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Do you speak the TL you learned at school | ||
Tags: School Education | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 41 of 53 19 August 2012 at 1:37am | IP Logged | ||
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@Random:
Well, the English upper classes weren't always known for their brains! (The phrase "upper class twit" and the name "Bertie Wooster" come to mind. :-) @Volte: I can't reply to your PM because your inbox is full. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| expowarrior Newbie United States https://youtube.com/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4524 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 42 of 53 19 August 2012 at 3:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I was taught Spanish, Latin, and German in school (in that order).
The Spanish was in elementary school (and one semester in 12th grade). Our teacher spoke conversational Spanish, so the school put all the kids who spoke Spanish and were in ESL into her class. She thought it would be helpful for us all to learn some Spanish so we could play together more easily, so she started teaching us a bit each day. Once we hit a point where she no longer felt comfortable teaching us, she had an international student come in and help teach. It was a lot of fun and it did make it easier to communicate with the kids from El Salvador, etc. in class. However, I only had this teacher for 4th and 5th grade, so after that my Spanish disappeared. In the school system in my hometown, you get to take 'real' language classes in 7th grade. I took Latin. I continued Latin into high school and would've had 6 years of studying under my belt if I didn't have to move to Texas my senior year. I had a love/hate relationship with Latin. I think it definitely helped me figure out how to approach other languages in the future, but there was a lot of trial and error. I have unfortunately retained very little of it. I do love the language, though and would like to pick it up again. In 10th grade I was able to add another language into my schedule. I chose German. German is still my TL (lol). I do think the classes helped a lot. It helped me foster a love for the language and made it a lot easier for me to start the learning process. My previous experiences in Latin class also gave me an edge. I got A's in every German class I took and was the teacher's pet in all my high school German classes (something I'm both proud and ashamed of). TL;DR:I have mixed feelings about learning languages in school. For me, I got the most out of the classes when I put a lot in. I saw many of my peers not really care about learning the language. They just took the class to get the credit. They got B's and sometimes even A's but they weren't spending hours on their own studying the language. I think classes are great in conjunction with self-study. I don't think they're very helpful on their own. I think classes would be more effective if the teachers made it clear how much time students needed to spend with the language. Far too many of my classmates walked into the classroom expecting a language to be inserted into their brains by the teacher. A bigger emphasis on language exchanges, and more time (in class) spent talking to native speakers and really using the language would be great.
My stepmom also took German in school (in Norway), and she's not very proud of her German. She's always saying that although her German pronunciation is better than mine, her grammar and writing are worse. I think she's being too hard on herself. Edited by expowarrior on 19 August 2012 at 3:31am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6125 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 43 of 53 19 August 2012 at 5:07am | IP Logged | ||
I'm not sure myself about this. For my mother and grandmother Finnish was their 'secret language' -- they spoke it to each other to say things, well, I don't know what they were trying to say to each other, I didn't know any Finnish as a child. To me it's still kind of a secret, though I'm working on it. I had a about year of Spanish in Jr. High school. I don't remember much of it, maybe some numbers and greetings? That's about it. I have no idea what past tense in Spanish looks like. In High School I had 3 years of German. Honestly, at the time I don't think it ever actually occurred to me that I might become actually fluent in German -- that this was all just a massive list of words and grammar points to memorize so I could pass tests. I think I took the German AP exam, but I don't remember how I did. Otherwise, those days I was somewhat motivated, and I did seek out German movies those days, and even went to the theater a few times, so I did a little bit extra outside of class, but I stopped when I went to college. A few years ago I went through the Michel Thomas German program, and at that time I think a little bit of the German came back, but I'm not anywhere near fluent in it. Sometimes on sharedtalk.com if I can't find any Finnish people to bother and the Japanese rooms are dead, I type some random German in the German room and decode what other people say using a dictionary. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| The Aussie Newbie Australia Joined 4848 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 44 of 53 19 August 2012 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I consider myself very, VERY lucky when reading the accounts of others here. My teacher speaks 8 langages, to a fluent level, and studies many more. In this last 7 months, i've learned triple, possibly quadruple or what i had learned in all my three pior years of french.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4701 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 45 of 53 19 August 2012 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I learned English ans Spanish. I speak English, but all I can say in Spanish nowadays is "una cerveza por favor" (hope I spelled it correctly) ;)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5847 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 46 of 53 19 August 2012 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had four school languages:
1. English - 2 years elementary school + 9 years grammar school 2. Latin - 4,5 years grammar school 3. French - 2,5 years grammar school 4. Ancient Greek - 4 years grammar school. I don't speak the dead languages and I never spoke them. I wasn't taught to speak them but only to learn the grammar and to translate texts into German. I speak English agt a C1 - level and Franch at a B2 - level. With both languages I followed additional courses and with English I obtained two language certificates. So my school learning was a good basis but I had to develop my skills further later in my life. Otherwise I would have forgotten my school language skills because my school time is already so long ago. Fasulye 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4668 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 47 of 53 19 August 2012 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I learned German in elementary school and in high school (for 9 years in total), but I don't speak German :( I decided to give it a new start, after 7 years of no contact with German. My grammar skills are good, and I can understand most of it, but I cannot speak it :(
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marikki Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5495 days ago 130 posts - 210 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Spanish, Swedish Studies: German | Message 48 of 53 19 August 2012 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I learned English for 9,5 years, Swedish for 5,5 years and German for 2,5 years.
After school I took a gap year which I spent working on passenger ships cruising from Finland to Germany or Sweden. As the work was 100% customer service, I had to use all my four languages at work. I got by even in German although I have to admit that one of my older collegues taught me some German phrases I could use in certain situations. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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