How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

Hangout GupShup Cafe
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Like say Japan, China, Korea, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, etc.

Why must we in Pakistan emphasize English so much? Everything we do must be done in English. All the studies which really matter are studied in English. Maybe home economics is done in Urdu, but that’s an exception. Anyone who doesn’t attend one of those English medium schools is bound to a lifetime of attending ESL institutes just to understand what their college text books mean.

And now that I think about it, I have never even seen a modern Engineering book in Urdu nor do I know what most math terms would be if translated into Urdu. It would probably be some strange term from Farsi. I have heard there are some programming books in Urdu, but most terms are really just in English.

It’s almost like Urdu doesn’t even matter in the bigger picture. When I went to school in Pakistan (till 10th grade), Urdu was just one of those subjects. It really didn’t matter much. There were some kids in class who could barely read it. There were some who only spoke enough Urdu to converse with their chowkidar or nokar, and then there were some who didn’t even speak Urdu. And all that was completely OK. Sure these people made up a small percentage of all the other kids, but just think of the mentality towards Urdu. And I didn’t even go to one of those elite english medium schools, mine was just average. Reading Urdu literature wasn’t emphasized at all, nor was it considered cool. Reading Hardy Boys or Nancy drew was cooler than reading anything equivalent in Urdu.

Kids in Japan learn English as a second language and for a lot of them just basic understanding is ok. Same with Mexico and Venezuela. People in Mexico study Engineering in Spanish and even practice it in Spanish. I used to test server software for a company and one of the tests was to see if different language work fine and are not garbled up or anything. I thought how stupid, everyone in the world who is in IT probably knows English. I was told I was wrong. The customers (most people with degrees) in Mexico and Chile almost always used the Spanish version.

I saw a thread on another forum where a guy from Mexico was posting pics of his new car. It had one of those electronic gauges. Everything the gauges indicated was in Spanish, from the low fuel indicator to the tire pressure indicator. I have even seen such things in pictures of Chinese cars. Imagine all this written in Urdu? We can’t even imagine what it would even say.

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

Im sorry, I cant see the issue here:cb:

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

What difference will it make? Urdu is as foreign to most Pakistanis as English. It's not the mother tongue of more than 90% of Pakistanis. People who speak Pashto, Punjabi, Balochi or Sindhi might as well get their education in English whilst retaining their mother tongues.

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

actually there is an issue here:mad:

YOU VISIT OTHER FORUMS

you TRAITOR:cb:

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

Yeah but afterwards "or they want to do is rarn ingrish" (all they want to do is learn english) - English is catching on big time in the Far East. Although I must admit they place more emphasis on their culture and language than we do.

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

coz most of the paki end up comin to America, rathe than mexico. I also think its a universal lang and is prolly the most significant language used for communication

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

why is your thread in english? :hoonh:

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

Because Pakistanis speak English better than people from those countries, it gives Pakistan an edge in the globalised economy. Compare Pakistan's services imports/exports with Bangladesh to have one example.

English is the language of the world's business. Countries proficient in English are better connected.

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

just to clarify…Home Economics is no exception! :slight_smile:

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

han yaar.hairat ka maqaam hay keh teen dabbay walay bhi itni achi english boltay hain tu hum bhi teeraiye marain.

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

on a serious note

we were ruled by the british n we still have some complexes.we also keep competing with india where it seems evry kid speaks grammatically correct english.before partition sir syed ahmed khan established this fact that in order to compete with the hindus we had to go for english.even now u wont get reference books in urdu whereas if u want to expand ur literary horizons u have to know english.

yahan tak baat theek hay.hamara 'jatt' culture hay,the complexes r deep rooted.
even in the corporate culture one who has exellent speaking skills will bring u more business which a better educated person who isnt proficient in english wont.the standards have been set from before partition.no effort was and is being made to translate english books into urdu.wat is one supposed to do.

mazay ki baat yeh hay no where in the world ,where ever english is a secondary language people make extreme efforts for proper pronunciation whereas in pak we do.u will see people twisting their mouths to copy american accent,some even go irish and thats so funny to see and hear both.for any 2ndry language ,generally speaking one has to know it well enuff to communicate.thats the basic requirement isnt it. but agar french literature parhna hay tu u have to learn french properly.

kuch roz say
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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

atleast we dont speak english the way its spoken in india

"i vent vith my frrendz at lewen thairrthy to dhaa klub" ( i went with my freinds at 11 30 to the club)

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

To the gora man it’s all sounds the same, so nothing to brag about.

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

pass me sum soolt n wootah plz

Sand Painting
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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

Lemme guess..ru copying british accent here?

I think learning english and trying to communicate in English have become one of the basic need for everyone..cuz everythign in the whole wide world is mostly done in English..and if u dont know it..u cant basically do NEthing!
And English i think is the only lang that u can hear in all parts of the world..so that helps
But emphasizing english that much that we cant even read, write in urdu is too much...
I did even hear about this skool in karachi..where if u speak urdu u have to pay fine..thats ridiculous..i mean what do u expect frm a person speaking urdu the whole time and just changing their lang rite when they arrive in skool
and i guess thts encourages pplz to just speak english mostly all the timE!!

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

The British went but they left Angrezi behind. :smack:

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

:k:

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

English is the way it should be, all government or private schools in Pakistan should be English medium and English should be the only official language of the country, and instead of having just one national language Urdu, Pakistan should give national status to Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Pasho as well.

Offer Urdu as a compulsory subject only in Urdu speaking areas, Punjabi in Punjabi areas, Sindhi in Sindhi areas, Balochi in Balochi areas and Pashto in Pashto areas (I’d mention Kashmiri but I believe both Indian/Pakistani occupied Kashmir should all become an independent state).

Arabic should also be a compulsory subject for Muslim students but it can be incorporated in to Religious Studies and count towards half of it.

At one time it might have made sense to teach Urdu to everyone, as it once made sense to teach Persian to everyone because these languages were important then but they are not anymore, they’re not of much use to anyone, Urdu is just another language like Punjabi or Pashto but it is being forced on a people who do not wish to learn it. English is the new lingua franca all over the world and we need learn it.

I think we all need to come to terms with the fact that Pakistan is not a nation in itself but a multi-national state, it is not an ethnicity but a political union between different ethnic groups who only share a common religion. Most of us have nothing to with Urdu, we all have our own separate ethnic identities, separate languages, separate arts and cultures, separate histories and heritages.

It would make sense if you suggested Pashtuns should be taught in Pashto or Punjabis in Punjabi or even Arabic because it’s a liturgical language of Islam and the very basis and only reason for Pakistan’s existence is the Islamic identity but Urdu doesn’t mean anything to the vast majority of us, we don’t want anything to do with it.

For me three languages are enough, Pashto (my cultural/ethnic/national identity), Arabic (for worship) and English (if for example the Chinese were to surpass the west and become the superpower of the world and I’d replace it with Chinese).

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

^ i'd say that's a fair solution.

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Re: How come other countries do just fine learning English as second language?

I agree…

How many English speaking people do you know who can write a piece like in this link…

http://pakistantimes.net/pakistantimes/about.htm