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A bit of anything - living languages | ||
Tags: Using Foreign Languages | Living Language | Catalan | Romance Languages | Latin | Russian | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4291 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 105 of 109 26 June 2015 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | ||
I had a feeling that it would be like that. Luckily I pretend to be a non-Anglophone native Hispanophone these days, so we shall see how it go next time I go to Norway :) With a chemical education background I heard a lot about Stavanger as well as how many like to go to the reknowned "offshore" drilling compounds in the North Sea, but I was looking more at Bergen or somewhere in Vestlandet, although I cannot complain about really anywhere. Anywhere in continentual Europe is better than here. You have a Spanish wife and live in France, so you have two languages that are essentially necessary in daily life. It sounds harsh, but I was thinking about this too, but having a wife that does not know my native language (English) would probably help a lot more linguistically than having for example, a British or Australian wife. the reverse is true for her too, I would be more helpful linguistically than someone who has the same native language as she. To be honest, the "downsides" seem more like "upsides" to me. More personal feeling of course, because the less that I can use English the better. I feel like we are being looked (we native Anglophones) as the "dummies" for whom everyone has to learn our language because we are just incompetent at languages. I met a lot of Norwegians in the UK. Newcastle must be a Norwegian hub, because there are so many there. I met more people from Kristiansund and Stavanger than, for example, Leeds, or Liverpool! It was an unsaid feeling though that British (or American, Canadian, Australian, or NZ) people cannot learn Norwegian, but the opposite is true. You do have a unique and enviable lifestyle--immersion in two languages. I try forced pseudo-immersion, although reality comes back quickly when this syttende mai I wanted to celebrate and my Anglophone friends had no idea what the hell that date meant. Edited by 1e4e6 on 27 June 2015 at 12:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4640 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 106 of 109 29 June 2015 at 10:38am | IP Logged | ||
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I've never held the view that English-speaking persons should somehow be worse at learning languages than others. If so many Brits and Americans are monolingual, it is probably more down to the education system, and the fact that they don't need a second language in their daily life.
Having a partner who doesn't know your language obviously gives you an advantage, as long as you know your partners language. It will mostly be a one-way street though. When my wife lived with me in Norway for a year, she did learn some Norwegian, but not from me. Although we tried to practise Norwegian together sometimes, it just felt strange and we quickly returned to speaking Spanish. I am afraid syttende mai is not as known around the world as 4th of July or quatorze juillet, so not surprised if your friends wondered what you were on about.
Thanks for the information about the пельмени, maybe I should try making them some time. I've heard about Кухня, but I haven't got around to watching any episodes yet. However, as I know Polydog has published transcripts, I'll look for the show on the net to see if I can find it, whenever I have the time to do so. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 107 of 109 29 June 2015 at 11:17am | IP Logged | ||
Thank you for the nice words, Ogrim. I have indeed been feeling like the proverbial wall is racing towards meeting me, so I have just focused on surviving, I am sorry if it has felt like I have been abandoning you guys :-) I am sure it would be possible to live a true polyglot life in Norway as well, given the right life choices (working in a Norwegian company, married to a Spaniard, a Frenchman or a Russian), and with lots of friends from different places. I use English mostly at work, Norwegian with a few of my friends and Spanish with a whole lot of my friends. I should definitely be on the look out for someone who is a native French or Russian speaker as my next partner :-) my Spanish is well taken care of by my friends, and I get enough English exposure at work, and I think the same would go for anyone with an international job. But I agree with Ogrim, that one of the obstacles in Norway, is actually that everyone speaks English. You would have to really insist on speaking Norwegian, and I would recommend working a lot on pronunciation. Some people don't care, and when I meet Americans who in spite of having lived here for 20 years, working in Norwegian, and having a Norwegian wife and kids are close to incomprehensible because of a very heavy American accent, I am not impressed. But you are not the only one to be a little bit envious of Ogrim :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4640 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 108 of 109 10 July 2015 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just added Romanian to the list of languages I study. To be honest, I don't know how much time and effort I will be able to put into it, but it has been on my mind for some time now that I really should pick it up again. When I studied Romance Philology at university, I spent a couple of years learning Romanian in parallel with my other languages (Spanish, Italian, French, Latin and Greek) and I really enjoyed it. I was even at the point of going to Bucharest for a summer course, but for various reasons it did not happen, and after I finished my studies I did not do anything to maintain it. That being said, if I look up a Romanian text I can still make some sense of it, even though I have forgotten a lot. So even if it is 25 years since I actively engaged with the language, I have not totally forgotten everything.
I do not have an elaborate study plan. For the time being I will blow the dust of my old Teach Yourself Romanian, and an even older Romanian grammar book written in Swedish back in the 1970s and spend some time browsing through them to refresh what I have forgotten about Romanian grammar. I need to purchase a new Romanian dictionary, and I'll also look around the web to see if I can find useful stuff there. And then later on I'll start working on "real" texts, whether it is news on the web or literature. My aim is first and foremost to be able to read Romanian, any active skills would be a plus, but it is not my priority at this stage. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 109 of 109 10 July 2015 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'll be looking forward to following along with your Romanian journey, Ogrim. With all your Romance languages, and now Russian, to help, I'm sure you'll make rapid progress.
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