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Slang in Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5452 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 9 of 13 09 August 2012 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it's sound advice to avoid using slang in a foreign language. The exception is when you have reached a sufficiently high level to know when it is appropriate, but then you are well beyond the beginner and intermediate stages. However, slang is not necessarily the same as informal or colloquial language. Informal and colloquial expressions are part of everyday language and tend to change less often than slang. Unless the only thing you want to do is to read official documents or academic literature and listen to formal speeches, you'll need at least a passive knowledge of words and expressions belonging to informal, colloquial and familiar registers. Edited by tractor on 09 August 2012 at 1:17am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 10 of 13 09 August 2012 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Good point. Informal isn't the same as slang. And imo entire languages can be "informal", like Finnish for example. I prefer this term to diglossic, as it's not like the changes have been linguistic. They're cultural: the informal register has become appropriate to use in more situations.
What I meant about the two extremes (which are a more real risk in Finnish than, say, Spanish) was that if you use Assimil, you risk using weird slang, but if you use many other coursebooks, you risk using too formal/old-fashioned expressions. Between these, I definitely prefer the weird slang. Both can be and should be corrected by having plenty of input, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4888 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 11 of 13 09 August 2012 at 2:54am | IP Logged | ||
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If someone used Assimil's argot l'américain in our office we'd laugh at them the minute
they left. They wouldn't sound weird, or delightfully old-fashioned; they'd sound dumb. You can learn from friends, or from real life, but I just don't think you can learn this from a book. Slang is too dynamic, and is too intertwined with ethnicity and class and age and gender and sexuality and just about everything else. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 12 of 13 09 August 2012 at 5:14am | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, in some cases too, a foreigner using outdated slang or any slang at an inopportune moment can turn that foreigner into a bit of a poseur in the native-speaking audience's eyes. At the same time, there's nothing like using slang at the right moment that also signals that the user is getting the hang of how the natives often use it. I guess that it has something to do with showing social intelligence. I'd be quite impressed around here if a young acquaintance whose English isn't the best would refer to some attractive stranger within sight but not within earshot as a "hottie". I do think that there's a small place for language learning material to introduce slang, but coursebooks that teach it seem rare (this is probably no accident) and I've only found these for Finnish ("Colloquial Finnish" and "Kato Hei"). I think that a small phrasebook with current/appropriate slang can be valuable if nothing more than to provide a starting point. I've picked up a few phrasebooks and small dictionaries of English slang for native speakers of some of my target languages. I figure that the translations of slang from English into the foreign language can't be outlandish since the target users are native Finns, Poles, et al. - they wouldn't tolerate unidiomatic translations in their own language! However, I do agree that this kind of material for slang should complement what the learner would gain by observing slang in use since native speakers' perception of what is slang changes more quickly than publishers can keep up. I've picked up a fair bit of Finnish slang (and subtleties in how to use it) by watching the ongoing series of the animated sitcom "Pasila" with English subtitles. kanewai, I'm sure that you'll find an effective way to learn some French slang - just strike Assimil from the list ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6150 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 13 of 13 09 August 2012 at 10:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I tend to stick with the middle register, R2, as much as possible for speaking, even if I'm proficient with the language. If I'm writing I'll use the formal register, R3. Being familiar with the lowest registers, R1 and R1*, is useful for listening comprehension and following television, but I would avoid using them in speech. However, knowing which words and phrases applies to each register can be a bit of a black art.
E.g. In French, the word boulot (R1) means job, but I think it's so common that it can be used without sounding too colloquial. Perhaps I'm wrong, and I shouldn't use it. Edited by DaraghM on 09 August 2012 at 10:38am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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