|
 |
What loosens your tongue? | ||
Tags: Speaking | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 38 07 January 2013 at 12:02am | IP Logged |
|
You know all those people who say "Give me a bottle of wine, and I'll speak French fluently" - and some of them actually do. The lack of inhibitions push them right into speaking, even if they normally do not dare to speak it. Sadly, that does not work with me at all, in fact it has the opposite effect. I am fairly good at speaking French when I have not had any alcohol, but give me two sips of wine, and I start having trouble pronouncing French.
I realized recently that I have a different trigger - rage. You know like with the Hulk, except that instead of turning into a green monster, I suddenly speak a lot more than I usually would be able to. The first time I noticed this was after I had been in Spain for a month when I was 11, when I saw two little boys torment a little dog. I got so mad, that even though I did not know much Spanish I scolded them thoroughly, and when I ran out of Spanish abuse, I continued in Norwegian. The second time I experienced this was when I was in France, when two of the boys in my class were bullying a third one. They were quite shocked, because they had not heard me say a word, and thought I knew no French, but I got absolutely furious, and started yelling at them in French. They were so surprised that they just stopped the bullying. The most recent time was in Russia, at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, where I got so mad at a guard who felt it was no problem that they had created an illegal smoking room in the hall into the ladies room. One thing is that I almost choked because of the extremely heavy smoke, but more importantly, I was worried about the risk of fire next to one of the most important collection of paintings in the world. So again, I was suddenly able to say quite a lot in a language I do not really speak, to the great surprise of my Russian friends, who thought I could just say hi and hello. So what looses you tongue, alcohol, rage, fear? Or even more sinister substances and circumstances :-) 9 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4667 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 2 of 38 07 January 2013 at 12:17am | IP Logged |
|
Haven't really found anything that will, yet. And if there is something that will do it, I'd like to know.
Though I did find myself reading off car plate numbers aloud in French when I had a few drinks the other night, heh. :-) Edited by tastyonions on 07 January 2013 at 12:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| eebeejay Newbie Canada Joined 4482 days ago 34 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin, French | Message 3 of 38 07 January 2013 at 12:43am | IP Logged |
|
Alcohol does it for me. My French vocabulary is moderately better under the influence, but mostly it's my pronunciation that improves. While drunk I sound perfectly Quebecois.
My manager at work grew up with Italian in her home but she says that she only speaks it fluently when she's angry. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 4 of 38 07 January 2013 at 1:09am | IP Logged |
|
Not much, really. I just speak. :) I don't really need a trigger to speak any language.
Maybe the trigger is having someone that speaks language X opposite me for conversation? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6911 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 38 07 January 2013 at 1:17am | IP Logged |
|
Alcohol? Rage? Fear?
None of the above. I think it's the same as for my native language. Feeling "comfortable". Being in situations I like and/or can somewhat "control", with people I enjoy being around, beats anything. It can even be a regular day at work or in fact any random situation, suddenly the "right" person appears or I get the right question and it feels great to speak. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5011 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 38 07 January 2013 at 1:31am | IP Logged |
|
Well, not too large amounts of alcohol improve my speaking but they are bad for my
listening comprehension (hard to tell whether it is more caused by me drinking or the other side of the conversation drinking sometimes :-D ) Rage is good for speaking. And other strong emotions too because they just don't leave any space for "what if I embarass myself by making mistakes" feelings. Feeling comfortable is the best. When the other side doesn't try to switch to English. I had trouble with one guy in Berlin. He was really nice, intelligent and everything and was from the Switzerland. But before he heard me say anything in French, he just assumed I wouldn't speak it well and quite insisted on using English. Well, it got solved when there were several of us and French was the common language. It was strange and actually made me less eager to speak, which is not so common. The last one: a deep breath, like before jumping in water. I am mostly a coward. I am afraid to jump in the water, my head is full of tragical scenarios. But once I've started, I can't just change my mind, turn around in the air and land back on the ground. After the first sentence or two, it all gets much easier. So, I take a deep breath and jump. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| gumbril Tetraglot Newbie Estonia Joined 4426 days ago 5 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian | Message 7 of 38 07 January 2013 at 2:19am | IP Logged |
|
For me it helps to be in an environment where I can hear other people speak the language
naturally. It has a contagious effect. That is, if I'm at least passively fluent in the language. Brain switches over to the other language, picks up it's rhytm. Speaking vis-a-vis to some native speaker can actually become a hindrance, as I become aware of all the errors that I make and that makes me very self-conscious. On the other hand, if I'm experiencing some emotional turmoil, I become almost unable to speak or understand a foreign language. Its like my brain has turned off the capability. I have to ask people to repeat the simplest phrases multiple times while my brain is struggling to understand. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5868 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 8 of 38 07 January 2013 at 2:55am | IP Logged |
|
When I realise I speak my L2 as well as or better than my conversation partner speaks English. I then lose all my inhibitions. A couple of drinks also helps. After more drinks, I usually "think" I am doing even better.
2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
