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What does it feel like to be multilingual? | ||
Tags: Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 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 9 of 20 29 August 2010 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
How often does this happen in the real world? Personally I once in a while meet a tourist who asks for information, and then mostly in English. If I can hear or know from eavesdropping that he/she/they come from a country whose language I can speak then I sometimes answer in their own language just for fun - and mostly it is appreciated, sometimes with some degree of astonishment. Twice this year I have met people in connection with my job who spoke other languages than Danish or English. And that's two times more than last year. So social contacts at home in person is evidently a thing that happens so rarely to me that it can't motivate the amount of time and effort I put into language learning. For me the important things are 1) to have an entertaining hobby on which I can spend an unlimited amount of time, and 2) to be able to use my languages during travels (or here in this forum). Edited by Iversen on 29 August 2010 at 10:29pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 10 of 20 03 September 2010 at 11:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've known people in the UK to regard some display of L2 competence (even limited) as proof either that you're some kind of genius, or that you're some kind of nerd, or both. I got this reaction during my schooldays. It was compulsory to get some years of (usually) French in school, but actually being able to communicate in French or some other language marked you out, for better or worse.
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| Bill_Sage667 Groupie United States Joined 5205 days ago 62 posts - 71 votes Speaks: English* | Message 11 of 20 04 September 2010 at 4:14am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for posting your sites, especially the uncyclopedia one (I've also began reading that article regarding the Chinese language)! As regards to Polish music, I find some of Agnieszka Chylińska's songs pretty alright (only some of them, though e.g. 'Kiedy powiem sobie dość', and 'Niekochana', most of the others are somewhat like hard metal, but they still appeal to me, kind of). And of course, Anita Lipnicka (or Varius Manx, I don't know, there's so many versions of her name). I also like Mozart's 'Fantasie Impromptu':D.How about you? (is it Disco Polo?:D) Edited by Bill_Sage667 on 04 September 2010 at 4:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5766 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 12 of 20 21 September 2010 at 11:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have been treated very differently by different people when I talk about my languages - and interestingly, my father is the one who is the most harsh about it - who had to learn English when he moved here from Italy many years ago.
Whenever I am asked how many languages I speak, I hesitate a lot, because of the usual questions of what they consider to be actually able to "speak" the language and what their definition of fluency is. My best friend since the beginning of secondary school thinks I am a genius - he is monolingual but has an intense interest in Germany, its language and its culture. So over the last 10 years of my learning German, he has become more and more amazed at my ability to speak it - he doesn't care whether I was just asking my German teacher how his weekend was or asking my ex-girlfriend (who was German) about our next trip to Munich, he was always completely amazed at it and still is now. But as well as my ability to speak German, he also thinks that my skills in French, Russian and many others are at the same level - which they are not, hence why it says that I only "speak" German outside of English - I do speak Welsh as well, which I lost as a second mother tongue years ago, but have since revived it to some extent. My teachers at school were always fascinated - even the ones I didn't really get on with at all. I only ever spoke German in German classes and from the end of the first year I did the same in French classes. I was also able to understand a fair bit of Afrikaans by the end of my time at the school because 5 of my teachers were Afrikaans speakers, strangely enough. I was never able to reply to them, but they were amazed that I was able to understand them by the end of my time there. My parents, particularly my father, are a different story. Whenever I go on holiday we usually go to a country whose language I can understand pretty well and therefore speak some of - but usually not near something approaching fluency because we rarely go to France or Germany anymore. I have been studying Spanish semi-seriously for about a year - ontop of my Slovene, Russian and German at uni it's difficult to find time for it. My father said, the second we landed "go on then, talk". He expected me to be able to speak to everyone - the escort from the airport, the hotel staff to check us in, waiters (which I could, and found that easy on all accounts). I have never given him any indication that my Spanish is that good - I could understand everything everyone was saying, but I could often not reply properly or at all - I am a perfectionist who won't start speaking until I am pretty sure that my speech won't sound silly, childish, slurred or just generally foreign) He then shunned me for the rest of the trip, which annoyed me because he clearly doesn't get how difficult learning a language is - even an "easy one like Spanish", as he said. To go further on about my father's misconceptions about learning languages, he is convinced that my Slovene and Russian should be miles better than my German by the time I graduate at the end of this academic year just because I've been studying them at uni. He couldn't be more wrong - I will be more qualified, technically, in Slovene and Russian, but my German far outpaces both my Russian and Slovene, as is to be expected, considering I have spoken German for nearly 10 years now and went out with a German