14.7.2019's ranking on the 1966-O-Metre

[Patrick Thistle]

@Rogin- as noted by Patrick Thistle and sometime regular Simon Price, the Welsh and NI teams playing in UEFA competitions this month were largely ignored by the national BBC. Crusaders entered at the same stage as Kilmarnock and Aberdeen, all you need do is mention them

The Welsh Premier League results are listed / read out after
The English 6 divisions (down to National League)
The Scottish 5 divisions (down to the Highland / Lowland Leagues)
The Irish / Northern Irish leagues (I can never remember which is which out of the IFA and FAI. My bad.)
Then you get the Welsh Premier League where they mangle town names like Llandudno, Llanelli and so on (which won't be a problem this year because both of them have been relegated.

But hey, it is what it is. The Brexit Broadcasting Corporation didn't include the Europa League Pre-qualifying rounds on their website. Says more about their journalistic quality really. (Meanwhile the local BBC offices have moved into an Orwellian concrete mound right in the middle of town where the bus station used to be. It feels like they really are trying to live up to their role as agents of the oppressors.)

I'm going to resist the urge to joke that we can't have too much cricket in Wales because we don't have enough flat bits for pitches. I doubt Wales will ever be able to go its own way. The Colonials need to dominate some poor country, even while they stuff their "England" team with ringers from the Commonwealth.

[wittoner]

Nice Rant Patrick but I'm sure it's the Northern Irish results that come last on Final Score.

[Patrick Thistle]

Well whatever. Six lots of Scottish results including their regionalised fifth division usually mean I drift off by then.

And you're much, much more likely to play for "England" if you speak with an Afrikaans accent rather than a Valleys lilt.

[Sam]

Fed's mother's mother tongue may be English. Or Afrikaans. She is a Saffer. I would assume that South Africa does indeed feel a proprietary claim on the bloke.

His Wikipedia page lists Swiss and Standard German, English and French as the languages he speaks fluently. So although his mum is an Afrikaner, I would assume she spoke English to him when he was small. He apparently also has South African nationality, so a little more than a proprietary claim.

[ursus arctos]

I wonder what they are raising their kids to speak.

They have a lot of material to work with, though I can say from family experience that Slovak is of limited value outside the country.

[George C.]

The irony is most people resident in Britain still ignore most cricket.

And rightly so.

[Felicity, I guess so]

BBC Look North was cringe-making in its determination to claim the victory for Durham/Yorkshire and had lead story live broadcasts from Durham before during and (days) after the final

[Duncan Gardner]

If (as now looks almost inevitable) Shane Lowry wins the Open Golf BBC NI will be insufferable. More than usually so, I mean

[George C.]

Why?

[Satchmo Distel]

I wonder what they are raising their kids to speak.

They have a lot of material to work with, though I can say from family experience that Slovak is of limited value outside the country.

Roger says his parents emphasized English, as evidenced by giving him a name that is easily spoken in English. It would also be the obvious common language between his parents, especially as Roger's mother went to an English school not an Afrikaans one.

Some sources state that Roger picked up some Afrikaans from her but not to the extent of being able to speak it fluently.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/roger-fe...ight-languages

[Jah Womble]

4.7.90 was the England-West Germany World Cup semi-final. A bigger and better thing than the comparable one last year IMO

Yes, it absolutely was. But then, Germany are 'bigger and better' than Croatia.

Or at least 'were'.

[Janik]

Roger says his parents emphasized English, as evidenced by giving him a name that is easily spoken in English. It would also be the obvious common language between his parents, especially as Roger's mother went to an English school not an Afrikaans one.

Some sources state that Roger picked up some Afrikaans from her but not to the extent of being able to speak it fluently.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/roger-fe...ight-languages

ursus was more wondering what tongues Mirka and Roger's kids know. Slovak being on Mirka's side of the family.

[Satchmo Distel]

My bad. I should have added that I think English would be part of the mix in how Roger and Mirka speak to the kids given the importance of English in his career. Mirka might have dropped Slovak quite early because she was raised in Switzerland from the age of two.

[Sporting]

We had friends who lived in Spain. She was from Ecuador and fluent in Spanish and English. Her partner was Hungarian and also spoke English and Spanish. They had a daughter. From the beginning he made no attempt to teach her his native tongue. It was all Spanish. Then they got an offer to work in Bandon in Ireland and moved there, since when the only language they have spoken at home, with their kid, has been English. She's forgotten all the Spanish she ever knew. Why did they do this? Not many answers really beyond that English is the universal language and it's hard to deal with more than one language at a time. I find this so sad and just a little bit cruel.

[ursus arctos]

That is quite sad, and all I can say is that she will be able to acquire Spanish more quickly later in life, should she decide to do so.

I lost all of my Polish after my maternal grandparents died, but it began to come back after only a week in Poland. And I know of many other similar stories. The basics are still there, even if they can't be immediately accessed.

