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Are you multilingual?
Topic Started: Nov 16 2010, 07:07 AM (510 Views)
PattyP
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Senior Carp
I'm just curious who is multilingual, why and in which languages. I've long thought that foreign language should be a requirement in U.S. schools because the world is so much smaller than it used to be. Maybe it is required now, but back in my day it was only an option. Now that I'm in Texas, I'm really interested in learning enough Spanish so I can carry on an intelligent conversation rather than just using sign language and grunting. :D

I have a dear friend in Michigan who is Hispanic. Listening to her talk to other Spanish-speaking people is a wonder to me. She suggested that I get a Spanish-print bible to learn the language but it I don't think I'd learn proper pronunciations. Has anyone ever used the RosettaStone? What methods did you use to learn your second language?

A tired dog is a good dog.

"Dogs' lives are too short...their only fault, really."
A.S. Turnbull
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Klaus
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HOLY CARP!!!
I wish I could speak another language, but unfortunately there is never enough time...
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
English, Spanish, Portuguese are all operationally fluent. My French is transactional.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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brenda
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..............
English, rusty but pretty good in German, some Spanish
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
~A.A. Milne
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
jon-nyc
Nov 16 2010, 07:18 AM
My French is transactional.
You mean you've learned to say 'how much for an around-the-world'?
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Piano*Dad
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Bull-Carp
Does Elvish count? How 'bout Klingon?
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
I am fluent in English and Japanese, and know enough Spanish to get around most places in Mexico. I also know a smattering of Italian, Korean, Arabic, and Urdu.
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Riley
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PattyP
Nov 16 2010, 07:07 AM
I've long thought that foreign language should be a requirement in U.S. schools because the world is so much smaller than it used to be.
In Ontario, French is required up to grade 9. (starts about grade 4 I think)
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
Frank_W
Nov 16 2010, 07:32 AM
I am fluent in English and Japanese.
That's cool. Japanese was hard for me, and I never got comfortable with it. I'm okay in French, German, Spanish and Chinese; not fluent by any means but (barely) adequate for business and travel purposes. I'd like to learn Hindi next, via this program: Rocket Hindi

If I ever have the time to learn Italian, it would be purely for pleasure.

Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
Nice. :) I'm an advocate of total immersion learning. (i.e. Spending time on the ground in the country of the target language, with no help from anyone, for at least six months.)
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
Frank_W
Nov 16 2010, 07:47 AM
Nice. :) I'm an advocate of total immersion learning. (i.e. Spending time on the ground in the country of the target language, with no help from anyone, for at least six months.)
The immersion approach is what Rosetta Stone does with its software. I did Level 1 and 2 for Mandarin, and it worked okay. Expensive though.
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
Yeah... It really is expensive. Upon my honorable discharge from the Army, I couldn't even speak enough Japanese to go and get a haircut by myself, and self-taught, within eight months, I was fluent enough to hold a part-time job as a bartender, worked as a CNC machinist, and attend to all of the day-to-day minutiae that life requires. On the phone, people wouldn't realize I was a gaijin until I made some small mistake. It would freak them out. :lol2:
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Qaanaaq-Liaaq
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Me: Spanish but not fluent.

For an Anglophile, Spanish is probably the easiest language to learn. One reason is that Spanish words are pronounced the way they're spelled.

Are you serious about learning Spanish? If so, then check to see if a four year college in your area offers intensive or accelerated Spanish courses. I took it and completed my university's two year foreign language requirement in one year instead of two. Started in August and was done in May. An accelerated sequence is not for everyone. Each course is worth twice as many credit hours as the regular course and the pace is twice as fast. Fall behind and you'll never catch up. You really have to stay on top of the material. Whichever sequence you take, accelerated or regular, ONCE YOU START, GO ALL THE WAY THROUGH IT WITHOUT STOPPING. DO NOT take a semester off. It'll cost you memory retention.

Professors use one of two approaches. Some teach the course with rapid fire questioning requiring you to respond quickly with a rejoinder. It keeps you on your toes. Others use a kinder gentler approach and spoon feed it to you.

If you don't use it, you lose it. You're going to forget the language within a few years after completing the last course. You're not going to become fluent in the language either. The only way to become fluent is total immersion. You'd have to go live in a country where the language is spoken. You'll be fluent when you can think in the foreign language without having to consciously translate.

