# All Slavic Languages: English - the first foreign language for pupils in Slavic countries?



## ayupshiplad

Having only just looked at this part of Word reference forums, everyone's English seems to be alarmingly good! Certainly better (in general) to most people in the West European language forums anyway!

So I was wondering if English is the first foreign language that pupils learn in school (in geneal)? Or is it Russian or French?


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## Jana337

Yes, English is definitely the most common choice.  More here.

I saw a very detailed newspaper article about languages studied in central and eastern Europe. I hope I can find it.


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## dn88

Yes, in Poland it's also the most common choice (if I can call it "a choice").  But there's no doubt that most of Poles take up English as their first foreign language. 

dn88


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## ayupshiplad

LOL I take it English is rather forced upon pupils then? We don't really get that with languages here...I mean, French is by far the most commonly studied, but you don't have to take a foreign language past 4th year (when you're 15/16), unlike in many other countries where English is compulsory all the way through!


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## Etcetera

In Russia, English is the most popular foreign language to study. German and French are also taught in some schools, as well as other languages (for example, in St Petersburg some schools offer their pupils Swedish or Finnish).
But it doesn't mean that English is taught or learnt very well. I believe the reason why the overall level of English in the Slavic forum is that there are quite few of us native speakers of Slavic languages and we're all highly interested in studying languages. I wouldn't say it's very typical for Russia.


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## dn88

ayupshiplad said:


> LOL I take it English is rather forced upon pupils then? We don't really get that with languages here...I mean, French is by far the most commonly studied, but you don't have to take a foreign language past 4th year (when you're 15/16), unlike in many other countries where English is compulsory all the way through!



Yes, I think that learning a foreign language (especially English, anyway, you have to study a foreign language in school) is rather compulsory in Poland (such a school system I guess).


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## ayupshiplad

Etcetera said:


> In Russia, English is the most popular foreign language to study. German and French are also taught in some schools, as well as other languages (for example, in St Petersburg some schools offer their pupils Swedish or Finnish).
> But it doesn't mean that English is taught or learnt very well. I believe the reason why the overall level of English in the Slavic forum is that there are quite few of us native speakers of Slavic languages and we're all highly interested in studying languages. I wouldn't say it's very typical for Russia.


 
Ah ok, that's really interesting actually. But I really would say (without being sychophantic! ) that the average level of English here is significantly higher than other places on the forum...but as you say, probably because of the high interest in language. Ah, to be amongst my kind


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## Duya

ayupshiplad said:


> Ah ok, that's really interesting actually. But I really would say (without being sychophantic! ) that the average level of English here is significantly higher than other places on the forum...but as you say, probably because of the high interest in language.



No, that's because Slavs in general are more intelligent and more talented than the other peoples.


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## Outsider

Quite so!


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## Etcetera

One more thing that's just occurred to me is that Western people in general seem to be taking the process of mastering a foreign language more easily. They come up and speak, and they don't bother if they make a lot of mistakes. Well, they do bother, but if they know that their language isn't perfect, they still talk. 
And most Russians often feel too embarrassed of their "poor" knowledge of a language, they don't dare to speak up because they're afraid that they'll make silly mistakes and people will be laughing at them.


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## dn88

I think it depends to a vast extent on a particular person rather than on the place where they live. Some don't pay too much attention to their grammar when they are speaking, however, they are quite easily understood. And they don't worry about their mistakes at all, they seem to have the gift of the gab even though their language skills still leave much to be desired. That's only my personal feeling... And you're probably right, Etcetera.


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## Thomas1

As for Poland, in junior high school in my neck of the woods most classes have English as their primary language. There is, however, one class with Russian as the first foregin language. Pupils can also learn another foregin language, from among German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, English--most learns German--though the weekly amount of time meant for them is really teeny-weeny.
Judging from what I have observed during recent years, the level of English taught at Polish schools has highly increased comparing it to the levels form before, for instance, five or ten years ago, which is good IMHO.

Tom


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## Athaulf

ayupshiplad said:


> Having only just looked at this part of Word reference forums, everyone's English seems to be alarmingly good! Certainly better (in general) to most people in the West European language forums anyway!



Besides the factors mentioned in the above posts, there's also the fact that many of us here are expats, scattered mainly in English-speaking countries. I'd bet that nostalgia is a significant factor that motivates some people to participate in these forums.  



