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A Padawan learns Dutch/Ind./Fr. - TAC ’14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 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 337 of 568 14 October 2013 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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For me it feels like a joke though. I could probably pick up a book in Spanish and
start reading it fast, but I would never claim I spoke it because I really cannot utter a single correct thing considering even basic grammar points in Spanish because I've never studied it. The problem is if you know German, then you have to wean yourself off of using that language as a crutch because yes you WILL get a huge bonus, but it's not the same and sometimes it can lead you astray. You must approach it as a separate language. But in reading comprehension this matters less because you are only interpreting words, not producing them, and in this light Dutch is quite transparent for German speakers (that is if they have an idea of some of the orthographical differences between the two languages). The phonological realisation of either is quite another ballgame, and Germans find it impossible not to turn sch into /sh/, which is emphatically WRONG. /sh/ only exists as /sj/ and is rare even in that instance. Sch is either s+ch, or sometimes s in the -isch ending (and in a few place names like Den Bosch, pronounced Den Bos but because of the old spelling of the city it's not written that way). And the English who mimic Dutch accents by replacing /s/ with /sh/ are misinformed - our s is an s, it's just not formed exactly the same way as in English (to me English /s/ sounds like a snake hissing, it's much sharper). Also, using German -ch variation (ach/ich-Laut) is not acceptable in Dutch. You must use either ach-laut (or make it even stronger), which is Dutch as spoken above the rivers, or use ich-laut (as below the rivers). Except Zealand and West Flanders, because there it's an h. Edited by tarvos on 14 October 2013 at 2:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4689 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 338 of 568 14 October 2013 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree, after learning to read two romance languages, decoding text written in a third is often fairly trivial, or at worst has a very short learning curve. If you keep reading large amounts, you will eventually internalize a lot of the grammar and learn the vocabulary from frequent exposure, but the ability to understand what you're reading comes LONG before that point. Not too long ago when I finally started looking at the first few lessons of Assimil Dutch, my reaction was: 1) Wow this is really trivial. Followed by: 2) Hey, I never realized that's how that bit of grammar works! How did I not know that? "Interpreting" is a good word for it. The process involves recognizing that an unknown word/phrase has a lexical similarity to a known word/phrase that is sufficiently small, and that adheres to certain known mutation patterns, so that you can guess reliably what the meaning is. To use mathematics terminology, the brain provides a transformation function that maps from a large domain of inputs to a small range of meanings, and ideally, to just one. But when you go to invert the function (i.e., take a meaning and determine what input would have produced that meaning, also known as speaking/writing), you start with one meaning but have only a range of possible answers, not a precise one. With more and more practice, the function can be optimized to reduce the input range associated with a particular interpreted meaning, but the window doesn't close entirely on its own. OTOH, while not being the same as "speaking" a language, being able to read it is, while simpler, still something that most would-be adult language learners never achieve. Most of the people I know have studied at most one foreign language, and can read it at best at the A1 level--A2 or B1 for the very best students. Usually when I hear that someone has studied German, e.g., I say something like "also, du sprichst Deutsch?" and get blank stares. I assume this is very different from the situation in the Netherlands, especially for English? It seems strange, but true, that even though we might not have actually studied Spanish, we probably can read it as well as the great majority of US high schoolers studying it as a foreign language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 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 339 of 568 14 October 2013 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think production is also a matter of automatism. I speak good French for example
because 9/10 times I can parse a response and tackle it automatically with a grammatically correct utterance. Understanding only requires you to parse, it does not require you to produce. Producing in real-time is a different ball-game. This is why I do a lot of speaking on the side (and also writing but that is more text messaging and chatting than formal writing, which has its own rules). I need this to actually be able to produce an utterance that makes sense in context and you can't do that without practice. Input provides your arsenal but you can't shoot bullets if you don't have a gun to load. The moment where I know I speak well is when I can automatically parse in real-time what someone says and respond quickly, automatically, where I do not have to think long before I utter something. This is something you do in-situ. Not reading.
