joshua.c Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 4120 days ago 1 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin
| Message 1 of 28 12 August 2013 at 8:30pm | IP Logged |
Hi! Just thought I'd get a
conversation going about what
countries people had in mind would be
ideal for immersion into environments
where several languages are spoken, if
your goal was to learn 2 or more
languages at once.
I feel that when it comes to language
learning, I learn best by immersion.
Assuming you had the time and money,
where would you go if your goal was to
learn 2 or more languages by
immersion?
Here are some places that have come to
mind so far:
Northern Morocco (Arabic,
French with the possibility of
Spanish). It seems fluency in French
is widespread here due to it being
taught extensively in the education
system. Although it seems as if
Moroccan Arabic is the language most
commonly used, I believe that locals
are fluent in Modern Standard Arabic
making it possible to learn this
language here as well. Due to Northern
Morroco's proximity with Spain, it
seems as if some locals are at least
conversant in this language. It also
seems as if there is a rising Spanish
population, making it perhaps
possible to immerse in and practice
Spanish.
Brazil, São Paulo (Portuguese,
Japanese). Portuguese is the official
language and mother tongue of Brazil
so it goes without saying that you
will be able to immerse yourself into
this language here. In terms of
Japanese, Brazil holds the largest
Japanese population outside of Japan,
of which many are concentrated in São
Paulo, so I'm guessing if you make an
effort to practice it would be
possible.
Any comments on the two examples
above?
Can you think of any others?
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 2 of 28 12 August 2013 at 11:13pm | IP Logged |
You could learn both French and English in several parts of Canada!
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 3 of 28 13 August 2013 at 6:31pm | IP Logged |
Switzerland.
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aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5539 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese
| Message 4 of 28 13 August 2013 at 7:32pm | IP Logged |
I think you're going to have to look at cities as opposed to countries for the most part
Montreal
Parts of Switzerland
Parts of Belgium
Parts of the US (Spanish)
India
This Wikipedia page lists countries and regions where at least two languages are spoken
frequently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multilingual_countries_ and_regions
Edited by aokoye on 13 August 2013 at 7:32pm
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montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh
| Message 5 of 28 13 August 2013 at 10:45pm | IP Logged |
I have a feeling that Aachen (Nordrhein-Westfalen) is a somewhat
multilingual/multicultural city, by virtue of its geography. Close to the Belgian and
Dutch borders. Nice place, anyway.
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Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5554 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 6 of 28 14 August 2013 at 12:32am | IP Logged |
As far as cities go, London is very multicultural, offering great opportunities to practice and immerse in a wide range of languages. Simply walking down a busy street or travelling on the metro, it's rare not to hear several languages (familiar and exotic) spoken all at once.
Edited by Teango on 14 August 2013 at 12:33am
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4866 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 7 of 28 26 August 2013 at 1:28am | IP Logged |
I think this is only partly a question of location and partly a question of being motivated to seek out local speakers of your language of choice. I live in a medium-sized German city and I'm certain that I could find enough native speakers for pretty much any language I want to study - except for really rare ones like Samoan ;). In fact, when I started studying Portuguese I kept meeting Brazilians and found out that there are many Portuguese immigrants in my city. It's only when I started to learn Korean that I came to realise just how many Koreans live in this area and how desperate they are for language tandems. When I started becoming interested in Persian I noticed how often Persian conversations take place on the bus... So I'm pretty sure you can build your own multilingual environment in many places. Being somewhere near a big city of course helps.
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mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4430 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi
| Message 8 of 28 26 August 2013 at 2:59am | IP Logged |
Teango wrote:
As far as cities go, London is very multicultural, offering great opportunities to practice
and immerse in a wide range of languages. Simply walking down a busy street or travelling on the metro,
it's rare not to hear several languages (familiar and exotic) spoken all at once. |
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When the Japanese-German author Yoko Tawada was working in Cambridge she said she heard Japanese
everywhere and it was as if she had never left Japan. On the metro, in the streets, at the restaurants, etc.
Me personally, I love Toronto and Montreal. There are plenty of bilingual places in Canada, like
Kapuskasing, Timmins, Oromocto. Lovely names, too :P
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