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Your earliest foreign language memory | ||
Tags: Children | Foreign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 9 of 98 02 November 2009 at 10:52pm | IP Logged |
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Passing through southern Germany (Bavaria) in a car as a child. I saw a building picturesquely marked with Gothic letters, Metzgerei. For some reason, the word stuck in my mind. It was a butcher's.
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 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5967 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 98 02 November 2009 at 11:11pm | IP Logged |
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These are fun! Keep them coming . . . now, this isn't a foreign language, but the first phrase I learned to read in English was: "Go-go Bar." We passed one one the way to school in the morning. I must have asked uncomfortable questions about that, but I don't recall being much impressed with the explanation I got--which made me remember the term.
I also remember watching Sesame Street, which sometimes included a few Spanish words on the show. It was ahead of its day, to include Latino characters on TV at the time. I learned "uno, dos, tres . . . " etc, but again, it didn't really register in my mind as another language. To this day, I still feel uneasy when I hear Polish being spoken! One day I'd like to learn some, so I can make the negative associations go away. Edited by meramarina on 02 November 2009 at 11:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Halie Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6110 days ago 80 posts - 106 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 11 of 98 03 November 2009 at 1:01am | IP Logged |
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I don't think I've ever thought about different languages, they've always just been there. My grandparents were and are avid travelers so I've always had things in my house like foreign currency, and pictures with signs in the background in different languages. Also, even though both of my parents are native English speakers my mother speaks to me in Spanish sometimes (she's fluent), so I've always been able to understand a fair bit, even if I can't speak the language myself. Edited by Halie on 03 November 2009 at 1:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bartolomo Newbie United States Joined 5561 days ago 2 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 12 of 98 03 November 2009 at 1:19am | IP Logged |
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All of my grandparents were from Northern Italy and migrated to the United States. Italian, or rather a Trentino dialect, was spoken routinely. My parents wanted to make sure I was 'Americanized', so I was taught only English. In fact, Italian was used among the adults so the children wouldn't understand. It really was sad that I missed such a great oppurtunity. Anyway, all of the 'old' folks I knew were either Italian, Polish or Slovak, so what we called 'broken English' was very common. I still remember, in fact, as a little one, the first time I heard an elderly man speak English with no accent. I was shocked.
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| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5649 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 13 of 98 03 November 2009 at 3:59am | IP Logged |
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Mine was Spanish in first grade, learning how to count one to ten (still remember those at the very least.)
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| ymapazagain Senior Member Australia myspace.com/amywiles Joined 6959 days ago 504 posts - 538 votes Speaks: English* Studies: SpanishB2 | Message 14 of 98 03 November 2009 at 4:18am | IP Logged |
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I have a few memories of encountering foreign languages as a child, but I'm not sure which came first.
I remember in primary school an African man came to our school to offer after school classes in Swahili. The first lesson was free so my parents let me go. I just remember the word Jambo meaning hello and him teaching us a song called Jambo Guana (I think!). Probably my very first encounter with a foreign language would have been in my piano lessons. My teacher was Czechoslovakian and her husband would come in to give her a cup of tea sometimes and they would talk in Czech (or Slovak, i'm not entirely sure!). I'm sure I would have stared like a total idiot because it was the first time I ever would have heard people actually having a conversation in another language. But I loved it, it was so interesting to think that that weird jumble of noise they were making actually meant something! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TannerS Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5609 days ago 58 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 15 of 98 03 November 2009 at 5:25am | IP Logged |
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Listening to all your stories makes me wish I had something equally concrete to share, but I can really only remember the vague notion of an instance in the Phoenix airport where we passed some middle-eastern travellers who must have been speaking some foreign language. I think I probably asked about them, but I can't remember being particularly interested in understanding them (though, as a child, pretty much everything is extremely interesting, so I probably greeted the experience with the normal degree of curiosity).
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| marvolo Tetraglot Newbie Finland Joined 5706 days ago 20 posts - 30 votes Speaks: Finnish*, French, English, Spanish | Message 16 of 98 03 November 2009 at 9:08am | IP Logged |
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My parents would discuss in English as I was a kid when they had to decide whether or not to give me ice cream for the dessert. Well, it didn't take me long to learn the word "ice cream"..
I guess my little brother starts to be a part of the generation who learned their first English words from video games. In Finland I mean, but I think also in many other countries. Edited by marvolo on 03 November 2009 at 9:08am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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