English-language skills in Germany

In my last (German-language) entry I made yet another comment on that tiresome subject of Anglicisms in the German language. I said that one reason why I was more skeptical about them than the people who annually select an Anglicism of the Year (http://www.anglizismusdesjahres.de/) is that so many people in Germany do not know enough English to really appreciate them, let alone pronounce them correctly. The German advertising industry is particularly fond of Anglicisms and they have provided many examples for how not to mix languages. A few journalists once went to an average shopping district and asked people what these slogans meant, and the result was devastating. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/come-in-and-find-out-how-germans-really-see-english-ad-slogans-a-596128.html

English has become the world’s lingua franca, and so German-speakers are not the only ones who butcher the language of Shakespeare with their horrid accents and unrecognizable grammar. Be honest, fellow Anglophones, doesn’t it sometimes make you cringe? It certainly makes me cringe, but then I carry German genes. I must say, the Britons and Americans I have had dealings with in mixed English/Other-speaking company have never shown any signs of impatience or disgust, even when their non-English-speaking counterparts were downright abusing their language. Are you guys so polite, or are you resigned to the fact that this is the price you pay for not having to learn other people’s languages?

It has to be admitted, of course, that the speakers of English-as-a-second-language are not the only ones who use it in a way that makes others cringe. Here are just two randomly selected recent articles about jargon and cliché: Lucy Kellaway in the FT: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/79077026-407d-11e3-8775-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2jHsdm0ou and Thomas Frank in Salon: http://www.salon.com/2013/11/03/double_down_on_game_changing_narratives_brain_dead_pundits_stuck_on_cliches/

Researching this subject I didn’t find an awful lot of discussion of the topic of English-as-a-second-language from the perspective of aesthetics, and of what all those non-English-speakers were doing to the vernacular. What I did find, however, were quite a few pieces looking at the issue of English as the language of choice in the scientific community – and here we are back with the Germans and their generally less-than-sufficient English-language skills.

One article I found looks at the spread of English in scientific literature, and it finds a remarkably low level of English-language publishing in Germany. The data below were put together using Scopus, a search portal for articles in academic journals provided by Elsevier, an international media group. Scopus’s coverage is not restricted to Elsevier titles, and it covers academic disciplines across the board, with the exception of Engineering. The graph shows that for every five German-language articles originating in Germany between 2008 and 2011, one is published in English. In the neighboring Netherlands during the same period of time the ratio is one Dutch-language article to every 43 or so in English. What is more, in Germany, France and Spain there has not been a lot of growth, while in other countries there was either steady growth like in Italy, or one great leap in the most recent time period like in the Netherlands or in Russia.

 

http://www.researchtrends.com/issue-31-november-2012/the-language-of-future-scientific-communication/

In Germany English-language publishing is somewhat ahead of France and Spain, but not very much, so it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to ask what Germany has in common with France and Spain that would explain the low ratio, and the similarly low growth of that ratio over time, between local-language scientific publishing to scientific publishing in English. 

First of all, there is size. All three languages have a large community of native speakers, and that is certainly the most important reason for the low ratio of English-language publishing. France and Spain have a colonial history which has spread their languages to other parts of the world, Indochina and Africa in the case of France and two thirds of the American continent south of the Rio Grande in the case of Spain. That translates into 79 mil native speakers of French, plus over 300 mil people living in countries where French is one of the official languages, and so anyone who goes to school there will have had some exposure to it. Spanish is spoken by over 300 mil native speakers. Germany is the largest country in Europe, in addition German is spoken in Austria and by the majority of the people in Switzerland, plus by minorities in the countries neighboring Germany, in all by about 100 mil “natives” (http://www.wiwo.de/politik/ausland/sprachen-die-meistgesprochenen-sprachen-der-welt/6515458.html?slp=false&p=7&a=false#image).

Moreover, all three countries have a long and proud tradition of scientific achievement, in the case of France and Germany dating back to the age of Enlightenment and to the very beginnings of modern science.