The latter is a question that you wouldn't ask. It is pretty much an assumption that you would only negate for old people, the mentally handicapped, young children, and other people with some learning disability or other. I know very few Dutch people who could not parse a "Do you speak English". This is not to say that their production is good - but do you speak English is something any Dutch person should be able to parse. I think even in the lowest levels of education the level you get is between A2-B1 in production - not very good, but definitely some kind of functionality. People that have the ability to go to university sit central exams that are minimum B2 (and many go over that level because of other reasons. University students speaking C1 English is not a rarity, and for MSc students it is a requirement because in 99% of cases your thesis is going to be in English. Yes. You read that right. Dutch university students MUST BE ABLE TO PRODUCE WRITTEN English THESES and DEFEND THESE IN English). University students without academically functional English just do not exist anymore in this day and age. They may prefer Dutch but the ones who are really bad would still be a B1-B2. Speaking English is de rigueur among journalists as well, especially those deployed abroad. They may write in Dutch, but they may need to interview foreigners which do not master Dutch - and English is almost always the language of choice, although I do know occasions of famous Dutch journalists who mastered another foreign language (there is a known one who speaks fluent Russian and learned Hindi for a documentary in India, and another famous columnist who spent time in Moscow and still has some Russian). (In fact, I read an article about high school students - not preparing for university - in an article about a recent discovery of a pedophile and the related discussion of nude pictures and webcams. The irony was that there was a described situation where two girls invited a Turkish boy to a group chat, and they laughed so hard because his English was so bad and ungrammatical). With regards to other languages, the question is more pertinent. Most science students hate the strong emphasis on foreign languages (both German and French being compulsory for some years in high school). Most people do come out with some tourist-level German and French, and those who go into languages or cultural spheres often need German as an academic language. So they will be able to read it, though their level of production is anyone's guess. German itself is also location-dependent; people close to the border will have a good understanding of German). However someone who studied an exotic language will probably have put in the effort and then the question you could ask in that language will probably result in an accented "yes". 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4689 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 340 of 568 14 October 2013 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the enlightening description of the language situation there. BTW, while it seems a bit odd to have to do your university work in a different language than the local vernacular, it wasn't THAT long ago they all would have been doing their university studies in Latin! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 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 341 of 568 14 October 2013 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Bachelor theses can be done in either language. It depends on the programme and
preference (I wrote mine in English). I have also written some internship reports in Dutch (it matters what the project is). The MSc Thesis is practically always in English unless you study Dutch I think. Even then I'm not sure. To give you an example of how a Dutchman can rack up a few languages without having particular education - I have a cousin who grew up near the German border. He speaks German. He also speaks English (because it's the Netherlands and he wasn't born under a rock). He is/was a diving instructor in Mallorca, Spain and has lived there and thus he speaks Spanish. I have no idea whether he is perfect at any of them (prolly not), but he has a good command of all of those languages and would be able to use them in the majority of situations with efficacy. He's not university-trained or an academic. It goes that fast and this sort of situation is not unheard of. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4704 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 342 of 568 15 October 2013 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I like the discussion going on above me. :-)
Dutch I am on page 128 of De aanslag - halfway through. Indonesian The past few days have been productive. Furthest back - I Google Translated some Yuna lyrics from Indonesian into English, then went back and translated myself word-by-word with a dictionary to see how the two versions compared. This is the original text of the first stanza: Jika engkau minta intan permata Tak mungkin ku mampu Tapi sayankan ku capai bintang Dari langit untukmu ...And Google Translate came up with this: If you ask diamonds I may not be able But my pity star laurels From the sky for you So not bad, except for the third line, which is clearly wrong. I then translated word-for-word: (if)(you)(to ask)(diamond)(jewels) (not)(could, may)(my)(afford, to be capable of) (but)(love)(my)(to achieve)(star) (where)(sky)(for you) ...leading us to a final approximate translation of: If you ask for diamonds I may not be able to afford that But my love might be able to get a star From the sky for you ??? So that was fun as a nice change of pace. I guess what strikes me is that there are a lot of little words (for, to, etc.) that Indonesian implies, but English requires. That is something I will have to get used to. Then yesterday I did some wordlists and learned about Indonesian possessive pronouns. What I already knew was that Indonesian can express the possessive simply by putting the subject/object pronoun (they're the same) after the noun, e.g., buku saya = "book I/me" = my book. What I learned yesterday was another way to express possession in Indonesian by using informal possessive stems. Saya (I) is -ku, kamu (you) is -mu, dia (he/she/it) is -nya, and the rest remain the same across all forms (e.g., kami (we) is kami, and so on). Thus, we could say Buku ini punyaku, which is, translated literally, (Book)(this)(to have mine), or, not literally, "This is my book." Or Buku ini punyamu - (Book)(this)(to have yours (singular) ) - "This is your book." To say simply "This is mine", we just say Ini punyaku. Pretty cool! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4704 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 343 of 568 16 October 2013 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dutch
On page 168 of De aanslag. Indonesian Yesterday I did some wordlists and left it at that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4704 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 344 of 568 17 October 2013 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dutch
I am on page 172 of De aanslag. Also, while writing that sentence, it just suddenly hit me that "de aanslag" is an anagram for "aan de slag", which is uh, something. Funny! Indonesian So yesterday I went over basic greetings in the Wikibooks Indonesian resource. I then did some wordlists review, went over "this" and "that" (ini and itu), and reviewed negation (bukan and tidak). Also learned how to say "What is this?": Apa ini? So yeah, I've just been reviewing some super-basic things, but I haven't been regularly studying for like two months so I definitely need it. Oh man, Indonesian is so cool. I really like how comparatively simple it is. The language just seems so uncluttered! Now, I know I've only really dipped a toe in, but this is my perception at the moment. The downside (although it's not really a huge downside) is that, again, cognates are few and far between. When learning Dutch, I feel like I'm constantly stumbling across connections between Dutch and English - everyday Dutch words, for example, that are variations of in-use but somewhat archaic English words (and vice-versa). Or straight-up cognates. Like, Look people, green is groen! It's the same exact thing! This is not a thing in Indonesian, meaning that I need to employ a lot more mnemonics. I also don't know Indonesian's basic building block words well enough right now to understand how more complex terminology gets built up, so at the moment larger words seem very mysterious. But that is part of the magic of language learning. I look forward to the day when I can read and speak Indonesian as easily as I can Dutch. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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