> So I was wondering if English is the first foreign language that pupils learn in school (in geneal)? Or is it Russian or French?


In Croatia, it's English or German in the vast majority of cases. Unsurprisingly, there has been an increasing demand for English in recent years.


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## ayupshiplad

I'm quite surprised that German has proved to be so popular. I thought just English and French as they are 'international languages', then Russian because it's close. So yes, that's a turn up for the books!


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## Athaulf

ayupshiplad said:


> I'm quite surprised that German has proved to be so popular. I thought just English and French as they are 'international languages', then Russian because it's close.



Historically, most of the West and South Slavs, and even many East Slavs were under the political and cultural domination of the Habsburg Empire and various German states for centuries. Even in Russia, German cultural influences were quite significant in the 18th and 19th centuries. Additionally, each of the former Yugoslav states has a vast diaspora in Germany and Austria (unlike the other Communist regimes, the Yugoslav one allowed and even encouraged traveling and working abroad). 

Thus, in all these countries, there is a strong tradition of considering German as one of the most important and practically necessary foreign languages. These days, English has certainly overtaken its first place in importance, but with the fall of Communism and the expansion of the EU, it's currently going through a limited renaissance thanks to the German foreign investments.


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## dn88

ayupshiplad said:


> I'm quite surprised that German has proved to be so popular. I thought just English and French as they are 'international languages', then Russian because it's close. So yes, that's a turn up for the books!



Well, when I was at secondary school, German was my second foreign language. However, we had the possibility to choose between German and Russian. I chose German at that time.


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## Kriviq

In Bulgaria, there are foreign language schools, specializing in English, Russian, French, German, Spanish or Italian. Children apply after finishing 7th form by holding admission exams in Bulgarian and Mathematics.
In the early 1960s through the late 1980s there were about 10 such schools, offering top level education. An average of 5 applicants contested one place, the general curriculum contained over 3 300 lessons in the corresponding language, including History, Geography, Biology, Chemistry and Physics lessons in the 9th and 10th forms.
In the 1990s the number of these schools increased and, not surprisingly, the quality of education decreased. This summer 30 000 applicants are contesting 20 000 places and general subjects are being studied in Bulgarian due to the lack of qualified teachers.


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## ayupshiplad

Wow languages certainly seem to be held in high regard in Bulgaria. Here they are considered the 'soft option'- intensely annoying seeing as now I only study languages at school! Maybe I should move to Bulgaria!


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## seaborne

I am new to this forum and live in the U. S. but have relatives in Croatia where I have traveled often - and I had to resurrect my Croatian speaking skills - my relatives were surprised that I did so well - I was 60 years old on my first trip to Croatia with my brother who was born there.  Actually, they said my language skills were better than my brother's - and that was because I spent so much time with my mother and her friends who all spoke Croatian to each other & though I seldom took part in the conversation, I understood everything they said.  My mother died 5 years ago - so I have rare occasions to use the language - though I have some Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian/Montenegrin friends with whom I can occasionally exchange some brief phrases.  I am editing a cookbook of recipes from the homes of mostly 1st generation families - here in the Seattle area - and I have researched titles of foods and recipes that were new to me - and this research led me to discover this site.  And I love reading the commentary.  And yes, I too was amazed at the fluency of the Slavic posters on this site.  And I can attest to the fact that my cousins would not initially speak English with me - and it took several contacts with them - before they started (hesitatingly) to speak English - and finally, they realized they could conduct a fluent conversation with me - without my "laughing" at them - anymore than they "laughed" at my Croatian - and since my Croatian is from one of the coastal islands - many words are more Italian than Slavic.


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## Polaquita

Hehe I think many people here in this forum are translators or work a lot with foreign languages. If you come over to Poland, you might find it difficult to communicate with a man in the street, especially out of the capital city. The only people you could communicate with are university gratuates up to 30. We sometimes recruit new people at my work, and I remember how hard it was to find someone who would be able to communicate in English at a good level, and people studied it for 10 years (secondary school + university) and they could hardly speak about something more than their holiday. Only when you start using the language in practice, you have a real knowledge, otherwise it is a theoretical knowledge. In Poland, until 1990 the first and main language tought at school was Russian. Now, without the knowledge of English, it is hard to find a good job, as it is really necessary at many positions.


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## Thomas1

Polaquita said:


> [...] If you come over to Poland, you might find it difficult to communicate with a man in the street, especially out of the capital city. The only people you could communicate with are university gratuates up to 30. [...]


