How key is it for youth to learn at least a second language?

Present, past, present-perfect, past perfect, future and future 2. I count six.
The other "tenses" are just sub-forms of those.

 

Technically, it may be 13.

a) Past Perfect Progressive ........................had been + present participle
b) Past Perfect ..........................................had + past participle
c) Past Progressive ...................................was/were + present participle
d) Simple Past ..........................................past tense form

e) Present Perfect Progressive ...................have/has been + present participle
f) Present Perfect .....................................have/has + past participle

g)Present Progressive .................................am/is/are + present participle
h)Simple Present ........................................present tense form = almost same form as infinitive (except "to be"); when used with he/she/it: +(e)s (except modal helping verbs)

i)will-Future ...............................................will + infinitive
j)will-Future Progressive .............................will be + present participle
k)will-Future Perfect ...................................will have + past participle
l)will-Future Perfect Progressive ..................will have been + present participle

m)Going-to-Future ......................................am/is/are going to + infinitive

 

I'm 30% fluent in Spanish. I'm working on being at least 85% by this time next year.

 

Either way, I find English to be a very easy language - even will all those "tenses".

The one language which is absolutely clean on it's grammer and has all the bases for being a world wide language is Latin. But I don't suppose it's possible to convince people to study that language again. So I suppose a Latin-alternative could be English.....

 

Why 85%?

Odd figure to pick.

 

There are actually 12 verb tenses in the English language.


Present Simple, Present Continuous, Present Perfect, Present Perfect Continuous, Past Simple, Past Continuous, Past Perfect, Past Perfect Continuous, Future Simple, Future Continuous, Future Perfect and Future Perfect Continuous.

As a teacher of ESL (English as a Second Language), grammar is what students fear the most. But generally they do quite well if grammar is introduced gradually. This is why learning English must be taken in small steps. These intensive English courses just don't work all that well.

Where many students fall down is the "s" at the end of the verb when the subject is third person (he, she, it or a name). "He plays football." Students more than like will say - "He play football."

Most of my students are Lao. The Lao language doesn't have tenses. For example they'll say "I play football yesterday" or " I play football tomorrow." Also getting them to pronounce "r" in words is very difficult because in Lao there is generally no "r" sound in words, as opposed to Thai (very similar languages). Thai will say "farang" meaning foreigner, Lao will say "falang".

I believe the "r" sound was dropped about 30 years ago from the Lao languages because many of the ethnic groups don't have the "r" sound in their language, therefore making the learning of Lao language easier for ethnic groups. Also another theory is, the "r" sound was exclusively used by the Lao royal family, and we all know what happened to the royal family after the Pathet Lao take over.

Where most students have the great difficulties is with articles (a, an, the). English is one of the few language which has articles before a noun, I believe French does also. This is not to be confused with gender indicators like in German (die, der, das).

Lao language mostly puts the adjective after the noun, they'll say "ball red", where is English it's "red ball". Old habits die hard!

Teaching writing is also very difficult. Not so much the formation of the letters of the alphabet, but the formation and flow of ideas, which is also difficult for any native speaker.

I always tell my students "pasa english pas pi ba" (in my poor Lao) - "English is a crazy language"

 

Jack and Lizzard, thank you your posts have been very informative. English isn't a hard language to speak "fluently" because its so easy to be immersed in it, but its hard to speak it like a native speaker if you are not one, so I appreciate the knowledge.

 

And that's why all aliens on TV speak English.

 

Care to qualify your statement...or why you needed to quote me in the first place?

 

Qualify how? Yes, sometimes Klingons will actually speak in there own language, but mostly they communicate in English.

 

But how does my original post explain why that's the case? Also, people speak in many different languages, not just English, and the more languages you can understand the more people you can understand and the more perspectives you can see the world from, and I don't think there is any downside to that.

 

To hell with a global economy. We should be producing our own stuff here in the USA, and not using immigrants (legal or illegal) to do it. We should all be speaking ONE LANGUAGE > American English. This is what is at the heart of the definition of what a nation truly is.

NATION - a stable, historically developed community of people, with a territory, economic life, distinctive culture and language in common. (Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th ed.)

 

I, being half Hispanic, speak them both, but most Americans don't. The problem is, if you have people speaking different languages, you have people unable to communicate with one another. You need to have everyone speaking the same one language. That's how/why nations came to be. See post # 87.

 

There already is an international language - which is spoken by more people, in more countries, than any other language. That is English. I guess it's because of the extensive imperialism done by England (now called the UK). As they used to say: "The sun never sets on the British empire" (or its language).

 

There is a huge difference between just speaking English and being fluent. By fluent I mean understanding the nuances of pronunciation, grammar, phonetics etc.

For example, the guy who delivers our drinking water can speak English. I can have an intelligent conversation with him and we are both mutually understandable. Now, if I were to write even a couple of sentences down what he's uttered, including his pronunciation, his grammar and even his intonations,, the written sentences would be hardly decipherable.

 

It's already mandatory where I live, you have to do one year of a foreign language to graduate.

 

English language usage is growing at a rapid rate globally for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the ESL industry is huge globally. Secondly, English usage popular culture is now being beamed onto TV sets in most corners of the world.

It now goes well beyond British imperialism. English language usage is growing in parts of the globe where Britain had no influence, China (ignoring Hong Kong) for example English language is growing at a rapid rate. The same can be said for SE Asia, Korea and Japan.

I love to travel around SE Asia. I'm never concerned I won't be understood. Someone will always use English, whether it be the guy or girl at the hotel check in, the guy who serves me a beer or the taxi driver who drives me to the airport.

 

Where is that?

 

I ment that in general. You have kids in the local grocery store who can't make change,kids who can't read. Ever watch Jay walking on Leno? It's scary.

 

This is true. Please read post #90.

 

East Coast USA

 

I think it's always good to expand one's mind. Another language may assist you in your career. But I don't feel as some do it's a necessity. Learning takes place in many ways and learning a new language opens up additional pipelines to other ideas and ideals you would never otherwise have considered or even known existed. If affordable and the child is willing, visual art, humanities in general, languages, and drama can only add to the educational and therefore life experience.

 

To add, a couple of years ago I had a Korean student in one of my classes. A young woman, a university graduate from Seoul and very bright. She had a fantastic grasp of English language as she's been studying English as a young girl. She even knew the history behind English language. Her grammar, vocabulary, writing was very very good. Where she was let down was in her speaking. It was terrible and at times hardly understandable. She never had a native English speaker as a teacher.

 

Learning a second or even a third language is not necessary, especially if your first language is English, but having said this, learning a second language, especially as an adult is very difficult. But learrning languages does expand your mind just as learning any new skill.

There is one subject that really fascinates me and that's linguistics, the history and study of languages, their origins and usage. This is especially true of Asian languages, namely SE Asian languages.

This came about when I started exploring northern Laos, an area of SE Asia that is incredibly culturally diverse. There are ethnic groups in that region that not only don't they have any inkling of English but also Lao language (which is the national language). Kind of crazy as around 35% of the Lao population are deemed as ethnic and use 20 or so different languages. Ethnic shool kids need to learn Lao language first before they are taught numeracy and literacy.

 

First, written English and spoken English are two different languages. I don't know anyone today who speaks English as it is still written. The written form of English must correspond to an old spoken form which is gone from the spoken world. Lastly there are many different forms of spoken English with their own different sets of rules. English is evolving and spreading thanks to America there are now many different parts of the world who speak some form of it. Who cares if it differs from the Queen's English. Get used to it.