Education issues (and Basque food invades Belgium!)
Last weekend, during my stay in Bilbao, I talked to Mikel and his roommate about communication issues and the generally low level of English in the Basque Country and Spain. They gave me a bit of insight in the main educational problems and it became a bit clearer to me where the biggest gaps are.
They told me that, for example, they would learn conjugations of verbs but didn’t learn what the verbs mean. Or they would just learn words and sentences by heart, but never how to apply them.
Also, they could not link the conjugations of English verbs to the Basque ones, because Basque simply doesn’t have a connection to other European languages. In my opinion, when teaching English here, it should be explained in Spanish, because it’s just easier and more logical that way.
Anyway, those are my two cents on this. It just surprised me, because with a more efficient way of teaching English, I’m sure that the general level among the youth here would increase drastically.
Oh, and showing movies in their original language instead of dubbing would help. So far, I haven’t found a single person here that actually likes the dubbing.
Pintxos invade Belgium
Something else: while I was surfing on a Belgian news website this week, I bumped into a culinary article that mentioned pintxos. Apparently, there are a few pintxos restaurants/bars in Belgium, which got me excited because that means I will still be able to eat these delicious mini-meals after I return. Here you can see the menu of the one that they mention in the article:
Part of the menu @ El Pintxo
Night time walks
To end this post, a peaceful image. Yesterday around midnight the four of us went for a walk up the hill. We love it up there, had a lot of fun, and time to clear our heads.
Michael and Koen looking down on Bergara ©Sajeh
Gabon!
I went last year one weekend to Antwerp and having in mind that there are two official languages Flemish & French I thought that I could practice my French.I loved Antwerp but my big surprise was that it was very similar city to Amsterdam.In Amsterdam the languages spoken are Dutch & English in Antwerp Flemish & English.When I spoke French I got no answer from people and when I used my English people were happy to communicate with me.In Basque Country many people are bilingual speaking Basque and Spanish.I learnt my English from the Irish who had no clue of Basque or Spanish and when I have done languages teaching courses I have been told that you have to use the language that you are teaching.I believe that the knowledge of Basque with a complex grammar has helped me a lot in learning another languages.Do not forget that Germans with a language with complex grammar too are famous as great linguists:Schelegel,Scheleiser.