That's a little bit too far-fetched, don't you think? This is not to say that everyone speaks perfect English since that would be even more so, but nonetheless this is not quite true IMHO.


Tom


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## Polaquita

by "communicate" i meant a regular conversation on many topics, life, personal issues etc. like you talk to your friends, and not just asking about the time or direction. And in this context I still think what I said is quite true, but I'm also eager to listen to other peoples' opinion! 

Regarding the job interviews I was telling earlier about, there was once a guy who wrote in his CV: English: speaking - excellent, listening - excellent, writing - very good. So I had a short interview in English with him, level lower than advanced, and then I gave him a few sentences to translate (such as "please find attached the contracts, please have them signed by the managing director, and then send them back to our office", it is not some difficult vocabulary, and I left him in the conference room and..... I never saw the guy or the test again, the reception ladies told me he just ran away  LOL i still laugh when I think about this  Sometimes people exaggerate quite a lot in their CVs but eventually it is bad for themselves.

And well what can I say, I'm a bit scared to write in this forum as my English is not perfect and i make mistakes and here, everyone will see that


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## seaborne

But this is a good place to practice your written English skills - and experience how others put together their sentences.  I am amazed at the level of your proficiency.  I also have experience with two friends who live here in the U. S. from the Czech Republic - Czech and Slovak (husband & wife) working for a large software company in our area.  And they are young people and highly educated in their early 40's - the wife has become a very close friend and confidante of mine - and we also greatly admire her husband and have spent holidays with them at our home, etc...  But at first, the husband was very hesitant to use his English - but the wife and I spoke frequently together - and I corrected her privately whenever I felt it was necessary and she appreciated my help.  As the husband became more proficient and confident in his language skills - then so did his "social" skills improve.  At first, we felt that he was aloof and indifferent - but as he gained fluence, so did he improve in social interaction - he was a pleasure to be with - and though his English was not always "perfect," he communicated well enough.  I don't know how he fared with colleagues in the work place but he has a high position and has been successful.  I have made it a practice, though, to question my friends from time to time as to whether they really were understanding what I was saying (in English) and often I would find out that they really didn't have full understanding - and did not mention that - until I questioned them.  It is very important to ask questions - for clarification - especially in oral communication (self-evident I realize).


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## Etcetera

Polaquita said:


> And well what can I say, I'm a bit scared to write in this forum as my English is not perfect and i make mistakes and here, everyone will see that


Making mistakes is human, right?
Don't be afraid of making mistakes - be afraid of not making any, because it can mean that you do nothing! Just come up and speak, and you'll see how practice makes perfect.


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## Thomas1

Polaquita said:


> by "communicate" i meant a regular conversation on many topics, life, personal issues etc. like you talk to your friends, and not just asking about the time or direction. And in this context I still think what I said is quite true, but I'm also eager to listen to other peoples' opinion!


While what you are saying is quite often true, to counterbalance I'll tell about my positive experiences. I met people whose English was not perfect in terms of grammar, in spite of the fact that they oft were aware of this fact right after they made a grammar lapsus; but they come across quite well, and what struck me (positively) is that they were very eager to talk even though they sometimes lacked words (they either asked me or someone else for a translation or descibed the word). They don't study English at a uni, just learn it in language schools. 
I also am of opinion that the language used when speaking with friends is not very useful at work, it would sound at least off if I heard a secretary answering a phone _going_ "hi, how is it going?" Nevertheless, the skill at/ability to converse on many topics using a proper language register is indeed very valuable. 
Now this is what my main quibble was about--as someone who lives in the capital I have met many people outside of Warsaw whose English is superb--I must admit here that these are mainly English majors, but claiming that the capital city has got the best English speakers and the rest is far behind is just not fair... 
As a side note: as far as I know the UW is not at the top of the rank of the institutions providing English courses (it is in the top three, though).



> [...]
> And well what can I say, I'm a bit scared to write in this forum as my English is not perfect and i make mistakes and here, everyone will see that


If made with good intentions they are priceless tidbits here. 


Tom


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## Anatoli

ayupshiplad said:


> Having only just looked at this part of Word reference forums, everyone's English seems to be alarmingly good! Certainly better (in general) to most people in the West European language forums anyway!
> 
> So I was wondering if English is the first foreign language that pupils learn in school (in geneal)? Or is it Russian or French?



