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Stop speaking to me in English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4037 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes  Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 41 of 51 31 October 2014 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
Which variety of Lombard? It changes from village to village and probably even from family to family (although remains quite intelligible). That said, just learn some phrase to use when you speak Italian (my favourite being "me par propri un bel meste'", "via'l gatt balan i ratt" and various forms of playful insults like "ciaparatt" :D). Also, young people don't talk it. And my gawd, the stupidity of the pairing lombard dialect -> Nothern League it's second only to Va Pensiero -> Northern League, and unfortunately it's vouched for both supporter and hater of the Northern League. But if this is true with Lombard, it is certainly not true for meridional dialects. Even the youngsters speak those dialects and the less educated are unable to speak Italian. But still, it is a bad idea to try to speak their dialect if you're a buitenlander (you come from outside). About level of English for Italians it's true: there is a lot of exposure to the English languages. But with how many of them you can have a three hours conversation about politics, philosophy and sense of life (assuming for absurd that they can talk about it in Italian or every other language of course)? Most the young people have studied English in the school but their level is pretty basic (I remember myself, after two years of university, not remembering if chair was 'sedia' and just indicating with the finger to no say a wrong word. And I had good grades at school!). 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4629 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 42 of 51 02 November 2014 at 11:43am | IP Logged | |||||
I didn't know Mme Dreikaus, but now that I have looked her up on Youtube I agree with Iversen, very entertaining. I must admit I do not understand everything and get lost sometimes, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could follow quite a lot of her Strrasbourg Alsatian. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4629 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 43 of 51 02 November 2014 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
Let me be more precise: It is true that there are a few emissions on TV, e.g. on France 3 Alsace, and I know about one or two radio stations which broadcasts in Alsatian for an hour a day or so. It is just that in comparison with Romansh, there is surprisingly little out there, although there are ten times as many speakers of Alsatian. Romansh has its own TV and radio channel (part of the Swiss public Broadcasting), a daily newspaper and lots of literature and music is published every year. Here in Strasbourg you really have to search long and hard in order to find any books in Alsatian, or even learning material for that matter. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4697 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 44 of 51 02 November 2014 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't generally have conversations about the meaning of life and philosophy with many people, and politics is even less interesting. With how many people do you need to have deep and thoughtful conversations? Edited by tarvos on 02 November 2014 at 12:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4511 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 45 of 51 02 November 2014 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
What's the point of having a conversation if it's only about exchanging pleasantries and talking about the weather? Edited by daegga on 02 November 2014 at 12:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4697 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 46 of 51 02 November 2014 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
There is a golden mean in between those two. I can discuss global warming or the exchange rate of the rouble without it having to delve into philosophy. Or maybe we can discuss samba dancing. I don't know. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4037 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 47 of 51 03 November 2014 at 12:17am | IP Logged | |||||
Even exchanging basic pleasantries can be really difficult if one of the two is insecure, talks painfully slow and doesn't understand what the other person is saying. And natives English speaker for Italian speakers are the less understandable English speaker in the world, especially the europeans. Edited by tristano on 03 November 2014 at 12:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tyrion101 Senior Member United States Joined 3903 days ago 153 posts - 174 votes Speaks: French | Message 48 of 51 03 November 2014 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've often thought that if I ever found myself in France, french being my target language, that if I ran into this problem, I'd simply tell people I was French Canadian, then maybe they'd get that I'd prefer french? Most people I talked to in Europe last week had no idea where South Carolina was anyway, my brother always explained it as: "You know Orlando Florida? It's kind of above that." I honestly thought most people had a decent grasp of geography, at least I thought that people from the UK would at least know the states nearest their country.
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