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Lee Kuan Yew?s Experience with Languages | ||
Tags: Political Leaders | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| ujoe Diglot Newbie Malaysia Joined 7211 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: Malay, English* | Message 1 of 5 15 March 2005 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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In his speech, Lee Kuan Yew, Minister Mentor of Singapore, describes his personal experience and the methods he used to learn languages at various moments of his life - Japanese, Mandarin, Hokkien to name a few.
He touches on motivation, difficulties of the acquisition process, maintaining simultaneous fluency, bilingualism, the role of modern technology in language learning and language-related school policies. Full text of his speech is available at http://stars.nhb.gov.sg/data/pdfdoc/2004112501.htm Edited by ujoe on 15 March 2005 at 1:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7241 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 2 of 5 26 March 2005 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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-To be fluent one has to retrieve words instantaneously. The more you use one language, the less you use the other. So at any one time, you have one language dominant.-
So true about the dual fluency thing. I know some people that grew up bilingual in English/Spanish and I can tell English is still the dominant one. English fades from me when I'm in Mexico, even though there is a group of English speakers that come too. Nothing serious, it's just that my word choice gets weirder & weirder the longer I'm down there. And I end up speaking English with this wierd accent that is neither English nor Spanish. The most embarrassing one of these was when I was trying to think of the word for “solar plexus” (where someone had bumped me) and out of my mouth came “cervix.” Edited by ElComadreja on 26 March 2005 at 2:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7194 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 5 26 March 2005 at 2:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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English fades from me when I'm in Mexico, even though there is a group of English speakers that come too. Nothing serious, it's just that my word choice gets weirder & weirder the longer I'm down there.
I don't ever see this. I do fumble over words when I switch to English (or Spanish, for that matter) after speaking Spanish for a long time, but it only lasts for a few seconds. I find that I think in whatever language that I'm speaking, although if I'm not actively speaking Spanish my thoughts will gradually switch back to English. -To be fluent one has to retrieve words instantaneously. Hmm, well, one has to manufacture conversation instantaneously, but don't you ever search for just the right word in English? You're looking, for example, for the word "salient," but all you can find is "important" or "conspicuous," neither of which are exactly right. Many times it's because there is a disconnect between your spoken vocabulary and your written/read vocabulary. Then suddenly, you find yourself in a situation where you want that half-learned word. But where is it? At first blush, I may appear to be fluent in Spanish, but then the conversation dips into unfamiliar territory and I find myself searching for a lot of those half-learned words. I don't think you ever progress entirely beyond this stage, not, at least, if my experience with English is any example. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7241 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 4 of 5 26 March 2005 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | ||
Maybe the trick here is to know allot of synonyms so that if you can't come up with the right word, you just throw something out that is close and maybe fix it after the fact. It's what I do in English. "I would say that those people are quite... um.. adamant" "More like fanatic" "Yeah, that's it" 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marcus Groupie Australia Joined 7214 days ago 55 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Spanish | Message 5 of 5 28 March 2005 at 5:58am | IP Logged | ||
That was a good read, thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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