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REAL multi-languages fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4387 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 49 of 102 15 September 2014 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
this is indeed a very interesting question . On a similar level I wonder what would happen if the role of english in the scandinavian countries were replaced by arabic or russian . Would people there on average end up speaking these languages just as well as English ? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 50 of 102 15 September 2014 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
If you by "the role of English" mean the fact that 96% of what we watch on TV, most of the music we listen to and almost all our internet activities are in English, then I feel pretty confident that we would be fluent speakers of Russian, and possibly even of Arabic had they had similar impact. English is much closer to Norwegian, of course, and with the same alphabet, but I do not think that this would have had to be a big issue. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4387 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 51 of 102 15 September 2014 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That 's what I meant , but I also meant learning arabic or russian at school instead of English , I guess that would have only a minor impact on the whole issue though 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 52 of 102 15 September 2014 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
... as a native speaker who never learnt to cook. As for the small village in Japan or Hungary idea ... I guess it depends on the person and how much they want and need to become part of the local community. And how welcomed they are. Pretty sure Cristina could do it, emk could do it, and so could many other forum members. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 53 of 102 15 September 2014 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ok, some background. My wife grew up in East Germany and learned Russian as a foreign language at school. I believe she also had some English lessons, but as we all know, learning a little bit of language at school rarely equips you for real-life communication. She herself says that she could barely utter a sentence in English when she moved to Ireland at the age of 20. By this time, the wall had come down. In Dublin, she had a German-speaking job but quickly made local friends and began to improve her English. She had a spell back in Germany, by which time her English was good enough to allow her to work in a position where she had daily contact with English-speaking customers and was frequently sent on business trips to the UK (which is where I come in). We set up home in Scotland when she was 26. At this point she was a very confident English speaker, but still with some vocabulary gaps and an incomplete knowldege of idiomatic phrases. But by the age of 30 I would say she spoke every bit as well as a native. She always read English books and her written output was far in excess of the average native Brit. I think people tend to become fixated with academic performance on language forums where the truth is that the majority of people in any country do not study at degree level. I think it's entirely possible to reach an average native level in a new language within a 10-year time frame, given full immersion in social and business circles. Would it have been harder to achieve this in Hungarian? I guess so, because we are crossing into an alien language family. Then again, plenty Hungarians come to the UK and speak excellent English after a decade. I believe the decisive factors are the amount of exposure you receive in your everyday life and the personal motivation to willingly engage with the language. I have deliberately avoided talking about accent as this does not indicate language proficiency in any way. Speaking like a native and sounding like a native may actually be two different things. Edited by beano on 15 September 2014 at 2:47pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 54 of 102 15 September 2014 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Maybe, but they would certainly have to work a lot harder because they wouldn't get all those obvious cognates "for free" But yes, I believe people would rise to the challenge because Scandanavia consists of small nations who need to learn other languages. In Germany or Spain, you can have a highly-paid career without having to use foreign languages. Edited by beano on 15 September 2014 at 2:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 55 of 102 15 September 2014 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@Albylsky: The reason why I did not mention the formal teaching, is because that is
pretty much the same in all countries. We may have slightly better methods here, but what makes the big difference is that we live and breathe English every day. @Bao: Thanks for the vote of confidence. I could need a little of that right now (actually I could need a TON of that right now) , as I for the first time in my life had a fully fledged language related panic attack 20 minutes ago with hyper ventilation, paper bag and head between my knees. I have been asked to interpret for a friend at a meeting with the Directorate of Immigration tomorrow. I am not qualified to be an interpreter in any language, but if this had been in any of my three stronger languages mentioned above, or even in any of my weaker languages,German and Italian, I would just have been nervous. This is however in Russian in which I am a very shaky B1. And my friend is risking being sent to Eastern Ukraine 7 months pregnant, if this goes badly. I am so stressed right now that it feels like I will be having a heart attack any moment. In Norwegian we have the term "ilddåp" - "baptism of fire", and this most certainly will be one of those. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 56 of 102 15 September 2014 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I know this is totally off topic, but just wanted to say good luck to you, Cristina. I am sure it will work out all right - and if you care for a bit of advice, spend some time looking up possible useful words and expressions relating to your friend's case.
On a sidenote, I am a bit puzzled, I thought that in my dear old native country an immigrant would be entitled to the assistance of a professional interpreter when facing the authorities? 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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