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What languages have you heard today? | ||
Tags: Foreign Languages | Listening | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5841 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 121 01 July 2009 at 12:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Today as I go about my normal business I have heard the following languages spoken:
1) Swedish (speaking to my sister) 2) English (I live in England..) 3) Hindi - I think (onshore team from the outsources) 4) Gujurati - I think (as above) 5) German (colleagues plus people walking down the lane outside my house) 6) Russian (colleagues) 7) French (tourists, plus shoppers at local supermarket) 8) Italian (School class in the Underground) 9) Spanish (my neighbour talking on his mobile) 10) Unknown (to me) Eastern European language (people hanging out at the piazza by the river Thames) 11) Finnish (people just walking down the lane outside my house). Probably some other language that I can't remember right now. Am I living in an extreme language tower of Babel, or do others have the same experiences? Edited by cordelia0507 on 01 July 2009 at 1:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6706 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 121 01 July 2009 at 1:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Days are different. I can easily read or hear 10 languages or more in a day, especially if I'm surfing. Yesterday's list was as follows:
1. Danish; TV, Internet, hospital (I have had a minor surgery performed today) - I have even spoken Danish today 2. Latin: I peeked into the medical journal 3. English: the backside of a Wagner CD, TV (several things) and Internet (several things). Besides I accidentally answered a Danish nurse in English (!), and I have written things in English here 4. Portuguese (Brazilian): Internet 5. Modern High German: Internet: a bit of research into Wagner and into the Niebelungen Lied. I have also written a lot in German in my log thread yesterday 6. Middle High German: The beginning of the Nibelungen Lied in the original version 7. Old Norse: I checked something about Sigurd Fafnirsbani (called Siegfried in Nibelungen) 8. Italian: I made a couple of corrections in an answer in my log 9. Dutch: I have made a copy of the content of my Profile thread to Word today, and there were several posts in Dutch there. I have also loosely read something in Dutch in my log thread. 10. Modern Greek: Just one greeting in the profile thread, - plus a few words in the medical journal (some "Doctor's Latin" is really Greek loanwords into Latin) 11.Russian: Internet (just a few pages) 12. French: Something on the internet, I have forgotten what it was about. Besides I have looked 'hernie' up in my French etymological dictionary to see whether this word also has come from Greek (but it seems to be Latin). I may have seen other languages briefly while searching with Google, but I didn't follow up on those links. I also have a Bilingual English - Tagalog text on my writing desk, but I honestly don't think I have read anything in it yesterday. Besides I don't count names of books on my shelves, even though I must have seen single words in other languages there while searching for books in the languages above. It is actually both fun and enlightening to make such a list - I had thought of yesterday as a purely Danish + English + Modern/Middle German day, but as this list shows there where brief encounters with several other languages. And that's good - even a minute here and there can help you to keep a language alive. ----- EDIT: I just realized that Cordelia asked about languages we have HEARD, not read - my fault. This more than halves my list: 1. Danish; TV, hospital (I have had a minor surgery performed today) - I have even spoken Danish today 2. English: TV (several things). Besides I accidentally answered a Danish nurse in English (!), and I have written things in English here 3. Portuguese (Brazilian): Internet 4. Middle High German: A snippet from the beginning of the Nibelungen Lied in the original version I'll write a new post later on a day where I'm mobile and not buried in written texts, - but unlike Cordelia and others I'm not likely to hear any foreign language from my coworkers Edited by Iversen on 01 July 2009 at 11:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5927 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 3 of 121 01 July 2009 at 1:38am | IP Logged | ||
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You may be living near the Tower of Babel, I haven't heard half as many languages today, but here's my list
I know I've heard Japanese and Korean (most of the foreign students at my college are from either Japan or Korea, but I can't distinguish between the languages very easily) Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Afrikaans(I listened to some songs and online radio broadcasts) English (I live in the US so no surprise there) Now if only Washington had more recent European immigrants who don't speak English well, then perhaps I could hear Swedish and Finnish as they are actually spoken. Edited by mick33 on 01 July 2009 at 1:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5841 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 4 of 121 01 July 2009 at 1:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, I suspect that London is extreme in this respect. But I don't know!
It's a VERY globalised and international world we live in nowadays! In Stockholm I would normally only hear a few languages; Swedish, English and occasionally some other Nordic language. In certain areas you might hear Arabic, Persian due to the high numbers of refugees from these areas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6037 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 5 of 121 01 July 2009 at 2:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Nothing but English in my case, although this is probably because I'm stuck at home most of the time, witting stuff.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6778 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 121 01 July 2009 at 4:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I've heard the following today:
-English: (I live in the US) -Spanish: (I live in the US) -Russian: (speaking with colleagues at work + at a dental office) -Polish: (a colleague talking on the phone) -Hindi (some people on an elevator) -Mandarin (a Chinese couple sat next to me in a subway train. I noticed them because the guy had a chess book open , and I am a big chess buff - big enough to actually recognize the game he was looking at based on the diagrams). I often hear more languages than this in a single day, but today that was it. Edited by Russianbear on 01 July 2009 at 4:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| delta910 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5878 days ago 267 posts - 313 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, German | Message 7 of 121 01 July 2009 at 5:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Today:
1)English..(live in the U.S.) 2)Spanish..(live in the U.S.) 3)German..(TV and music) 4)Arabic..(listening/watching the news on the internet because I just started it) 5)Farsi..(watching the news) I think that is about it. Not many when looking at the list. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| goosefrabbas Triglot Pro Member United States Joined 6371 days ago 393 posts - 475 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German, Italian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 121 01 July 2009 at 7:02am | IP Logged | ||
Russianbear, do you play USCF? And today I've heard - English Edited by goosefrabbas on 01 July 2009 at 7:02am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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