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Languages you disliked but grew on you? | ||
Tags: "Louche" Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4235 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 9 of 39 28 October 2013 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I used to hate English because of its grammar. Now I like the language but still do not have any good feelings to grammar.
And, to be honest, the last of European languages I would've chosen to learn, was German. Before I made a final decision, I was running between Polish, Finnish, French, maybe even Spanish while I was listening to Shakira. In that time German was for me the language of Nazis, very tough and complicated, not to mention its dialects! Well, I was just a little stupid kid. Anyway, now I have no desire to study all languages, listed above, but German. A little bit weird? Maybe. But now I like the language, that little part of grammar which I know seems strict and logical and I like all that. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 10 of 39 28 October 2013 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Wow, it's fantastic that you have some Breton speakers to talk to! And it's true that there certainly won't be any Cornish first-language speakers around, unless one is in touch with the spirit world. We can hope that the revivalists have success. I've listened to part of the fledgling "Say Something in Cornish" course, and it's funny to hear what amounts to Welsh in a rich Cornish accent! OTOH, I've heard part of Assimil's Breton course, and the only thing I could recognise was the strong French accent! :-) Ah well, Cymru (and Cornwall and Brittany) am byth! ("for ever") Edited by montmorency on 28 October 2013 at 6:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 11 of 39 29 October 2013 at 10:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I hated English and German for years. Two ugliest languages in the world until some
point. 1.English-my feelings started to neutralize as I started playing computer games. Years later (and already on a very good level), I found out it isn't that ugly. 2.German got me differently. I heard several people who spoke it nicely. And travelling to Germany or Austria is so much cheaper than to further destinations. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4100 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 12 of 39 29 October 2013 at 10:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I read recently that they are picking up the immersion strategy that is so popular here in Brittany (and which Bretons stole from the Basques), so there are in fact kindergarteners today going about their entire day in Cornish. :)
Not sure what you mean with a strong French accent, since the current Assimil course doesn't sound particularly French to me at all. I suppose there are some common sounds between Welsh and Breton that don't exist in English or French, and by comparison the rest of the sounds in Welsh can sound very English to a Breton speaker and I suppose Breton can sound very French to the Welsh speaker. Of course if you're used to Bretons speaking French there's not necessarily much difference. ;) Sometimes when I'm not listening, I can't tell if my neighbours are speaking French or Breton because their French is so Breton. :D It took me 6 months to learn how to listen to decode what they were saying to me because the sounds and the stress were so off, not to mention various celticisms and pronouncing letters that are silent in French.
Breizh (ha Kernev-Veur ha Kembre) atav! :D 2 persons have 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 13 of 39 29 October 2013 at 10:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Do they do the mutations as well in French? I read that Brittophone French speakers say
ma vère for ma mère. Breton does sound a bit French to me, but that is probably because many people on the Assimil recordings use the French "r" (and not a rolled r.) Edited by tarvos on 29 October 2013 at 10:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| dmaddock1 Senior Member United States Joined 5434 days ago 174 posts - 426 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Esperanto, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 14 of 39 29 October 2013 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I disliked Spanish because it was forced on me in high school and because of the negative stigmas it has in the US. The past couple of months it is growing on me as I study it, but honestly I still feel myself resisting it for these reasons even though I know intellectually that these aren't good reasons to dislike it.
I went to the bookstore with the intent to stock up on Spanish content with a more intellectual mindset--newspapers, history books, popular science books, etc.--thinking that having this stuff in front of me would help re-train my brain to see Spanish as the medium of high culture and learning that is obviously is. Unfortunately that plan backfired as the only stuff in Spanish you can buy at the dozen bookstores in my area are pulp novels, religious stuff, and pseudo-scientific garbage like The Secret. So, I decided to use European pronunciation and materials and lean heavily on my Latin knowledge to try to distance myself from these irrational feelings. This approach seems to have helped. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4100 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 15 of 39 29 October 2013 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I haven't noticed that personally, but that's not to say that it doesn't happen.
That's a slightly odd thing to base the whole "they sound French" on since R is pronounced differently in different parts of Brittany and by different speakers. There's a rolling R that's high in the throat, a rolling R that's low in the throat, there's a non-rolling R... Here's an example of the dialect local to me, in Haute-Cornouaille, by a speaker born ca 1900. Cf. the rolling R of Denez Prigent, born in Léon in the 1960s. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| morinkhuur Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 4678 days ago 79 posts - 157 votes Speaks: German*, Latin, English Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Maghribi) | Message 16 of 39 29 October 2013 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I used to dislike French for several reasons. First of all, given the choice between Latin and French in school, I
chose Latin and all the other kids were trying to justify their choice by putting the other language down (e.g. by saying clichéd and idiotic things like "Latin is dead" or "French sounds gay") so I sort of went along with that. Later, when I got older I still thought French was rather boring and I still think so to some extent, my interest being mostly directed at "exotic", non-European languages, but then I became more and more interested in French colonial history, former French Africa and the Maghreb states. I started to realize that French was really not only a "boring European language" but also one that is used in countries like Senegal, Congo, Algeria or Haiti. I also became interested in the multicultural society of France and its conflicts as well as the rich frankophone intellectual tradition. I was intrigued by the fact that it used to be normal for European intellectuals to speak French and in some old academic books that I looked through, there were actually quotes and essays in French that were left completely untranslated because it was simply assumed that the reader would be able to understand French. In the end all of this could not convince to really study French though. I like to pick up bits and pieces here and there and sometimes I read French texts and look up grammatical constructions I don't understand but even though i would like to speak French, it's not my first priority. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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