More than trilingual? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

More than trilingual?
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

80 messages over 10 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 5 ... 9 10 Next >>

maydayayday
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5220 days ago
564 posts - 839 votes

Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish^B2, French^B2
Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese
Studies: Urdu

Message 33 of 80

18 October 2010 at 1:14pm | IP Logged

Nannies? We have one - hence I study Polish.

Actually the children are now old enough not to need a nanny but kept her on as housekeeper.

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Ikarias
Triglot
Newbie
Spain
multilinguae.wordpreRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6032 days ago
29 posts - 36 votes
Speaks: Spanish*, English^C2, German^B1
Studies: Italian^A2, Dutch^A2, French^A2, Mandarin

Message 34 of 80

18 October 2010 at 3:46pm | IP Logged

Ikarias wrote:

Well, since I´m a native speaker of Spanish and I study Italian I can tell that they´re not mutually intelligible. As well as Spanish/Portuguese, Catalan, Gallego, etc. The thing is that is very easy to get used to their paces and vocabulary because they´re brothers.
Those were my two cents.

John Smith wrote:

^^ Since the two languages are so different I guess it must be really hard for you to read Italian. So many different words. So many different grammatical constructions. It will probably take you years before you can read an Italian newspaper. Good luck.

Don´t worry, I´ll ask you to translate it for me ;)

Edited by Ikarias on 18 October 2010 at 3:48pm
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John Smith
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 6043 days ago
396 posts - 542 votes

Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish
Studies: German

Message 35 of 80

18 October 2010 at 4:01pm | IP Logged

Ikarias wrote:

John Smith wrote:

Don´t worry, I´ll ask you to translate it for me ;)

I'd love to help you out... but I can't. I've only done a year of Italian. Not nearly enough time for someone who speaks Spanish to understand Italian.

The languages are nothing alike. Italian almost sounds like an alien language to Spanish ears.

I'm probably going to stop learning Italian and learn something easier like Dutch which is mutually intelligible with English. I should be fluent in a few weeks. The languages are almost exactly the same.
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fireflies
Senior Member
Joined 5182 days ago
172 posts - 234 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 36 of 80

18 October 2010 at 4:23pm | IP Logged

BiaHuda wrote:

This is ok what I have a problem with is the idea of four different family members speaking different languages around the child as some kind of experiment. Nothing wrong with introducing the child to languages but some of the ideas that were proposed here seem a little over the top.

I would raise my kids as monolingual because I'd view it as a madcap experiment for 2 non-linguist English speakers to try and teach a child several languages to fluency. Maybe I would buy them Muzzy tapes and give them some exposure to another language before classes began in it in school.

If each parent has a different native language or 1 has 2 native-level languages it makes sense to teach the child both. I think that perfect native accents would matter when serving as a teacher.

Edited by fireflies on 18 October 2010 at 4:36pm
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BiaHuda
Triglot
Groupie
Vietnam
Joined 5364 days ago
97 posts - 127 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, Vietnamese
Studies: Cantonese

Message 37 of 80

18 October 2010 at 5:17pm | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

BiaHuda wrote:

I think I am being taken out of context here. I don't have a problem with bilingualism at all and I don;t beleive in not educating children. My neice who is 15 months old lives with me. She has started speaking and Vietnamese will always be her native language. She is also learning some English words. This is ok

What do you mean by "some English words"? Is she learning English as a second native language or not? "some English words" is more likely to confuse her than a whole other language

Let me reiterate, she is 15 months old...
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maydayayday
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5220 days ago
564 posts - 839 votes

Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish^B2, French^B2
Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese
Studies: Urdu

Message 38 of 80

18 October 2010 at 5:19pm | IP Logged

I have already said that both these parents are language teachers and they do know the literature. I don't believe they are actually 'teaching' her but doing what parents do, speaking their own first language to their child.

The girl herself at the moment wants to be a veterinarian in France because she thinks the Eiffel Tower is the best building in the world and she likes horses/unicorns.

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Lucas
Pentaglot
Groupie
Switzerland
Joined 5168 days ago
85 posts - 130 votes

Speaks: French*, English, German, Italian, Russian
Studies: Mandarin

Message 39 of 80

18 October 2010 at 5:41pm | IP Logged

Ari wrote:

My "kung fu brother" (apprentice of the same teacher) is trilingualectal
in the three mutually unintelligibleish lingualects of Mandarin, Cantonese and his home
lingualect in Guangxi (not sure which one that is).

EDIT: Also I'd like to suggest that everyone stops using the words "language" and
"dialect" forever. It'll be a hassle and ridiculous and make us look like morons, but
wouldn't it be worth the trouble in order to stop these annoying discussions from
cropping up?

Most people in the world (especially in Africa and Asia) speak the language of the
country, the language of the region and the local language.
This phenomen is natural: our "civilized" european centralism and nationalism has
eliminated this "natural" trilinguism, that's why we're quite admirative of those
natural triglots.

Anyway we're not talking about that "natural" kind of trilinguism, but about the
following "artificial" trilinguism:
a child is raised in a country, and each of their parents has another mother language
than the country's one.

This artificial status makes that kind of trilinguism very rare and almost impossible
to reach actually

PS: I guess there are at least 2 or 3 other languages than cantonese and mandarin
spoken in Guanxi. Is your friend's (sorry, you're brother;) language is related to
mandarin or cantonese?

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gogglehead
Triglot
Senior Member
Argentina
Joined 6076 days ago
248 posts - 320 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Russian, Italian

Message 40 of 80

18 October 2010 at 9:57pm | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

John Smith wrote:

The difference between Italian and Spanish is a lot smaller than the difference between English and Spanish.

Yes.

Quote:

Spoken English and Spanish are not mutually intelligible for starters.

Neither are spoken Italian and Spanish. Here's just a few of the reasons:

pluralisation of nouns completely different
o<->ue
e<->ie
zzione<->ción
sono<->soy/estoy
sei<->eres/estás
vado<->voy
ne<->[no equivalent]
ci<->[no equivalent]
stare per<->ir a
perfect replaces preterit<->maintains distinction between preterit and perfect
avere as both "to have"<->haber is auxiliary only
tenere "to grasp"<->tenir "to have" (posession)

Quote:

Italian and Spanish are only distinct languages thanks to politics. If the Spanish language was spoken in Italy it would be considered a dialect of Italian.

Italian and Spanish are distinct languages due to politics, geography, history and linguistics. Just like English and Dutch.

Cainntear is correct
Not to mention all of the vocabulary differences, some of which seem to bear no relation to each other at all, perro -cane etc. To suggest that they are the same language is ludicrous, and I cannot actually believe that this discussion took place on a forum of supposedly serious language learners. But I suspect that this John Smith clown is just trying to start controversy/be humorous/act like a general idiot. He failed with the humour part. I will probably be banned from the forum for speaking the truth, but there are too many idiots like John Smith these days anyway, clogging up the decent discussions with crap.
Cainntear, keep flying the flag of good sense.

G

EDIT: I almost forgot to personally thank Cainntear, Volte, Fasulye, Iversen, Cordelia, Benny, Moses, Dr Arguelles, and everyone else for your help! arrivederci! (and of course, hasta pronto, it's "mutually intelligible" cousin!

Edited by gogglehead on 18 October 2010 at 10:03pm

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