Given, where they live, the Federer kids will be learning both French and English in primary school at an absolute minimum, and will find it hard not to pick up both Swiss German and Basler Dialekt. Slovak might be a bit much to add to that. They strike me as the kind of family that might hire a Mandarin-speaking nanny just to expand the kids' horizons.

[Janik]

My bad. I should have added that I think English would be part of the mix in how Roger and Mirka speak to the kids given the importance of English in his career. Mirka might have dropped Slovak quite early because she was raised in Switzerland from the age of two.

My Aunt was talking about this two weeks ago (or at least something closely associated) as Mirka's face came up on the TV in the pub we were in. That prompted her to reminisce that she was acquainted with Mirka's parents back in the day (my cousin, her son, was a promising Junior player and was based at the same Basel Tennis Club as Mirka). The parents certainly conversed in Czech-Slovak. My Aunt was less clear in the telling of the story whether this was with her or with their daughter. With her is more likely, I guess.

[Janik]

My family's experience differs rather from ursus on reacquiring language. My Czech is utterly basic and completely non-fluent. I know words, terms etc. but I couldn't form more than a basic sentence or hold any sort of conversation. My Mum tried to teach me and my sister when we were kids, but she didn't know any other Czech speakers and the mix of English and Czech we initially spoke very, very swiftly devolved into just English when we got to nursery school and found the Czech words had no utility. My sister was in the same boat as me aged ~20, but has tried to take Czech back up since as she already had a propensity for languages (German was the minor part of her major-minor degree; she is fluent). She found herself starting from essentially scratch and is still unconfident about conversing in it after going to classes for over a decade (caveat: one hour a week, which she fairly often can't make, and those sessions do seem to be as much about drinking in the pub afterwards as learning the lingo!).

As it happens, I was at my cousins on the other side of the family this weekend. She is on the Norwegian-English branch. I always assumed that she could speak Norwegian. It turns out she is in the same situtaon; her Mum tried to teach her Norwegian as a kid but gave up when she got to school and became stubborn about speaking a "useless language". My cousin is now monolingual. And remains that despite spending chunks of summers in Norway visiting relatives. I also found out her attitude to tomatoes is exactly the same as mine. It's almost as if we were related or something...

The good news on this from the same gathering was another cousin was there with his daughter, and she is bilingual in English and her mother's tongue of bahasa Indonesia. It's interesting what her parents have done to encourage this. When at home (in Jakarta), her mother only speaks bahasa Indonesia to her, and her father (my cousin from a pure English branch of the tree) only speaks English. They also speak English with each other in front of the child. This leads to the interesting situation where little Maddy ("I'm three!") assumes that her Dad cannot speak bahasa Indonesia and translates for him! This isn't needed, after nearly a decade living there, he can in fact speak it. But she never hears him to do, so believes he can't. Which is good empirical observation.
Maddy goes to the nursery of the International School where my cousin works as a teacher. Some of the other kids of expat-local marriages there only speak English, as that is what the parents have decided would be best for them. Those parents reputedly don't want to confuse the kids with two tongues, and regard English as clearly the most practical language to have. Despite, as I say, this all taking place in Indonesia. This was according to my cousin at least, who appeared thoroughly bemused by what he was relaying.


Anyway, that is enough about my internationalist family.

[Sporting]

This is fascinating but attitude to tomatoes?!

[ursus arctos]

That's quite interesting. I wonder if you would have similar issues were you in a genuinely immersive environment for a month or two.

[Sporting]

Those parents reputedly don't want to confuse the kids with two tongues

Oh but there is no confusion...ok maybe at first. Our son at the age of 4 or so, waiting at a pedestrian crossing, came out with "Wir müssen warten hasta que the green man comes".

[ursus arctos]

Of course the imperative has to be in German . . .

[Janik]

That's quite interesting. I wonder if you would have similar issues were you in a genuinely immersive environment for a month or two.

Well, I can't speak for myself but my sister did a three month summer language course at Charles University at one point early in her adoption of Czech.

[Janik]

This is fascinating but attitude to tomatoes?!

Reduced to a paste - fine. Raw or cooked but not completely reduced, bleergh. In both cases it's the texture neither of us can stand. But that only seems to apply to tomatoes. Other slimy foods like avocado are dandy. It's more of an issue for my cousin than me as she is a vegetarian.

[ursus arctos]

My experience of Prague is that it isn't really immersive any longer for English or German speakers unless you go out of your way to make it so.

I would expect that even some of the very rural hamlets I visited in Poland are more multi-lingual now if only because of people having had experience outside the immediate vicinity.

[Janik]

Oh but there is no confusion...ok maybe at first. Our son at the age of 4 or so, waiting at a pedestrian crossing, came out with "Wir müssen warten hasta que the green man comes".

I decided to drop German language courses at School when I managed to construct a three word reply to a question from the teacher with one word of English, one of French and one of German. That told me that clearly I wasn't cut out for language learning. But that was aged 14, so rather more set in my ways.

But yes, I think the attitude is misplaced particularly with very young children. There capacity is not limited, teaching them two or more languages merely expands their minds.