Spanish people and their English

The following topic is usually discussed by native English speakers, however, I would like to share my own opinion on this.

It is true that the English language in the past centuries has spread to all parts of the world very quickly so that it has become one of the most important languages in our world. Especially in Europe and economically strong Asian countries like India, China or Japan the English language has become a regular feature in their education. Nevertheless, it is often said that countries like Spain or Italy do not have a good education due to the English language, which makes me coming back to my mentioned topic: “Do Spanish people hardly speak English? If so, why?”

First of all, I want to admit that I can only refer to my experiences I have made with Spanish people in Spain while living there and in Poland by talking to the Erasmus students. Now, I cannot generalize my opinion but my experience was:

1. Spanish people do hardly speak English and in comparison to students from other countries their English is worse.

2. To my mind, one of the greatest problems due to this issue is that Spaniards dub everything so that they rarely come into contact with the English language.

3. Another experience I have made is that Spaniards hardly ever leave their country. A lot of Spanish students I have met rarely leave their village much less their region or country. On the other hand, they do not need any English in Spain because everything is translated or dubbed except the tourist industry, which again is very popular especially in the south of Spain.

4. Last but not least I would like to point out that, although English is taught in Spanish schools, it is not uncommon to find it being taught by teachers who cannot really speak English. Not only in schools but also at the university the teacher’s English skills are poor even though they may know the grammar rules.

To sum it up, it may be true that Spanish people hardly speak English but do they have to? English has become a world language and it is important to have a global language to communicate with all people around the world but by teaching it one also introduces the English/American culture. And isn’t it more valuable to maintain one’s own culture? There is a lot more behind this topic to talk about. Finally I would like to mention the artificial language “Esperanto” created by scientists, which ought to be easy to learn without including any one group’s culture. Maybe this is going to be the next revolution or maybe it was just a nice idea?!