Chinese (and other) pilots unable to speak English pose danger for air travel (CNN)

Mxsmanic wrote:

David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

What is the evidence for this?

The statistics I've seen in the past.

So, none then.

My own experience mirrors the
statistics.

I don't think reasonable people would consider you to have much
experience.

--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"Abominable, loyal, blind, apparently subservient."
Pres. Carter on Pres. Blair- May, 2007

On Jul 9, 8:19 am, Mxsmanic wrote:
David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

Mxsmanic wrote:

David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Not so. There are far more than one billion speakers of English in the world.

I didn't claim otherwise. Re-read the above.

I did. "Speaking English as a secondary one" means all speakers of English,
not just native speakers, and there are far more than one billion such people
in the world. This greatly outnumbers the number of native speakers of Hindi.
Thus, claiming the opposite--to say nothing of claiming that there are three
times as many native Hindi speakers as English speakers--is clearly incorrect.

Oh the irony of it all (obviously Engrish isn't your first language.
Must be French...). Don't read context into the sentence where there
is none:

India still has over 3 times as many people speaking Hindi as a native
language than the number [of Indians] speaking English as a
secondary [language].

I don't know why you think 1 billion people speaking english as a
second language has anything to do with the sentence.

Sheesh. Glad you weren't *my* language teacher.

(As an aside: What about Russian as a second language? It's an (iirc)
ICAO language; in terms of area Russia is the largest country on the
planet, and it has a nice big population. Plus it's pretty damned
easy to read. Although, on the other hand, 10 syllable words are
tough on the radio

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...

Read this again, carefully.


You have never given me cause to follow your instructions.

You have always given me cause be highly skeptical of any of your 'advice'.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Miguel Cruz writes:

Only if you're in France, or have little interest in establishing
communication.

No, I was talking about interactions worldwide.

You despise leaving your apartment, why would anyone think you know anything
about 'interactions worldwide"?

The only experience you have worldwide is the worldwide web. That's not
reality.

"David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)" wrote in message
...

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Nope.

About 300 million Indians speak some Hindi.

About 700 million speak some English

Mind you, in a lot of cases for both languages it's the taxi driver's
'where to?'

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Not so. There are far more than one billion speakers of English in the
world.

And about two thirds of them are in India...

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.

William Black wrote:

"David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)" wrote in message
...

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Nope.

About 300 million Indians speak some Hindi.

About 700 million speak some English

I was talking about India.

Mind you, in a lot of cases for both languages it's the taxi driver's
'where to?'

Well, I can answer that in Hindi!

--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"Abominable, loyal, blind, apparently subservient."
Pres. Carter on Pres. Blair- May, 2007

William Black wrote:

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Not so. There are far more than one billion speakers of English in the
world.

And about two thirds of them are in India...

Where are you getting that figure?

--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"Abominable, loyal, blind, apparently subservient."
Pres. Carter on Pres. Blair- May, 2007

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

Next to English, Arabic,
Mandarin, Spanish and Hindi are far more important than French.

It's the other way around. If you can't find someone who speaks English,
the
next language you try is French.

Other than in South Louisiana (and then with mixed and amusing result), I
certainly wouldn't try that progression in the US (and if you think so, it's
even more obvious how "out of touch" you are. Second choice would certainly
be Spanish, even in Washington, DC, trusting that in the crowd there are
some for whom it's the first language and for others learned as needed in
supervisory, commercial or self-interest capacity. While the "Taquerias" of
Chicago line the way to Midway Airport, the sounds of Spanish are apparent
inside the fortresses inside the Loop (although spoken mostly by the hired
help).

Back in the early 60s, when I did a bit of Navy courier duty, French was not
only Tehran's second language, it was spoken by most of the elite or those
pretending to be. Even with anti-US feelings these days, English is by far
the prevailing second language in the country.

TMO

"El Maximo" wrote ...
"Mxsmanic" wrote...
El Maximo writes:

Not obvious to me. Every german I know speaks perfect english, although
with
an accent.

I hardly know any Germans who speak perfect English.

The fact that you hardly know them not surprising. The Germans I know are
also pretty bright, therefore they would steer clear of the likes of you.


As a group, I suspect that Scandinavians are more likely to be "effective"
English speakers than are Germans, and in my experience the Dutch are more
likely to be at least semi-fluent in English than are other nationalities.
Obviously, the English and US citizens (other than Hispanics) are among the
most likely to be mono-lingual. Were it not for tourism and commerce, I
have my doubts whether more than a half-dozen French residents would speak
English....

I'm fairly fluent in a brand of Spanish spoken in San Luis Potosi, Mexico,
before 1914, the place and time of origin of most of the early
Spanish-speaking residents of my home town, but likely to draw smiles in
Madrid. After a few days of stumbling, I can once more "get by" in a sort
of Italian quite understandable to Italians in Central and Southern Italy.
My French consists of long lost and hard to reclaim bits of a maritime and
littoral lingua franca, good at ship-chandlers, agents, port services, bars,
restaurants, hotels, transportation services and, I suppose, in the
occasional maison du tolerance. Vietnamese? Once terse, inadequate, and
minimally functional. Now, none of the above and any remaining much clouded
by the passage of time.

That's not much to be proud of, but a clear leg up on most of my US
contemporaries. My father who spoke fair Chinese would be proud of my
youngest daughter who speaks a barbarous brand of "Post Hole" TexMex, but
decent commercial Chinese (Mandarin?) for the marketplace in which she
works. She claims that her commercial contacts are more and more likely to
speak English.

TMO