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The experience of "picking" up a language | ||
Tags: Immersion | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| chenshujian Diglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5448 days ago 122 posts - 139 votes  Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: French | Message 1 of 39 16 September 2013 at 11:00am | IP Logged |
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Do you have the experience of "picking" up a language?
Mastering them withouting even noticing it? In my case, with mandarin and another dialect as my mother tongues, I pick up Cantonese in life. I could understand it almost 99%. (Although I don't really speak it. When I start speaking it, my hearing tells me that I was speaking it in a terrilby funny way and I can't continue.) I never learn it. It just happened. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6701 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 2 of 39 16 September 2013 at 2:36pm | IP Logged |
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I have picked Swedish and Norwegian (and to some extent Low German), but only as passive languages. And I noticed that Chenshujian also has had this experience.
Under suitable circumstances you can convert such a language into an active one, but probably not without a stage where you sound totally off the mark. Personally I tried at least to learn some grammar, a lot of vocabulary and the basic 'sound' of the three languages above before I even dared to try to speak them. Edited by Iversen on 17 September 2013 at 9:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 39 16 September 2013 at 3:37pm | IP Logged |
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I "picked up" Italian after three weeks in Italy, based on the fact that I was already fluent in Spanish and French. 3000 pages of reading as a preparation and three Italian boyfriends later I was pretty good at it, but after not having used it for many years a lot of it is now gone.
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| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4713 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 4 of 39 16 September 2013 at 3:43pm | IP Logged |
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Living in Brazil, you may pick up some Spanish, maybe enough to get by during a quick trip to another Latin country like Argentina, Uruguay, etc., but producing is harder, we tend to create a "Portuñol", which is basically saying the words in Portuguese, but the way we think they would be pronounced in Spanish.
For example, turning every "o" to an "eu" (porta -> puerta) and every "e" to an "ie" (tempo -> tiempo). Since that's not always the case, we can come up with pretty funny things, like turning "eu como" (I eat) to "yo cuemo", and things like that hahaha 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 5 of 39 16 September 2013 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
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It must be very hard to "pick up" a language unless you already have an excellent knowledge of a similar tongue. The very phrase implies something that you find relatively painless but I'm sure the opposite is the case for most people who find themselves thrust into an immersion environment.
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| nicozerpa Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 4324 days ago 182 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English Studies: Italian, German | Message 6 of 39 16 September 2013 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
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I think that Portuguese was a language that I "picked up", but only as a passive language, just like Chenshujian or Iversen. As a child, I had access to Brazilian TV stations and I watched cartoons and football
matches on channels Globo and Band. BTW, the Argentine version of portuñol simply consists in adding "inho" or "eiro" at the end of every word :P Edited by nicozerpa on 16 September 2013 at 5:06pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 7 of 39 16 September 2013 at 6:08pm | IP Logged |
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Sorry, I cannot resist:
"Picking up" Polish in my experience: 1. Drill a number of holes through granite. 2. Pack holes with semtex and detonate. 3. Erect crane above crater. 4. Lift out the Polish language and load onto a truck. In time, and with this experience, I may "pick up" a little Czech with a lot less effort than the above :) Edited by Mooby on 16 September 2013 at 6:10pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| matty_cams Triglot Newbie Australia Joined 4086 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish, French | Message 8 of 39 16 September 2013 at 7:01pm | IP Logged |
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I guess I picked up Swedish when I was doing a gap year in Finland. I never really
intended to study Swedish while I was over there, but because the city I was in had a fairly large sized Swedish-speaking population, I either saw or heard a lot of it on a daily basis. It actually made life a whole lot easier, especially with signs around the city, or trying to listen to the news, because a lot of it was so similar or identical to English, whereas the Finnish signs or announcements were utterly confusing for the first month or so. About halfway through the year I ended up with a fairly decent bit of vocabulary and grammar without taking a single class, it was great. In the last few months I took a few classes just to learn it a bit more formally, but it was just really tying up what I'd collected passively over the previous months or so. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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