, at least here, the lack of translated material was a result of low resources after the wars and when they were more readily available, translations didn't have so much demand anymore..


Ps: I also want to shoot down the language-similarities-theory!
Finnish couldn't grammatically be more different from English and pronunciation is a major hardship for a Finn studying English! Actually, in large parts the pronunciation is pretty close to Japanese!

alantin Wrote:the way snatching a purse from an old lady is wrong.

If it's wrong, why does it feel so right?

Regarding translation or lack thereof, the small number of native speakers probably has more to do with it.

~J

woodwojr Wrote:Regarding translation or lack thereof, the small number of native speakers probably has more to do with it.

I don't buy this.
If they liked it, supplying the translations for 5 million people should sound like a pretty good business.

They actually tried to dub "the bold and the beautiful" a couple of years back. For less than a week it came out dubbed in Finnish but they quickly changed back to subtitles when they got heaps of angry feedback!

There is more to it than just the language. People behave and speak differently when speaking different languages and just translating it and placing it in the place of the original made it sound unnatural and stupid to no end! You need to know Finnish and see it to understand it thou..

So people just plain and simple don't like dubbed English movies.
It might be different had they imported them dubbed in the beginning but who knows.
I myself am happy this way!

alantin Wrote:in Japan for example, you don't see it anywhere. Often even in the eikaiwa adds..

I never thought of it this way, but this is so true. I can't think of any eikaiwa ad I've seen that included English other than the asinine little quizzes they put in them.

In Sweden and Finland, are movies shown in English without any subtitles? Pardon my ignorance.

Oh! It didn't come up!
They are subtitled!
Movies intended for kids are usually the only ones dubbed.

I see, so it's not all that different from movies in Japan. Japan does tend to offer dubbed movies, but with fewer showings than the subbed ones. In the short time I was in Panamà, it seemed to be the case there too that only the children's foreign movies were dubbed and the rest had subtitles.

In any case, good on you guys for being so good at English. I've often wondered just why some European countries have so many proficient English speakers.

Yeah, there's almost always subs to any Swedish movie... which is annoying, I prefer watching without subs unless it's some crap like Snatch where it's impossible to hear what they are saying.

Dubs are only in disney movies though.

Tobberoth Wrote:Yeah, there's almost always subs to any Swedish movie... which is annoying, I prefer watching without subs unless it's some crap like Snatch where it's impossible to hear what they are saying.

Glad to hear that I'm not the only one who found Snatch incredibly hard to understand.

Watching that movie without subs, I felt like an idiot.

alantin, thanks for the account!
So you actually hate dubs! It makes totally sense now that I think of it. Here it's the other way around: subtitles are regarded as a hindrance and the Italian dubbing business is considered a pride (dubs are usually quite good, we've got some voice actors who compare in skills with the American stars).
However you've made me realise that this pride is also one of the causes for our inefficiency in learning English.

The English in Snatch was intentionally meant to be uncomprehendible.

What I don't understand is why people back in my home state of Arkansas can't speak English so outsiders can understand it. When an ex-girlfriend of mine from New York talked to my mother on the phone, she asked me to translate. :/

I'm on an European school (with all different kinds of nationalities) and the school system doesn't really have a lot of effect on our English (we are in the same English classes btw).
It is noticeable which sections are good in English (e.g. Dutch section) and which sections are bad at it (e.g. French and Italian sections). (Generally speaking; there are exceptions of course.)
I think this has a lot to do with the French and Italian dubbing everything English they get their hands on and the Dutch just subbing it, as already previously mentioned.
Therefore, adequacy in a language has a lot to do with how you live your life. Nationalities who encounter English on a daily basis (e.g. TV) are a lot better at it.

Going back to what someone said in an earlier post, even though I need to get my German back up to speed, the one thing that's really bugging the hell out of me is that when it comes right down to it, there's nothing in German that I actually want to go out, buy, and then read. So frustrating.

Meanwhile, I've got a box full of Japanese light novels I'm happily tearing through whenever I get the chance. Sure, they're all trash, but they're enjoyable trash. I've noticed that my Japanese has gotten a lot better of late because I'm reading so much now, meanwhile I have no motivation to study German, even though I have a hard deadline looming. Ugh.

Having video games ONLY in English helps (try Civilisation 1 in another language when you are still in primary school).
Having all English movies subtitled instead of dubbed helps (okay some disney stuff is dubbed)
Using English software helps.
Having a small media industry helps.
Downloading Japanese movies with English subs helps too

Have you guys seen this?
http://jonathan.beaton.name/wp-content/u...y-tree.jpg
quite interesting, compare Spanish and French with German and Dutch and Swedish.

bodhisamaya Wrote:What I don't understand is why people back in my home state of Arkansas can't speak English so outsiders can understand it.

I've lived in Florida most of my life. I don't talk southern or any other odd slang. I moved to California for a while and had many instances where I would say something and nobody would understand me. I quite often had to say it 3-5 different ways before they would finally get what I was saying. It wasn't accent but simply word choice.

So I'm not surprised that your NY GF didn't understand your AK mother. In fact, your mother probably had just as much trouble as well.

And actually, I dated a girl from AK for a while. She would use terms like 'closet critter' all the time and I had no clue what she was saying. For that term, I thought she was calling someone 'gay', but it turned out she meant 'fat'!

My mother's name is Ann. She pronounces that with two syllables. :/