girl for six of those. My mother, on the other hand, is amazed at absolutely anything I can say in any language other than English. She apologises to me very often when I speak Welsh to her that she stopped speaking it to me as a child, saying that she had no idea that I would become so interested in languages and would never have stopped speaking it to me had she thought it would be of any use to me one day. As a result we don't speak English to each other anymore, once again, and that's the way I like it because unlike when I was nine I'm now very proud of my Welsh heritage. Also my brothers are amazed - my 18 year old brother is amazed because he says "I can't even speak English properly". My five year old half-brother is amazed because he is somewhat envious. He loves hearing different languages, and is both amazed and envious that he can't speak "that weird one where the endings change everywhere" - he's referring to Slovene, which I use to speak to my Slovene friend on the phone :] Well, there's my two pence worth. All quite positive except for my father's odd take on things. Jack Edited by LanguageSponge on 23 September 2010 at 1:43pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5219 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 13 of 20 21 September 2010 at 12:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
It is sadly true that most people in the UK consider it something of a stigma to speak another language unless you work for the foreign office or some such. Though unlike Iversen I do get a fair number of opportunities to speak other languages on a social and business basis now it still marks you out as being different. Working on a project with a Danish company when one of the Danes had a serious accident. On his return to work I sent him a few sentences in Danish wishing him well and enquiring after the family etc on an email: he was astounded and impressed that I could manage any Danish, but my local colleagues all thought I must be some kind of oddity. I put that down to being able to read a Spanish news bulletin later the same day and translate on the fly. I don't find it uncomfortable to stand out. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| B-Tina Tetraglot Senior Member Germany dragonsallaroun Joined 5527 days ago 123 posts - 218 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Polish | Message 14 of 20 21 September 2010 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hey Bill, thank you for your post and sorry for my late response, I've been absent for a few days and somehow didn't notice your post. Must've been distracted by that loud Disco Polo Music I keep listening to :D I'll just list some of my favorites (though we seem to have a slightly different taste): "Strachy na Lachy" (an offspin of "Pidzama Porno", a punk rock band): "Czarny chleb i czarna kawa", "Mury", "Piła Tango". "Herjalf" (e.g. "wilczy król") (sounds quite a bit like Nightwish) "Skampararas" Akurat ("Fantasmagorie", "Droga długa jest") "Elektryczne gitary" (e.g. "Żądze"; the band was taking part of the soundtrack of the film "Kiler") 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5693 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 15 of 20 21 September 2010 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My experiences trying out my languages have generally been "in-country," and therefore not as impressive to the people around me as they might have been if I were just sitting at home, being your average American, and then suddenly busted out into a foreign language. Let me try to think of a few examples...
- I was in Strasbourg with an American friend (we were both studying German at the time), and I ordered an ice cream in French. This is obviously about as basic as it gets, but she still gently teased me about how impressive my multi-lingual skills were. :P - While traveling with two friends (a French-American and a Chinese girl) this past spring in Germany and Austria, I obviously had to use German a lot. They were both studying German too but I think they thought I was better at it than them. We all took turns doing the necessary business (buying our train tickets, etc.) in German, and none of us were too impressed by the others (which I like). - The three of us also went to Italy, and since my friends didn't speak any Italian at all, I had to do all the communicating for us. My Italian is pathetic, but my friends were very grateful that I was able to be the "mouth and ears" for the three of us. I wouldn't say they were impressed as much as just relieved. - At home too, my family knows I'm learning German and French, but I don't get much of a chance to "show it off" to them. Frankly, this is because I don't like showing off. I know how easy it is to be shown up in one's language skills, how many mistakes I still make, and (most importantly) how much more people appreciate it if you undersell rather than oversell yourself. Basically, my number one value is communication. If I'm talking to a foreigner who speaks English better than I speak their language, I naturally revert to English pretty soon, because I place such a high value on effective communication. One last thing: I, too, hate being asked how many languages I "speak." My solution is to always answer "none." That gets people off my back. ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 16 of 20 22 September 2010 at 4:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm in southern China and whenever I speak Mandarin to people they're absolutely amazed and drown me in compliments on how I'm some kind of genius, which was nice at first but after a few months becomes pretty damn annoying.
The thing is, I don't actually like speaking Mandarin here (for political reasons), but I have trouble getting around with Cantonese since I've only studied it for about two months. My pronunciation is pretty good so whenever I try some Canto people assume it's as good as my Mandarin which inevitably leads to me going "Haa? Haa?" And then apologizing for my crappy Canto. Usually this means people switch back to Mandarin. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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