Posted on 09/26/2007 10:49:05 PM PDT by WesternCulture
Norwegian companies insult foreign clients, lose business contracts and are reluctant to expand into new markets because of the poor English language skills of employees and business leaders, according to a new survey. "Norwegians think their English is much better than what it really is," philologist Glenn Ole Hellekjær said.
More than half of the Norwegian business leaders in a recently conducted survey admitted that they had insulted foreign business partners because of insufficient knowledge of the English language, newspaper Aftenposten reported Wednesday.
The survey, conducted by philologist Glenn Ole Hellekjær on behalf of The Norwegian Centre for Foreign Languages in Education, is disappointing reading for Norwegian business. Almost 30 percent of the 664 business leaders surveyed said that their business had avoided expansion into new markets because they did not believe they had the English skills required.
Approximately 40 percent also said that representatives from their business had experienced difficulty socialising with foreign business contacts, and had avoided to follow up on new contacts because they felt unable to express themselves in English.
Worse still, 40 percent of business leaders said that they had lost business deals with foreign clients as a direct result of poor English skills.
Not surprisingly, Hellekjær commented that, "Norwegians think their English is much better than what it really is." Hellekjær said that businesses would benefit from "thinking about language more professionally," and that sending their employees on language courses would increase both language skills and cultural understanding.
Hard to fathom. Most educated Scandinavians speak better English than most Americans. And almost all Brits.
Och, bairn, ilka Sassenach maun no ken Anglic verra mickle! Scroll down some.
“Most educated Scandinavians speak better English than most Americans.”
- Or at least, many Americans reckon they themselves, together with well educated Scandinavians and Britons, speak better English than certain other Americans.
http://www.gyeah.com/ezine/misc_pages/trailerpark.htm
“What are WE going to do about New Yorkers?”
- This is no responsibility of yours.
However, there IS a solution to the New York problem.
Rich people from NYC should all be sent to their shrinks. This will keep their shrinks rich.
Poor people from upstate New York (Canada), hoping to become rich city dwellers, can live in favelas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favela
Hans from Munich who went to NYC hoping to become a successful gay bar designer could go live in a NYC favela as well.
“I would like to return this record, it is scratched.”
“I would like to return this record, it is scratched.”
- Furthermore, it’s Hungarian.
Minus two letter grades for not having the appropriate accented / umlauted / slashed through characters.
It’s a møøse!
Wait until you’ve seen a serious business email full of IM abbreviations and other teen and 20-something slang. It’ll make you want to strangle someone.
Ibiza, Europe, is a part of the English speaking world where this language, as such, has developed into almost a basic art:
Meet Olivier from La belle france, Inga from Sweden and..
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4DgO6Ttn7rU
“English is now considered the international language for business”
It sure is! The Japanese are brilliant .. the government has a program to recruit new or recent college grads from English speaking countries to teach in their public schools .. starting in elementary school. It’s not intense, but by the end of high school, Japanese students have at least a working knowledge of the English language and how it is spoken by a native-English speaker.
If they are on a track that will lead eventually to their having to use English in international commerce, they would then work with someone like you who teaches privately at a higher level.
“English is now considered the international language for business”
- There’s only one sorution to this ploblem:
Engrish!
“The Japanese are brilliant “
So are the Koreans. There are many here with electronic and auto industries.
I have two young Korean girl students, 8 and 14.
I will have a lesson with the 8 yr old in the next few hours.
They both go to English schools and have numerous private tutors in other languages, music, and science.
Take pride in what you are doing, introducing these young ‘foreigners’ to the West.
I myself am from Gothenburg, Sweden.
Some months after the former inhabitants of DDR, East Germany, became free to decide upon their own lives, my father’s employer was contacted by an ex-DDR employer doing the same kind of work, wishing to establish a ‘Partnerschaft’.
This ‘partnership’ led to encounters between ‘rich’ Swedes and ‘poor’ Eastern Germans, but even more so to an encounter between FREE Westerners and families who had lived the horrors of the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, still not feeling 100% free to speak their minds.
Individuals can enjoy the bare necessities of life like clothes, food, homes, furniture and even cars and a football team to support and still live in utter hell. This is something important I’ve learned in life.
The Koreans are brilliant.
So are you, Teacher.
And so will ALL of Korea one day be if we keep on Freeping!
Thanks for the link.
English is the creme-de-la-creme of languages.
- humorist cited by Dennis Miller
- Your fish smells like my wife is a hot compliment.
When I showed him her-ring, he called me a pollack, that's when our conversation started to flounder.
“When I showed him her-ring, he called me a pollack, that’s when our conversation started to flounder.”
- http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZVgA_Mx-yTc
Alex, I might have been clearer .. it’s the Japanese govt that’s brilliant in putting together a nationwide program to bring English speaking college grads to teach in their public schools. At all levels, so no matter where in Japan, whether the student is in the top or bottom track, they are learning at least some English.
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