All this makes it possible for anyone studying at a university in Germany, France or Spain, to get their degree without ever having read a single text in any language other than their own. The number of subjects where this is possible is probably in decline, but it is certainly true in the Humanities (with the exception of modern languages, of course) and in the Social Sciences, even in Medicine.

So if the academic community, the educated elite of a country has so little affinity to the English language, what about those of us who are not in a situation to even wonder which language to publish in – i.e. the majority?

Everyone going to school in Germany beyond the age of 12 learns some English at school. That is in keeping with a recent survey by the EU which said that in all 27 countries of the EU 95% of all pupils in secondary school are taught English. In Germany there is a strong tendency to extend English-teaching to elementary schools and Kindergarten. So let’s hope we are seeing the dawn of a new era here, because the present is not very encouraging.

The EU also surveys foreign-language skills among its citizens on a regular basis, and according to the latest published findings, 78% of Germans say they speak a foreign language, of those 16% say they speak English very well, 34% say they speak it well, and 50% of respondents say they have rudimentary knowledge of English http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/3-26092013-AP/DE/3-26092013-AP-DE.PDF

I would like to take this opportunity to praise the 50% for their honesty.

Germany takes great pride it its export industry – surely all these companies must have an interest in either recruiting people who have proven English language skills or provide language training for their existing staff?  Just a few days ago a recruiter published a list of 20 most common blunders they read in English-language CVs or resumes and cover letters. I posted it on Twitter saying that it could be funny if it weren’t so sad ... http://karrierebibel.de/bewerbungsschreiben-auf-englisch-die-20-haeufigsten-uebersetzungsfehler/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+karrierebibelblog+%28Karriere-Bibel%29

And just as I’m wondering how to continue this blogpost, a new article from Die Welt confirms what I want to say: http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article121538619/Englischniveau-der-Deutschen-ist-ziemlich-mau.html It says that in general educators and educated alike seem to think the level of English is sufficient. That would be a grade Four on the German school grade scale of One to Six (1=very good, 2=good, 3=satisfactory, 4=sufficient, 5=inadequate, 6=fail), and that certainly is not enough for a nation taking pride in being an export champion.

Exports is not the only discipline Germans are champions in – they also travel a lot, the further away the better. And for every time they received what they ordered in an Asian restaurant, they seem to give themselves a notch up on the English-language skills scale. I remember listening to people’s accounts of their latest travels thinking, no, travel does not broaden the mind in and of itself – first the mind has to be elastic enough to let itself be broadened by the impressions it gets while en route.

Tourists who come back from their few weeks’ holiday trips thinking they have broadened their minds are often mistaken. The misperception of one’s language skills seems to result from a similar pattern of self-delusion.

I did not set out to write a psychological study on the Germans, however. The question is why is their English only “sufficient”? Looking at the comparison between the European countries quoted earlier, I think size remains the key explanation. In the study quoted by Die Welt, the highest-scoring nations are Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Estonia – none of them has more than 20mil inhabitants. It seems logical that in smaller countries there is more motivation to make sure you can make yourself heard in a globalized world. The size of a market also determines how much customization you can reasonably expect as a consumer in a given market when buying a globalized product. The product I have in mind here is movies. Go to any big theater in Germany, France or a Spanish-speaking country, and you will be treated to Brad Pitt & Co. speaking fluent German, French or Spanish. I don’t know about France and Spain, but before the age of the DVD or BlueRay, it was very difficult outside the larger cities in Germany to see international movies in their original versions. Television stations hardly ever show anything with subtitles – if foreign dignitaries are interviewed you hear them say the first few words, then a German speaker takes over.

In smaller countries, the market is just not big enough to support a dubbing industry, and so people accept subtitles, because it is the only way they can enjoy international films. This means there is a language lab in every living room in the shape of the TV set. I think it is not just schooling or the lack of it that is the answer to the question about English-language skills.