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Finance minister admits his English isn't good
Published: 23 Dec 12 10:22 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20121223-46947.html
Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble feels sorry for anyone who has to deal with his English because he has a poor command of the language, according to an interview in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
- Schäuble: Dutch minister good for eurogroup job - Business & Money (21 Dec 12)
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By his own admission, however, he is not someone who has a good command of English. That gives him something in common with other German politicians, such as European Union Commissioner Günther Oettinger and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, whose poor English has often been the subject of jokes, the paper said.
“Badly spoken English is however the most spoken language in the world,” Schäuble joked in the interview.
The finance minister remembered when he was in his previous job as interior minister he made a suggestion at the European Council in Brussels to forgo interpreters in favor of requiring everyone to speak English.
Nicholas Sarkozy, the French interior minister at the time, was not in favor of that, fearing that holding the meetings in English would give the British an advantage.
“I told him that it was actually a much larger disadvantage for them because we would destroy their language,” Schäuble said.
The Local/mw
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Your comments about this article:
Non-English speaking countries are undergoing major mutations labeled by self-denial of their own national languages. Actually they do not need to venture nor jeopardize their achievements : many are will to learn German (the same here) , but apparently Sir Schäuble is about discouraging us the move (...) It is great having English as a common language indeed. Nevertheless, there is a big difference between ¦#39;¦#39;appreciating¦#39;¦#39; a language by its practicability and ¦#39;¦#39;loving¦#39;¦#39; the same language by finally letting it be stripped of one¦#39;s own national language and identity.
However, by the imposing cultural mass of the U.S. many haven no chance left than a cultural self-denial. Such cases are nowadays common in South Europe, but somehow much significantly in Northern Europe (maybe by due to their less spoken languages around the world). By all accounts, languages such as German Spanish or French- really do not have to suffer inferiority complex so far there are among most-spoken languages. Well then, what a linguistic turn Sir Schäuble !?…Anyway, wanna break free and enter in the great Anglophone-family? You¦#39;re welcome but not without self-destruction of your native German.