european people (yes yes, i know we are european too)

[bednobs]

I have just been watching the news, and they had the primeminister of norway on explaining how the government are dealing with things. It occurrred to me, if the same happened here, would david cameron go on TV and explain in faultless norwegian what he was doing?
How come people in mainland europe put (most) british people to shame when it comes to languages? my friend who is german can speak english faultlessly, plus get by pretty well in spanish and italian

[scotman]

Blame it on the Victorians who painted the map of the world with a lot of pink. English is still one of the most common world languages hence there is a long culture of not needing to learn anything else.
I believe that is now changing.

[mrsmaveric]

i hope that david cameron would be speaking in faultless english,if he were to expalin anything in faultless norwegian i would not know what would have happened...

[bednobs]

true :)
however, if the norwegian press came to ask him a question (as the english press asked the norwegian PM a question) would he answer in norwegian?

[plautus]

The ability to speak good English is considered very important for advancement in Scandinavian countries as by and large their languages are not spoken outside of their own borders except by emigrés and students. It is necessary for international communication so emphasis on learning it is placed from a very early age.

[annie0000]

I noticed that too bednobs - they were interviewing a lot of different people and by and large they all had faultless english. Another thing I noticed was that at the church ceremony, the king and queen had tears rolling down their cheeks, bet if it was in this country we would get the stiff upper lip from our royals.

[karenmac60]

Bednobs, I remember being in Ostend years ago and a guy spoke to a few people in a short space of time in fluent French, Flemish, German and English - and he was only selling chips. You wouldn't get that in a chippy here!
Annie, I was thinking that too about the Royals - I found it really touching.

[jno]

Nick Clegg speaks English, Dutch, French, German and Spanish, but that is pretty unusual.

[swedeheart]

Speaking for Sweden, I believe German was the primary foreign language pupils were taught at school up until WW2, following which we decided to take English instead... The young ones over here are more and more being recommended to study Chinese.

[annie0000]

me too Karen - think i'd rather be Norwegian.

[swedeheart]

Did you people get to see Stoltenberg's entire speech at the church ceremony? It was brilliant.

[DTCwordfan]

jno - and Nick Clegg speaks rubbish in all of them.