> > As long as I dont see European students who have
> > studied languages like Hindi, Kannada, Tamil,
> > Cantonese, Korean or Thai getting jobs, I foresee
> no
> > change in the hidebound and backward attitudes of
> most
> > European corporations.
> Yes, you are quite right. I often underestimate how
> widespread the use of
> English is - probably from being an English speaker
> myself ;-)
Well, it is quite curious - some of my younger Indian
friends who ended up in the UK for any number of
reasons were complimented on their English. Hardly
anyone they talked to was aware of the fact that India
had been (and this might shock some of you) a British
colony (data from Newcastle and Glasgow) and that
English medium education is widespread in India.
However, with
> regards to European students learning the languages
> you name above, I am
> quite sure that they are being studied and they are
> getting jobs.
I am afraid this is not really my impression. I am in
contact with a number of German academics who teach
precisely those languages. I had a stand-up row with
one of them (teaching Kannada) when I had to point out
to him that Bangalore, one of the software capitals of
the world was a Kannada-speaking city and therefore
his students, few and far between as they were, would
have an advantage in the market place. He quite
correctly pointed out that despite the fact that all
his students ended up with fluent English, German,
Hindi and a bit of Kannada, that most German companies
were not able to comprehend that knowing these
languages was of advantage in India.
Btw, it is not possible to study Kannada in the UK as
part of a degree.
Albeit,
> they are probably in such low numbers that they
> probably end up in 'niche'
> jobs such as translators or tutors for the next
> generation.
LOL. See what I mean? Do you think they will learn
when the last software company in the UK and the US
has turned out the lights?
>
> But if I was to turn the clock back 12 years and
> become a prospective
> student again, for what possible economic reason
> would I want to learn one
> of those languages for?
Why indeed. I was one of those students at that time
and Hindi and Cantonese were relevant. Trust me. I
spent a lot of time in China and I spent quite a bit
of time in India later. I could argue for pages and
pages why it was necessary to learn those languages at
the time. The same applied to Farsi and a few Central
Asian languages (and Russian).
Some of those subjects face exinction at European
universities, Farsi in particular.
How would that gain an
> advantage for me in the
> British/ European workplace?
I am not criticizing the economic rationale from a
students point of view. I criticize, e.g. the
rationale of companies investing in those countries in
question to hire people without any knowledge of
languages and then send them off to flounder or make
up for lost time in 6-months intensive courses, the
value of which I find doubtful.
As a European, I find
> English quite agreeable
> for global commerce.
I completely disagree. It won't get you very far. And
it wont get you contracts.
Of course, I may want to take
> up Mandarin soon.
That would have gone a good choice 10 years ago. it is
a bit late now.
To
> compete and operate in the so called up and coming
> BRIC markets I find no
> reason as a mainstream worker to learn any of their
> languages as they can
> speak mine.
This is not something I would take for granted and it
does not tally with my experience at all.
>
> With regards to the call centres that my company
> operates, foreign language
> speakers are the first to be kept hold of in any
> budget crunch.
Congratulations. But to what extent is the knowledge
of languages regarded as a bar to advancement to
management?
Our
> application form for the call centre also asks for
> language capability and
> will readily employ as many different language
> speakers that it can and look
> after them. Ok - they're not paid as much of
> lawyers....
And there I was thinking that lawyers were paid in
gold bars:)
-Frank
>
> Cheers,
> Keith
>
>
>
>
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