The experience of "picking" up a language (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

The experience of "picking" up a language
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chenshujian
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Message 17 of 39

17 September 2013 at 5:27pm | IP Logged

fabriciocarraro wrote:

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

A Spainish-speaker learning Portugese. And a Portugese speaker learning Spanish. Which case will be easier and faster?
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Jeffers
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Message 18 of 39

17 September 2013 at 6:23pm | IP Logged

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

@Iversen: I am sure I have half the forum with me on that. Whether that makes the shade of red darker or lighter is not for me to say :-)

You're both on my list. :)

EDIT: oh, and to keep this on topic, I have never picked up a language, and I doubt I really could. But I knew several people in India who sort of picked up Hindi through films, music, etc.

Edited by Jeffers on 17 September 2013 at 6:25pm
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fabriciocarraro
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Message 19 of 39

17 September 2013 at 6:38pm | IP Logged

chenshujian wrote:

fabriciocarraro wrote:

A Spainish-speaker learning Portugese. And a Portugese speaker learning Spanish. Which case will be easier and faster?

I've heard from Argentinian friends that the Portuguese sounds are harder for them to pronounce, and I can say that for us it's pretty easy, so in terms of pronunciation maybe it's easier for the Portuguese speaker. As far as vocabulary and grammar are concerned, I'd say it'd be about the same.
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wanderingbird
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Message 20 of 39

17 September 2013 at 7:13pm | IP Logged

I'm not sure if this counts, but earlier this year I had a friend who was an exchange student from Italy and would always randomly say things in Italian. At this point, I had studied Spanish (though not French yet), so I could understand a little bit of what he said. After a few months I could understand about% of what he said in Italian. Finally, I started studying French this summer and then went to San Francisco a few weeks ago and ended up overhearing people speaking Italian. I was shocked to realize I could understand a decent amount of their conversation. At some point I should probably study it formally now so that I can speak it too...
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Solfrid Cristin
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Message 21 of 39

17 September 2013 at 7:36pm | IP Logged

beano wrote:

I think some people forget over the years the amount of effort it takes to learn a language,
even as a child in an immersive environment.

I was actually talking to a Polish teenager today who came to the UK aged 6 and told me that he "just learned
English" and that "it was easy"

I seriously doubt if it was such a breeze. The experts say that social communication can be up and running
with 2 years but lucid academic usage takes far longer to acquire (and no doubt some considerable effort)

How many British 6-year olds do you know that can boast of lucid academic usage :-)
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montmorency
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Message 22 of 39

17 September 2013 at 7:40pm | IP Logged

Jeffers wrote:

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

@Iversen: I am sure I have half the forum with
me on that. Whether that makes the shade of red darker or lighter is not for me to say :-
)

You're both on my list. :)

I was going to say that one of them was the heart of this forum, and the other one was
the soul, but then I realised both descriptions fitted both of them equally. :-)
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beano
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Message 23 of 39

17 September 2013 at 8:04pm | IP Logged

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

beano wrote:

I think some people forget over the years the amount of effort it
takes to learn a language,
even as a child in an immersive environment.

I was actually talking to a Polish teenager today who came to the UK aged 6 and told me that he "just learned
English" and that "it was easy"

I seriously doubt if it was such a breeze. The experts say that social communication can be up and running
with 2 years but lucid academic usage takes far longer to acquire (and no doubt some considerable effort)

How many British 6-year olds do you know that can boast of lucid academic usage :-)

Well I'm not talking about "academic" in terms of college and university. Nevertheless, there remains a gulf
between using a language socially with peers and producing creative and coherent output in more
advanced situations. I have observed 12-year-old Polish pupils who have been in the UK for a couple of
years and on the surface speak English well but produce little of value during written tasks that require a
deeper knowledge of the language.

The advice from a language specialist was that kids in a sink-or-swim immersion environment can achieve
basic spoken fluency within 2 years but true academic fluency takes 10-12.

Edited by beano on 17 September 2013 at 8:09pm
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berabero89
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Message 24 of 39

18 September 2013 at 6:52am | IP Logged

beano wrote:

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

beano wrote:

I think some people forget over
the years the amount of effort it
takes to learn a language,
even as a child in an immersive environment.

I was actually talking to a Polish teenager today who came to the UK aged 6 and told me
that he "just learned
English" and that "it was easy"

I seriously doubt if it was such a breeze. The experts say that social communication
can be up and running
with 2 years but lucid academic usage takes far longer to acquire (and no doubt some
considerable effort)

How many British 6-year olds do you know that can boast of lucid academic usage :-)

Well I'm not talking about "academic" in terms of college and university. Nevertheless,
there remains a gulf
between using a language socially with peers and producing creative and coherent output
in more
advanced situations. I have observed 12-year-old Polish pupils who have been in the UK
for a couple of
years and on the surface speak English well but produce little of value during written
tasks that require a
deeper knowledge of the language.

The advice from a language specialist was that kids in a sink-or-swim immersion
environment can achieve
basic spoken fluency within 2 years but true academic fluency takes 10-12.

I have to say, I'd probably trust the Polish teenager. The gap between no vocabulary
and a 6 year old's vocabulary can be quickly overcome if the child is immersed, so they
get "up to speed" pretty quickly. I started learning English when I was 4, but I never
felt that I was behind my peers and I'm still not. At the age of 6, there really is no
difference between "peer language" and the written language--in fact, kids are just
learning how to read then!

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