Newsgroups: soc.culture.german,soc.culture.french,alt.politics.ec,soc.culture.europe,sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!uunet!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!donh
From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: talk & travel
Message-ID: <donhD44D0E.9JB@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <elnaD3oBsD.IE7@netcom.com> <BLUME.95Feb8200539@atomic.cs.princeton.edu> <3hmv97$h6g@fido.asd.sgi.com> <3htih2$6m4@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 00:50:38 GMT
Lines: 24
Sender: donh@netcom5.netcom.com

rison@hep.phy.cam.ac.uk skribis en lastatempa afisxo <3htih2$6m4@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>:
>
>I remember reading about some report commissioned by the EU about
>foreign language ability in the EU, whose conclusion ran along the
>lines of `ability was far below our most pessimistic estimates'.
>Was this the Erasmus report?  Can someone produce more precise
>information?
>
If I remember correctly, the survey was carried out by a PR 
organization named Lintas, to determine how profitable a satellite 
commercial TV channel in English would be. Their idea of a survey was 
to ask the Man in the Street to translate three simple sentences 
out of English into his own language -- ability to use the language 
actively was not of interest (all the MitS had to do was be able to 
understand TV commercials, not actually speak the language). And, yes, 
the report did use the expression "far below our most pessimistic 
estimates" for the average capability of the average continental 
European when trying to understand English.

-- 
Don HARLOW			donh@netcom.com
Esperanto League for N.A.       elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/el/elna/elna.html         Esperanto
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/do/donh/donh.html 
