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INTEREST: Tokyo Metropolitan Area to Establish "English Village"

Why does this read English Speaking Ghetto to me?

-In the Netherlands, 87% of the population can speak fluent English (also 70% of the same population can speak fluent German).

I just wanted to say its not the dutch can speak " fluent" english, but almost everyone can converse/make them understandable. The german percentage seems farstretched, as its taught( as well as French) on a much lower standard than english during middle/high school.

walw6pK4Alo wrote:

They treat English as a hobby than can be picked up and dropped at will, like tennis, and not some kind of necessity. I guess it makes more sense for Europeans, since how else would Finn and an Italian properly communicate?

walw6pK4Alo, in Europe (majority of them), English is a 2nd language and probably also mandatory, it's been acknowledged according to UK's Daily Telegraph. So yeah that's why you have a lot of non-UK/Irish Europeans that can speak good English, I believe:

-In the Netherlands, 87% of the population can speak fluent English (also 70% of the same population can speak fluent German).

-In Belgium and Switzerland, English is also mandatory (alongside knowing other language like French, German, etc...) because the 2 countries have to do business with countries in and out of Europe so it make sense both Belgium and Switzerland have to know English. I had couple of friends from Belgium and Switzerland that told me that learning multiple languages is mandatory in those 2 countries.

There is a drawback of the whole European continent learning English, it caused people in the UK and Ireland to not learn multiple languages other then French.

But back on topic: Samuelp's post pretty much pointed out the problem, thanks for the info, Sam.

...I personally don't know any numbers that how many Finn's actually speak good English but considering the school system that we currently have at least the youngsters should speak great English. Also a lot of English speaking (or more like understanding) skills probably come from the TV since we don't dub shows in Finland.

Only kids shows get dubbed but otherwise we read subs almost immediately when we have learned to read. I don't know how much this helped to understand European English learning but this is how we do things in Finland!

As a Finn I can say that in Finland we start learning English in 3rd grade. Some even start practising some words and sayings in 2nd grade(like myself). Then on 4th grade(also on 8th grade or in highschool) we can start learning a second language if we want to(usually it's either French, German or Russian but some schools in the capital area offer more like Chinese). Then of course later on Swedish since it's our second native language. I personally don't know any numbers that how many Finn's actually speak good English but considering the school system that we currently have at least the youngsters should speak great English. Also a lot of English speaking (or more like understanding) skills probably come from the TV since we don't dub shows in Finland. Only kids shows get dubbed but otherwise we read subs almost immediately when we have learned to read. I don't know how much this helped to understand European English learning but this is how we do things in Finland! Also our English is more based on British English than American but the American culture is so much in our lives so we kind of learn American English about the same amount.

I'm sure that somewhere in Japan has tried this before in recent years and it failed.

omiya wrote:

I'm sure that somewhere in Japan has tried this before in recent years and it failed.

Can I ask where and please include a link (if you have one avaliable)?