[etni] Learn to speak English

From: David Lloyd <dlloyd54@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Etni <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:09:07 +0300
Learn to speak English
Op-ed: To do well in modern world, Israel needs top-notch English speakers
Ynet News - 31/07/10

Many years have passed, but many people still recall with horror the
final moments in a business seminar held in Jordan’s embassy in
Israel. Five Jordanian ministers took part in the seminar, and at its
festive conclusion one of the Israeli participants lauded our
commercial ties with Jordan, remarking that “they even speak English.”
A Jordanian minister sitting right next to me leaned over and
whispered: “And we even came down from the trees by now.”

The Jordanian ministers who took part in that seminar were all
graduates of top schools – Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, Yale,
Stanford, and Harvard. Their command of English was superb and they
spoke with barely a hint of an accent. Yet throughout the day, and
while speaking to each other, the arrogant Israelis kept on praising
the Jordanians’ English.

The overwhelming majority of the older generation among us holds great
respect for English, among other reasons because most of us stutter
our way through this language while making numerous mistakes. And the
accent, oh, that accent, is killing us. Over the years, we developed a
theory whereby the Americans love our mistakes and mostly our accent.
A foreign accent does the trick for them.

Yet that’s nonsense. We have learned in the past (and we keep on
learning these days) that the Americans can’t stand mistakes in
English, and that there is no charm in our terrible accent. They
suffer terribly while facing our English speakers, yet their
hypocritical manners prevent them from informing us of their real view
on the disaster known as “Israeli English.” Among themselves, they
despise Israeli English-speakers, and in many cases this may be the
real reason for rejection.

(To read the whole article, go to -
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3927419,00.html )
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[etni] Learn to speak English

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