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K: No. Not particularly. I’m trying to hear everything on the radio, French, French news in the morning, every morning, gradually one may gets an ear perhaps for the language.
C: What about the pronunciation?
K: Tricky, tricky.
M: I’m probably the oldest person in this class, well, I’m the oldest person in this class and I think it’s more difficult to learn as I should get older but I’m very interested in learning Spanish. I do work heard at it.
C: Is Spanish very difficult to learn?
K: The grammar is very difficult, the pronunciation is reasonable easy.
C: What about writing it, have you had a go at writing it?
K: I think writing much more easy, much easier than speaking. I’d agree with that. Speaking is certainly difficult than writing, that is the last time to think. But Margarete has been studying for four years and Kathleen has a home in Spain. So do they still make a lot of mistakes?
M: Oh, yes. I think I still do. Oh, of course.
C: That’s honest, but do mistakes really matter?
K: Languages seems to me all about the levels. You know you thought you got one practice you think you are good and harvest, you got the next mountain in front of you.
C: I don’t think that matters at all, because I think that’s the way really, the only way that you are going to learn.
M: I think it makes she reluctant to speak because she’ll worry about making mistakes. That’s natural the same for foreigners learning your English. Oh, yes, foreigners learning English they must be simpesetic to the problem we face learning their languages.
C: What about the French people? Have you tried out your French on them yet.
K: I got to Paris every year. I go alone in order that I would speak the language.
C: How do they react?
K: All right. Yes, they are all always in a hurry in Paris. Of course, but they are pretty good, easy to ask the question, hard to understand the questions. Well, the Spanish speek very quickly, but on one occasion a Spanish said it just as difficulty for them to understand us just as for us to understand them, because to them, we speak very quickly. In fact I think the English speak very much slow than the Spanish do.
C: Do you find them helpful when you are there trying to learn it?
K: Well, unfortunately, one doesn’t actually mix with the a lot of Spanish people. This is the difficulty, I think. Where I live there are far more British people than Spanish people. I don’t have any Spanish papers. So in consequence, I don’t actually mix with Spanish people very much as I love to.
C: Now wait a minute. Is kathleen saying the British people in her part of Spain only talk to each other. So what’s that Spanish like? We back to that question again. What are the Brirish like at learning languages.
M: I think we are impossible at learning languages. Where I live I am surrounded by, oh, possibly 100 British people, I only know 3, 2 British ladies, who are actually learning Spanish at school. 3 including myself, I think it’s apalling.
C: Why do you think that is?
M: I think we are very very lazy about learning languages. Because so many people speak English. I think that we are really island isolated people. There is no basic feeling that languages of other country is important. We don’t need it. We are doing well without it.
C: They are learning English, why should we bother with other language. They are learning English, so why should we bother. Perhaps Magerete and Kathleen are not typical. What does Eve the French teacher think? Are we really that bad at learning languages.
E: no. Not in my class.
C: But generally we are known for not wanting to learn.
E: I think there is certain amount of shyness in English people, that’s not badness. There is nothing at all. I think simply shyness. Natural reserve.
C: So do you think we’re slowly getting better at it, then?
E: I believe so. I think people more and more are going abroad, they buying house abroad, they’re retiring abroad, they have to learn the language, which is a good thing.
C: But is Eve taking a optimistic view? Are we still an Island people, difficult questions, but at least some British are discussing them or some of them are. Well, that’s it for now, and for me, Clare Martin. Goodbye.
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