Be careful who you ask grammar related questions. Just because someone is a native speaker, it doesn't mean they can explain why something is correct or incorrect. Ask a native Spanish speaker why something is correct such as why does an indirect object pronoun precede a direct object pronoun in a sentence. Most will just shrug and say it's because it sounds right but they can't explain why it's right. Although they can speak the language, they can't explain the rules of sentence construction and grammar.

During vacations to Central America, I had opportunities to try out Spanish in the field. If you look like a gringo like I do and talk to them in Spanish, some will reply to you in English. Maybe they think gringos don't know what they're talking about.

Good luck with it.

I'm Qaanaaq-Liaaq and I approved this message.
Edited by Qaanaaq-Liaaq, Nov 16 2010, 07:58 AM.
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
Red Rice
Nov 16 2010, 07:45 AM
... adequate for business and travel purposes.
Like you could conduct a conference call in Chinese? That's operationally fluent in my book.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
I know enough Spanish to conduct a traffic stop, check for weapons, and conduct field sobriety testing. I also know enough Spanish to tell someone that they are going to jail and that their vehicle is being towed. ;)
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
jon-nyc
Nov 16 2010, 07:59 AM
Red Rice
Nov 16 2010, 07:45 AM
... adequate for business and travel purposes.
Like you could conduct a conference call in Chinese? That's operationally fluent in my book.
I've never tried. Our conference calls are usually conducted in English! But no, I couldn't do a "real" conference call in Chinese (the Southern and Central dialects in particular baffle me), nor in German. I have had phone conversations in Chinese, but only simple ones where the other person on the line had a Beijing or Taiwan dialect.

Another mark of fluency which I haven't mastered is the ability to understand Chinese singing.
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
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KlavierBauer
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HOLY CARP!!!
English of course, and my German's not bad. If I could spend 3-4 months there I think I'd be fluent, and if I could spend a week there I'd be where I was when I lived there previously - very conversationally proficient, and comfortable in most social situations not speaking about science or other highly specialized subjects.
I don't speak any Arabic, but have a lot of Arabic family (God parents and their relatives), so I've spent a lot of time around Arabic and can say all the things you need to during a typical Arabic celebration - "congratulations," "thank you," and "let's go! let's go!" (that's when you're yelling at the kids to get their butts to the car).

A few words here and there in Russian and Spanish as well - but nowhere near having an understanding of either language, or the ability to converse with people in any meaningful way beyond "hello - how are you?"
"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper
"He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple

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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Just English. Mastering that's been hard enough.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Optimistic
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HOLY CARP!!!
PattyP
Nov 16 2010, 07:07 AM
I have a dear friend in Michigan who is Hispanic. Listening to her talk to other Spanish-speaking people is a wonder to me. She suggested that I get a Spanish-print bible to learn the language but it I don't think I'd learn proper pronunciations.
I definitely would not start trying to read until you´ve learned basic pronunciation. That does not take long. With Spanish, you could learn that in a day.

If you try to start reading first, you´ll be likely to make up all kind of funky pronunciations in your head, and this will take a while to un-learn later. But yeah, once you learn pronunciation, read, read, read! Start with children´s literature, actually. Sounds silly, but that´s the level you´ll be at, and children´s books that are well-written are great for learning the language.
PHOTOS

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.
- Mark Twain


We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
-T. S. Eliot
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KlavierBauer
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HOLY CARP!!!
The best way to learn any language (in my humble opinion) is to be immersed in it. There are many programs designed to facilitate this with Spanish, making it inexpensive to go live in a place, and learn Spanish over the course of a couple months.

My biggest "leap" in learning German occurred at about the 3 month mark, and each 1.5 to 2 months after that I'd have another revelation. It was at 3 months though where I finally felt comfortable enough to ditch English and speak only in German.
"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper
"He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple

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jon-nyc
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Cheers
KlavierBauer
Nov 16 2010, 09:22 AM
The best way to learn any language (in my humble opinion) is to be immersed in it.
What worked for me is acquiring a long-haired dictionary.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
jon-nyc
Nov 16 2010, 09:26 AM
What worked for me is acquiring a long-haired dictionary.
But then your vocabulary might be somewhat obscene limited.
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
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KlavierBauer
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HOLY CARP!!!
Jon - Yeah, that works really well too... ;)
After 6 years though, my Russian is still abysmal - having the dictionary helps though.

Mrs.KB is always saying to me in public places: "God I wish you spoke Russian.." Which means she wants to talk about someone right next to us. I wish I could learn Russian well, but it seems like too tall a task.
"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper
"He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple

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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
I speek de engleesh good good
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
That should be well well.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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