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Language use at work? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 11 06 February 2012 at 2:23pm | IP Logged |
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Do you ever get to use your languages at work? I am blessed, in that part of my job actually consists of reading and speaking in foreign languages (hey - I hadn't even thought of including that in the 6WC - I must think of doing that)!
I am also blessed in that I have got two guys working for me, who are not only good at languages, but are willing to try both the ones they know and the ones they don't know. The other day, I was in the office of one of them,(colleague B) when the other one (colleague M,)came in and said he did not want to be left out from all the fun. We had been laughing so hard that we had been disturbing him. I explained to him that I had asked colleague B. whether we could do a little, simple Russian conversation (he studied Russian at the University many years ago, conveniently enough :-). We had done the basic introductions in Russian, then we moved on to introductions in Spanish, which he has not really studied, but nevertheless speaks fairly well - (he is a multi talent when it comes to languages) and by the time colleague M. came by we were ready to do German, in which we promptly included him. Then we passed on to French, and then we did Italian (which in princple, I am the only one who speaks) but colleague B. did a good job even there, and then colleague M insisted on English, since that is the only one he is fluent in. Finally we did Japanese, where we left the floor entirely to colleague B, who is the only one who knows any Japanese. Do you get to use your languages at work, in a serious way, or just for fun? Oh, and the reason why we were laughing so much, was that when my colleague said where he lived in Russian, the word sounded like an odd mix of Norwegian and English meaning "F**kingdale". So we just couldn't help laughing. I guess we are just really childish, in spite of being in our late 40ies. Edit: Oh, and I had actually spelled the word out in full - the stars turned up all by themselves... Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 06 February 2012 at 2:27pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Northernlights Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4677 days ago 73 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 2 of 11 06 February 2012 at 9:07pm | IP Logged |
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That sounds like a lot of fun :-)
I meet people from a lot of countries in my line of work as a ballet accompanist, but I can't say I use any language other than English myself, except for French and Italian terminology that is. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5036 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 3 of 11 06 February 2012 at 11:18pm | IP Logged |
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As a librarian, I have had occassion to use other languages at work when helping the public. It has not happened often, though, as I live in a rural area with mostly monolingual English speakers. We do have some Spanish-speaking immigrants who have moved to the area, but they (sadly) tend not to use library services. I'd love to speak to them in Spanish if they came to use the library.
Several of my coworkers are multilingual. I can occasionally have short shallow conversations in Spanish or French, and even German with the husband of one of my work friends. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5417 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 4 of 11 07 February 2012 at 12:25am | IP Logged |
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I merely get to hear the office receptionists speak Spanish (both to patients and to each other). The only "active" foreign language activity I do, on occasion, is read the multilingual instructions whenever I open a new printer cartridge... *sob* Edited by nway on 07 February 2012 at 12:27am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5228 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 5 of 11 07 February 2012 at 5:20am | IP Logged |
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As IT I use English all the time (mostly reading, but also communicating with other developers).
Besides having more career opportunities, I became a part-time TEFLer/ELEr partly because that's a good way to actively push the limits of my English and other language-related skills (developing tools to aid teachers and students in a class), test stuff I learn here -- and help spread the LL fever! Unfortunately I can't really teach de/ru/jp beyond the basics (but I've had some students anyway, yeehaw!) yet but give me some time... Wrt to having fun, I always try and pick reading/video materials that are fun for them, but I always take it all very seriously ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mani Diglot Senior Member Germany imsprachendickicht.b Joined 4907 days ago 258 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, Welsh, Luxembourgish | Message 6 of 11 07 February 2012 at 10:36am | IP Logged |
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As librarian/office employee at a law office in Luxembourg I need my French (still intermediate) to talk to my francophone colleagues (French and Belgians). The secretaries sometimes ask me to translate some words or phrases into German or English or to spell check when one of the lawyers cited some German/English while dictating.
My Luxembourgian colleagues usually talk to me in German to each other in Luxembourgish or French (when one of the Francophones is around and they want them to understand). Classifying the books and journals I come across English, French and German. Sorting the files it's usually (frequency of occurrence): French, English, German, Luxembourgish, Spanish and Italian (the later two are rare, but occur). Once I also came across a Turkish document from which I only remember the name for January (ocak). One of the lawyers sometimes addresses me in Italian (which I never studied) for fun and I return the favour to answer in my rusty Bengali/Hindi/Japanese (whatever comes to my mind first). We're having great fun 'cause he's a language lover too and we're helping each other to get better at German respectively French. He also taught me some Italian basics (not much just a few phrases), so now I sometimes greet him in Italian first. :-) Another colleague of mine is of Portuguese origin, but grew up in Luxembourg, so she is trilingual Portuguese/French/Luxembourgish and it's always fun to hear her talking on the phone codeswitching between those languages and sometimes throwing in a German or Enlish word. So, yes, I'm using some of the languages I'm learning at work and I'm also exposed to languages I'm not learning (yet). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Northernlights Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4677 days ago 73 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 7 of 11 07 February 2012 at 12:17pm | IP Logged |
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Luxembourg sounds like the place to be if you want to learn and use lots of different languages!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6911 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 11 07 February 2012 at 7:46pm | IP Logged |
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I work at a library so I use English nearly daily but I think I could use +20 languages (if I only knew them...) since we have international students as well as immigrants.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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