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Feelings about learners of your language

  Tags: Native Speakers
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
31 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4 
tractor
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5455 days ago
1349 posts - 2292 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan
Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 25 of 31
24 February 2010 at 10:09am | IP Logged 
Many Germans do speak English, and probably all Germans with a university degree, but I've also met many Germans who can't speak German very well.

Edited by tractor on 24 February 2010 at 10:09am
1 person has voted this message useful



tractor
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5455 days ago
1349 posts - 2292 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan
Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 26 of 31
24 February 2010 at 10:12am | IP Logged 
Johntm wrote:
I was hoping someone would ask :D
Because as native English speakers, we may encounter those higher-level words only a few times, while we hear slang and colloquial language all the time. On the other hand, a learner of English, unless they are totally emerged in colloquial English, will see these words and not know if they are used frequently in conversations, so they learn them. Also, knowing word X may make them seem or feel smarter. And they make more of an effort to put it into active use, where if I see a word like abhor, which I know when I see it but would only come to my mind if I had to write a formal essay or letter. After all, we don't say "I abhorred that movie" to our friends, do we?

That's just something that popped into my head the other day, I might be completely wrong for all I know.

This is more or less what I thought you would answer, and I think you're right.
1 person has voted this message useful



vusalgustav
Tetraglot
Newbie
Azerbaijan
Joined 6278 days ago
23 posts - 56 votes 
Speaks: Azerbaijani*, English, Russian, Turkish
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 27 of 31
24 February 2010 at 11:44am | IP Logged 
As in Azerbaijan you can easily get away with knowing either Russian or Turkish, even
the people who stays here for a long don't bother to learn Azeri. So the majority of
Azeri learners are either linguists or politicians. I especially admire the latter. But
their Azeri knowledge generally has one common feature. All of them learn Azeri through
Turkish language which means they already new Turkish language when they started to
learn Azeri, which halves their effort learning it. Such kind of examples are Japanese
and American ambassadors in Azerbaijan, both of who have degrees on Turkish language.
Another example is Parviz Musharraf (former leader of Pakistan).
But I was absolutely astounded when I heard fluent speak of Georgian Minister of
Economic Affairs. To be honest, not every Azeri can so eloquently speak own language.
My guess was that his mother was Azeri.
Frankly, when I hear a foreigner speaking my language, i don't express my admiration
but ask him the reasons him or her learning it. And only after that I express my
admiration no matter what is his or her level of knowledge. Effort counts as well for
me. Not every day you meet a person who tries to learn Azeri.      
1 person has voted this message useful



Muz9
Diglot
Groupie
Netherlands
Joined 5526 days ago
84 posts - 112 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Somali

 
 Message 28 of 31
24 February 2010 at 10:30pm | IP Logged 
People who study Dutch, I think that such people must be very determined and love it as Dutch is kind of an ‘unimportant’ European language compared to the surrounding giants (English, German, French etc). I am happy they actually take the time and effort to learn it, as we have foreigners who have been living in the Netherlands for over 20 years and still have troubles at an A2 level.

What I love about their learning styles, they absolutely master all the grammar rules and usually have a large vocabulary yet their pronunciation is very bad, especially for the Americans (their heavy R is easily recognizable). In general Germans and Scandinavians learn Dutch the best out of all the foreigners, which is not surprising.

The troubling thing about learning Dutch is that, since 90% of all the people of the Netherlands speak English they will always try to practice their English on you even if you answer in proper Dutch.

1 person has voted this message useful



Johntm
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5424 days ago
616 posts - 725 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 29 of 31
24 February 2010 at 10:54pm | IP Logged 
tractor wrote:
Johntm wrote:
I was hoping someone would ask :D
Because as native English speakers, we may encounter those higher-level words only a few times, while we hear slang and colloquial language all the time. On the other hand, a learner of English, unless they are totally emerged in colloquial English, will see these words and not know if they are used frequently in conversations, so they learn them. Also, knowing word X may make them seem or feel smarter. And they make more of an effort to put it into active use, where if I see a word like abhor, which I know when I see it but would only come to my mind if I had to write a formal essay or letter. After all, we don't say "I abhorred that movie" to our friends, do we?

That's just something that popped into my head the other day, I might be completely wrong for all I know.

This is more or less what I thought you would answer, and I think you're right.
Haha I'm a high school junior already making linguistic theories?
1 person has voted this message useful



tractor
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5455 days ago
1349 posts - 2292 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan
Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 30 of 31
25 February 2010 at 12:08pm | IP Logged 
Johntm wrote:
Haha I'm a high school junior already making linguistic theories?

Or just common sense. :-)
1 person has voted this message useful



Johntm
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5424 days ago
616 posts - 725 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 31 of 31
25 February 2010 at 6:37pm | IP Logged 
tractor wrote:
Johntm wrote:
Haha I'm a high school junior already making linguistic theories?

Or just common sense. :-)
Well, common sense isn't all that common, now is it?


1 person has voted this message useful



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