I moved to France a few years ago. I did know that French don't know English as much as they do not want to speak English yet I am still amazed by how much. I think that the main reason for that is that they have their own French speaking view of the planet in which they happily live. There are French businesses, French universities and research, French (ex-)colonies, French tourism etc. One could say that the same are true for other countries, eg Germany where English are much more/better spoken, but apparently it's not like this and I have no explanation for that.
> I did know that French don't know English as much as they do not want to speak English yet I am still amazed by how much.
I hate it when I hear the stereotype "French people do speak English but they're not going to because they are so proud" (maybe not exactly what you're saying...). It's simply untrue. People who speak good English will very happy to practice whenever the opportunity shows up.
It's not easy to learn a foreign language, and most French people who didn't have the opportunity to study abroad, or who don't need English at their workplace don't speak English very well. However, I think most of them speak some English, as long as you're patient and don't expect them to be fluent. For many people, it's intimidating to speak English, even if they've learnt the basics at school.
> they have their own French speaking view of the planet
Indeed, they live in a country where they can get by using their own national language and most of them don't have enough opportunities to meet English speaking foreigners. Why should you expect them to learn your language, especially if you're the one moving there?
> Germany where English are much more/better spoken
English is hard for roman languages speakers. It seeems Italian, Spaniards, French have a harder time than Germans or Dutch...
Patience is definitely key and most people who only speak one language have no patience for someone who partially knows their language to talk to them. I've been learning Spanish and traveling in Latin America and the only people I can successfully have actual conversations with in Spanish are ones who also know English because they seem to understand what it's like to have trouble expressing themselves. I'll speak in Spanish and they listen even though I'm slower than a normal person and I'll do the same if they talk back to me in English.
You're right French have everything dubbed in french, also English teachers are very bad, which doesn't help, I would say that most French kind of understand basic written English, but when spoken, it is so different than anything they heard that they are not able to translate sounds to the written words they might know.
French has a lot of words which are close or exactly the same as English, but doesn't sound the same or mean completely different things, which doesn't help. (example: 'argument' in English as in 'having an argument' and 'argument' in French as in 'ton argument ne mène nulle part' don't mean the same at all, other words can mean the same such as 'agile' but sounds like two different words when pronounced in French vs English)
And then you have pride (the wrong kind) coupled with the fear of sounding ridiculous, which is why 99% of French you hear speaking English has a very strong accent, they're not trying.
My two explanations (as a French): all English contents on the TV is dubbed and English classes often have 24+ students which makes it hard for the teacher to have everyone speaking (even a bit).
Whereas in Finland, subtitles on foreign TV programs are common and classes have less students (I think).
Thus I believe it entirely comes down to the government not being smart enough.
Or try the converse, in the UK almost all foreign language content is still dubbed.
Then for foreign language (French and German) classes in state schools in England around 1975 onwards:
We'd often have around 30 pupils.
Time was spend on learning vocabulary and set phrases, but mainly in the written form.
This would be from around age 10 (French) or 13 (German).
It was the first exposure to grammar concepts (verb, noun, etc).
Little time was spent on speaking the languages.
At the end of this most of us we still incapable to speaking the foreign language, let alone being literate in them!
I'm not sure to what extent it has improved since.
All my TV watching is on Freeview and I haven't seen anything dubbed in years. Where do you find dubbed media?
I agree that language teaching is terrible here though. The period you describe was particularly bad. The teaching of formal English grammar had become unfashionable but foreign languages continued to be taught using grammar concepts that nobody now understood in English. It was completely absurd.
There is a lot of foreign series and movies on BBC4. Lots of Nordic noir crime stuff. There are also many French shows: Engrenage/Spiral season 7 has just finished.
Much easier to catch these on iPlayer than freeview.
You mean like English-native speaker have their own English speaking view of the planet in which they happily live. There are English businesses, English universities and research, English (ex-)colonies, English tourism etc. ?
That's exactly what the parent is saying conceptually.
The mega cultures with their larger populations are able to live within their own bubbles more easily than smaller countries. They typically produce a lot more media content to fulfill their own demand, as one example. It's true whether we're talking the US, Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Russia, China, Japan and so on.
