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Stop speaking to me in English

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51 messages over 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 57  Next >>
tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 4046 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 41 of 51
31 October 2014 at 9:13pm | IP Logged 
chiara-sai wrote:

Ah yes, minority languages are a tricky issue. I have been learning some Lombard on a off (it’s a minority
language where I come from, and my mother speaks it) but I am extremely intimidated to speak it because I
have found speakers are so not used to people studying it that some will mock you if you make any mistakes
and tell you you’ll never learn their language. There’s also this perception that Italian minority languages
are just a corruption of Italian (even though they evolved side by side to it!) and that it’s silly to learn a
corrupted version when you already speak the correct one, which is an attitude that makes me sad.
And I’m not even gonna get into all assumptions people make about your political views as soon as they learn
that you’re studying Lombard…
As a result I’ve been very put off studying it and I’ve kept it to myself and resigned to never using it as a spoken
language.


Which variety of Lombard? It changes from village to village and probably even from family to family (although
remains quite intelligible). That said, just learn some phrase to use when you speak Italian (my favourite being "me
par propri un bel meste'", "via'l gatt balan i ratt" and various forms of playful insults like "ciaparatt" :D). Also, young
people don't talk it. And my gawd, the stupidity of the pairing lombard dialect -> Nothern League it's second only to
Va Pensiero -> Northern League, and unfortunately it's vouched for both supporter and hater of the Northern
League.

But if this is true with Lombard, it is certainly not true for meridional dialects. Even the youngsters speak those
dialects and the less educated are unable to speak Italian. But still, it is a bad idea to try to speak their dialect if
you're a buitenlander (you come from outside).

About level of English for Italians it's true: there is a lot of exposure to the English languages. But with how many of
them you can have a three hours conversation about politics, philosophy and sense of life (assuming for absurd that
they can talk about it in Italian or every other language of course)? Most the young people have studied English in
the school but their level is pretty basic (I remember myself, after two years of university, not remembering if chair
was 'sedia' and just indicating with the finger to no say a wrong word. And I had good grades at school!).
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Ogrim
Heptaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 4638 days ago

991 posts - 1896 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian

 
 Message 42 of 51
02 November 2014 at 11:43am | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
Bao wrote:
Ogrim, do you understand Huguette Dreikaus?


While waiting for an answer from Ogrim, I would like to thank Bao for the reference to a very entertaining lady.

Xundheit


I didn't know Mme Dreikaus, but now that I have looked her up on Youtube I agree with Iversen, very entertaining. I must admit I do not understand everything and get lost sometimes, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could follow quite a lot of her Strrasbourg Alsatian.

1 person has voted this message useful



Ogrim
Heptaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 4638 days ago

991 posts - 1896 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian

 
 Message 43 of 51
02 November 2014 at 12:12pm | IP Logged 
eyðimörk wrote:

Ogrim wrote:
and there are no media in Alsatian

Sure there is! I am sure it's not much or on a large scale, but I've watched (or turned off, rather) television programmes in Elsässisch on French TV. There's at least that.

I'd be surprised if there aren't radio channels that broadcast in Elsässisch and online "television" broadcasts, as is the case with Breton.


Let me be more precise: It is true that there are a few emissions on TV, e.g. on France 3 Alsace, and I know about one or two radio stations which broadcasts in Alsatian for an hour a day or so. It is just that in comparison with Romansh, there is surprisingly little out there, although there are ten times as many speakers of Alsatian. Romansh has its own TV and radio channel (part of the Swiss public Broadcasting), a daily newspaper and lots of literature and music is published every year. Here in Strasbourg you really have to search long and hard in order to find any books in Alsatian, or even learning material for that matter.

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tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4706 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 44 of 51
02 November 2014 at 12:30pm | IP Logged 
tristano wrote:


About level of English for Italians it's true: there is a lot of exposure to
the English languages. But with how many of
them you can have a three hours conversation about politics, philosophy and sense of
life (assuming for absurd that
they can talk about it in Italian or every other language of course)? Most the young
people have studied English in
the school but their level is pretty basic (I remember myself, after two years of
university, not remembering if chair
was 'sedia' and just indicating with the finger to no say a wrong word. And I had good
grades at school!).


I don't generally have conversations about the meaning of life and philosophy with
many people, and politics is even less interesting. With how many people do you need
to have deep and thoughtful conversations?

Edited by tarvos on 02 November 2014 at 12:30pm

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daegga
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Austria
lang-8.com/553301
Joined 4520 days ago

1076 posts - 1792 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian
Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic

 
 Message 45 of 51
02 November 2014 at 12:41pm | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:

With how many people do you need to have deep and thoughtful conversations?


What's the point of having a conversation if it's only about exchanging pleasantries and
talking about the weather?

Edited by daegga on 02 November 2014 at 12:44pm

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tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4706 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 46 of 51
02 November 2014 at 10:45pm | IP Logged 
daegga wrote:
tarvos wrote:

With how many people do you need to have deep and thoughtful conversations?


What's the point of having a conversation if it's only about exchanging pleasantries and
talking about the weather?


There is a golden mean in between those two. I can discuss global warming or the exchange
rate of the rouble without it having to delve into philosophy. Or maybe we can discuss
samba dancing. I don't know.
1 person has voted this message useful



tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 4046 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 47 of 51
03 November 2014 at 12:17am | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:

I don't generally have conversations about the meaning of life and philosophy with
many people, and politics is even less interesting. With how many people do you need
to have deep and thoughtful conversations?


Even exchanging basic pleasantries can be really difficult if one of the two is insecure, talks painfully slow and
doesn't understand what the other person is saying. And natives English speaker for Italian speakers are the less
understandable English speaker in the world, especially the europeans.

Edited by tristano on 03 November 2014 at 12:24am

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Tyrion101
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3912 days ago

153 posts - 174 votes 
Speaks: French

 
 Message 48 of 51
03 November 2014 at 6:29pm | IP Logged 
I've often thought that if I ever found myself in France, french being my target language, that if I ran into this problem, I'd simply tell people I was French Canadian, then maybe they'd get that I'd prefer french? Most people I talked to in Europe last week had no idea where South Carolina was anyway, my brother always explained it as: "You know Orlando Florida? It's kind of above that." I honestly thought most people had a decent grasp of geography, at least I thought that people from the UK would at least know the states nearest their country.


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