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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6714 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 10 14 November 2006 at 8:46am | IP Logged |
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Those who learn a language in situ by speaking and living with natives of that language will learn it 'from the bottom', that is in its colloquial form with a healthy dose of slang, words for all the items of a normal home, words for things you buy in the shops and the latest expressions from television and so forth. But their language may not be one that could be used for for writing a thesis in that language or even a formal business letter.
The rest of us who mainly learn languages through written sources will invitably learn them 'from the top', that is from their more literary, perhaps even historical side, - even though some textbook systems try to avoid highbrow language they normally avoid genuine slang, with reason, because this part of any language is the one that evolves most quickly and any book that relies heavily on slang will seem old-fashioned just after a year of two. Luckily there is some common ground for both groups of language learners, such as television and radio. It is quite amazing that I can sit with my computer and listen to radio or television from Brazil or Romania, and here I come as close to authentical spoken language as I can expect. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6879 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 10 of 10 21 November 2006 at 10:33am | IP Logged |
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With my Spanish I learned it from 'the bottom up' as Iversen says. I can hold a colloquial conversation without any problems. When speaking with people I don't know I try to take care to use the formal forms of the verbs/pronouns, something a bit awkward for me as an English speaker, and so something I don't always remember to do, and also of course I refrain from any vocabulary that might be too slangly or vulgar, very unlike how I would speak with my friend in the dorm room two floors down.
But because I learned it from the bottom up, naturally there are constructions and so forth in the language that I don't know. Despite being able to have conversations for hours if needed, something as small as reading billboards and posters sometimes puzzle me. I enjoy reading subtitles to movies because there is always something new to learn there. As of now I am trying learn German via hanging out with the locals, attending my uni classes, and learning it via my trusty grammar book. Just yesterday I bought my first German novel in this country 'Schlafes Bruder'. A multi-front attack, so to speak. Most likely most of my languages will probably be a little bookish sounding. And I'm OK with that, because being bookish sounding isn't necessarily a bad thing, although I still will try to help it with movies and novels and so on. When I get home I'm going to finally start studying Spanish with a grammar book I have, and hopefully bring the language closer to full-circle. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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