As other people said, English as a second language is gaining popularity in Slavic countries but it's still far behind some other Western countries. English knowledge in Russia is probably much better than in Japan, at least spoken but it's way behind countries like Germany, France or even Spain, let alone Germanic countries like Holland or Sweden.

I was surprised in 90-x when I spent quite a long time in Western Europe how easily people communicate in English. Let me tell you, if you go to Russia you might still have trouble finding some English speaker in some places, even if they are supposed to learn it at school.

I couldn't find the statistics, except for this:
See slide 4 here.
http://www.esds.ac.uk/news/eventsdocs/microrrmar06.ppt


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## tkekte

I wonder why do they study English as the main language in Poland now. :-?
Wouldn't German be more useful? Same in the Czech Rep. Or do you study both with equal effort?


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## Polaquita

I don't want to generalize or talk on behalf of the society  I can just tell you about my environment. I work in an accouting firm with its headquarters in the Netherlands, all our employees need to speak English as all our clients are international companies, and the CFO from England or Germany will call us to talk about the accounts. We need to send them correspondence or reports, explain tax issues etc. Without some knowledge of English, they would not be able to work here, it's an international business language. Very few people speak German (currently 2 persons at an advanced level and 2 persons at a basic level including myself ) out of 80 persons who work here. Maybe one person speaks French but I'm not sure if he could communicate fluently with a client. 

I think you have Russian origins, so I just tell you I studied Russian for 7 years in the primary and secondary school but never used it in practice, and I don't even put it into my CV as my practical knowledge is none.


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

Anatoli said:


> As other people said, English as a second language is gaining popularity in Slavic countries



English gaining popularity in Slovenia??? English has been taught in Slovenia as the first foreign language since Tito broke with Stalin in 1948. My mom had one year Russian in school, a year later it was replaced by English without having a possibility to complain.
There are(?)/were a few elementary&secondary schools in Slovenia which have/had German as the first foreign language, but they are really rare. I had a schoolmate in the middle school who had a good knowledge of German, but none of English. And our school demanded vice versa as we had advanced courses of English and basic courses of German compulsary.

When there were still gymnasiums - and now when they are alive again, the first foreign language is English and the second can be chosen: German, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian... whatever the school offers.


Btw, these documents are interesting - Eurobarometer:
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_237.en.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_en.pdf


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## hinko

ayupshiplad said:


> I'm quite surprised that German has proved to be so popular.


 
I noticed that there have been concieved "populations" of Slovenians, who speak German fluently. For example, my little cousin (who is now not that little anymore) almost learned German at the same time with Slovenian. At a very early age she spoke German fluently and was even mistaken for German, when their family was there on holiday. I also know many people how speak German fluently since childhood. I ascribe that mostly to german tv channels and its cartoons. In Slovenia (at least in the part where I live) we get mostly german channels (beside a few slovenian of course) and so many kids watch cartoons in German literally from birth. On the other hand, people who haven't done this in childhood, don't usually have a clue of German. I was taking German clases continously from kindergarten, but beacuse ommiting watching german cartoons in early years, haven't been able to speak very well until recently. A year ago I started to watch german tv program systemathicaly and (because being already introduced to grammar and rules) fell into it quite fast.
I should also mention that due to being under austria's rule for about 500 years, there is a large portion of slovenian words that were derived from German. They aren't proper for formal situations, but largely used in informal speech. Tehnical terms are also mostly german.


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## _goldman_

ayupshiplad said:


> So I was wondering if English is the first foreign language that pupils learn in school (in geneal)?



Yes, because most information in Internet is published on English


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## Ioan

OK, I agree that English is, we can say that, the first foreign language the pupils in slavic countries choose. Another question is - if those children and later adults that went on studying English for several years are able to communicate in any topic they want and how "deep" they are able to go in English with these topics. Let's say they are about 350 million slavs in the world. What amount of them are able to communicate in English fluently and without doing mistakes ? And it concerns the people of the other language groups. English is considered the most world - wide spread language for each other communication among the people. Then I ask : " What amount of the people can master English on such level that it doesn't disturb their fluency, accuracy of words used in their debates, right pronunciation, etc ? ( there are hundreds of thousands of people in the world considering their knowledge of English as very good knowing just several words or some phrases ) Is this the idicator of the fact that English is the most spread language in the world ?


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