BACKGROUND

The Complainant moved to Slovenia from the UK in 2005, buying a house. A successful language student at school, he had no experience of Slavic or other Eastern European languages but expected to learn quickly.

The UK only has one official language: Welsh. The government is legally required to be able provide any service in Welsh, but is not required to provide it in English. It can be spoken by 19% of the population of Wales. The Complainant has never heard anyone speaking Welsh in the flesh.

Unlike Slovenia the UK does not have laws against advertising or showing films in foreign languages. You can open a shop or restaurant without being able to speak a word of English. Anybody who proposed it should be otherwise would be called a racist, and an unnecessary provocateur of inter-ethnic conflict and, in the opinion of the Complainant, rightly so.

No problems have been reported in this language free-for-all, which includes everything from Polish to Bangladeshi, except for Nazis occasionally attacking ethnic businesses. Nazis who would typically rank Mohamed's poor English highly in their list of grievances/justifications. The prejudiced might exercise their right not to patronise those businesses. Unless they are drunk and hungry in which case they will.

Since Brexit there are just two member states — Ireland and Malta — where English is the official language, forming just 1% of the total EU population. Brexit has not changed the ranking of English worldwide.

"The English language in Europe, as a native language, is mainly spoken in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Outside of these states, it has official status in Malta, the Crown dependencies (the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey), Gibraltar and the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (two of the British Overseas Territories). In the Kingdom of the Netherlands, English has an official status as a regional language on the isles of Saba and Sint Eustatius (located in the Caribbean)."

"According to a survey published in 2006, 13% of EU citizens speak English as their native language. Another 38% of EU citizens state that they have sufficient English skills to hold a conversation, so the total reach of English in the EU is 51%." [1] 

LUP twice rejected the Complainant for Slovene classes:  in ~2008 because he was not a speaker of Hungarian, Italian or Serbo-Croat, and in 2021 because he was among three sent to the LUP class by the ZRSZ who were not an Albanian lady who had already had 60 hours.

In this way those relying on English as a base language to learn Slovene were shaken out by "bureaucratic difficulties".

The difficulty arose when the LUP reality met the ZRSZ reality. Both initally chose the much easier option of making the wrong type of students go away to fit the bureaucracy.

ZRSZ and LUP could blame each other and forget about the situations of the non-students economically excluded by the law they had never heard of.

But after being introduced to www.voy.si Ptuj ZRSZ and LUP rapidly decided at the third attempt that they could teach Slovene to an Anglophone after all. The first lesson took place 5210 days after the Decree, indicating the amount of the Complainant's time wasted by Slovenia in satisfying its own demands (assuming the aliens are meant to survive).

The instructor - who has been there 27 years - is not a linguist and had never taught anyone Slovene before, but is competent. No special qualifications are required to teach Slovene, the language the qualification-obsessed Slovenians insist is really difficult.

With the first lesson on 20 October 2022 LUP presented the final hurdle to be overcome in the Complainant's 6381-day delayed journey towards the Slovenian economy, courtesy of ZJRS 14.

On day 1 (Day 5210 since the Decree), the one-hour lesson contained one hour of one-to-one teacher-pupil interaction.

On day 2, the two-hour lesson contained 10 minutes of one-to-one.

There was only one plan...to direct the student to a computer. Naturally, the computer cannot hear the Complainant, correct the Complainant's audio, or answer random questions. There is no audio or audiovisual link with signalling, with which the student can request supervision, no teacher supervising who can elect to communicate with the individual students or groups of them.

Imagine you were trying to design a teaching system to minimise the amount of Slovene exchanged with any human being. And in which all the forward momentum is provided by the student. Read and listen to the recording now. Being heard and understood is for "later".

In combination with all social experiences, it makes me wonder, what happens to Slovenians who get caught practising foreigners' Slovene?

In other words, self-access language learning centres are inferior to an A-A language laboratory of the 1960s, for learning to listen and speak. With their pesky expensive soundproof booths and busy teacher employment, those fell out of favour.

And, by the way, a language laboratory would be pointless for just one student. Self-access allows Slovenians to deal with the Sixty Euro Problem by running away normally, but for €53/hour. 

They do not expect a free Albanian lesson so (for the 20 minutes before we were expelled) the Albanian ladies had no computers, and not one, but two teachers speaking Slovene, which they supposedly already understood.

I am advised they are just there to collect a paper proof that they can do Slovene, and so LUP can collect the fees - not to really learn it. And I didn't hear any from them.
 

Students vary. During 17 years the Complainant has realised he can read and listen to Slovene on a computer at home. He came with a fairly extensive read vocabulary and made it clear live human being conversational experience in Slovene was the problem here.

This student needs a 90% voice-oriented course, and not the 90% reading and listening without a teacher course. But LUP and the ZRSZ have no experience or plan for this, just the same excuses as everyone else.

Three weeks in, LUP presented me with a practice book up to Level 1A - the type where you write in some missing words and answers, to develop comprehension!

Thoughtfully, many have already been filled in by the original owner, whose used textbook the University photocopied. Their handwriting is awful. With this jumble sale item came a form for me to fill in so LUP can get the €9600.

Many, maybe, have sat in front of computers, not being taught by a linguist, with no plan, and a second-hand textbook where the (possibly wrong) answers are provided, preventing them having to think.

What percentage of these, do you think, can now converse extensively, comprehend, or think, in Slovene? What are the chances?