On the news this morning it was reported that the cost faced by the government in translating items for immigrants in this country is in excess of £110 MILLION!
As I’m sure you can imagine this annoyed me.
£110,000,000. That money would sort out alot of the problems this country has got with teacher, medical, fire and police shortages. Would allow the building of new jails. Could be used to buy much needed equipment for the armed services.
But no, it’s being spent teaching foreigners who wish to live and work in this country our language that they haven’t bothered to learn before deciding to land on our shores!
By: BuffPuff - 31st January 2007 at 13:21
Many if most do not. Why are there so many British newspapers on sale, Sun, News of the World, Mirror, etc.? Yes, I know people want to get news from home, but how many could read a Spanish or french newspaper end to end?
Saw a program a few months ago (CH4 I think) I think it was one of those about couples relocating abroad. This episode involved a Scottish couple who were making the move to Spain and made at least some effort to learn Spanish. When they got to Spain, they were “frustrated” as they kept running into British ex-pats who did not speak Spanish , just English. This couple had no opportunity to practice thier Spanish linguistic skills.
The trouble was that they went to the popular coastal holiday resorts, poulated by Brits. They had to go more inland to find the more “authentic” Spain. (Their words)
By: Kernowglyn - 31st January 2007 at 13:11
[QUOTE=BuffPuff;1075322]And how many Brits learn the native tounge before deciding to live in Spain, France, Portugal, etc.
But how many will have learned the language after having lived there for a few years? We know large numbers of our immigrants make no effort to do so, and this is particularly true of the older ones. There are whole areas where people of one nationality live in the UK, and they find little incentive to learn English.
By: BuffPuff - 31st January 2007 at 11:04
And how many Brits learn the native tounge before deciding to live in Spain, France, Portugal, etc.
I’d wager you’d find a higher % of Chinese who can speak reasonable to good English than vice versa (even if we included those in Britain of Chinese decent)
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January 31, 2007 at 10:21 am