Bjørn Stærk, one of the most read norwegian webloggers, tells us he won't post as often as he used to do.
Kind of sad, really, I'd just discovered him, and although he probably is somewhat to the right of me politically, he makes a very interesting read. Oh, and he is much more polite than what is common in blogspace.
But I found a comment to his "resignation" post that made me write about something I've thought about for a long time. Gunnar, Maryland thanks him for blogging in english, "made possible by the great english education in Norway".
That's the first time I've heard a native english speaker thank a foreigner for taking the time to learn english. Honors to you, Gunnar from Maryland.
When I made my snide comment about Kurt's english in my last post, it was with this in mind. I, like most norwegians, have had english in scool for approximately nine years. That's actually quite an investement for being able to talk to an american on the net.
Is it worth it?
From a cost/benefit perspective, probably not, actually! While it's nice to be able to read The Lord of the Rings as it was written, watch "twin peaks" without subtitles, and chat with the random american on the net...
OK, I probably couldn't be a _good_ programmer without my english skills. Probably any sufficiently tricky profession would demand that you dig up infomation which is only avaliable in english, but still, if it's about making money, there are easier ways that don't require this huge, up-front, risky investement of learning a foreig language.
Nine years is a very long time. If english-speaking countries can't get better school results on average than other countries, with all that extra time, they can't be working hard enough.
For a native english speaker, of course, the cost/benefit ratio of learning a foreign language is laughable. But I doubt very many of them think of just how big a terrain advantage they have in the specialized professions.
So thanks again, Gunnar, for appreciating the effort the world makes in order to be allowed to communicate with you.
And if you read this, I don't think our language education or learning abilities are all that terrific: I studied german for almost as long as I studied english (on account of being in a Steiner-Waldorf school), but my german is essentially baby talk. What makes the difference is the exposure through film, literature and television, which is plentiful for english, but not so good for german, obviously.
Kurt Nilsen, the plumber who won the world idol competition, has a hit on norwegian radio. It's a song about living on the street.
Too bad he probably meant to write a song about living on the _road_. English can be hard.