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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5781 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 1 of 6 04 January 2014 at 11:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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OK at James29's suggestion, I'm going to start a log. I'm not sure how often I'll end up updating it or if
anyone else will actually read it (though I hope James might occasionally). Quick bit of housekeeping: the template made me pick "a" language and so I chose German as it is my main focus currently. Actually, though, this log will be about any and all languages that I study. At the timeof writing these are: German. The main focus of my studies for about 15 months now. I estimate myself at a low B1. Spanish. I think I reached a low B2 by the time I dumped it for German. God knows where I am now though. Greek/Portuguese/Yiddish. I play at these languages. I don't really have any skills to show for it (apart from maybe some reading skills in Portuguese), but I just find them interesting. Mandarin. My nemesis. I just can't seem to get going with it...it's just too intimidating. The log will document my activities, any progress that may occur, my thoughts about these languages and about methods, plus any other random nerdy things that excite me that are language related (like comparing the German and Yiddish case systems). OK, so here goes... 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5020 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 6 05 January 2014 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I will definitely be following along! I have been hoping you would start one for a long time. Judging from usefulness of your other very helpful posts, I think you perhaps have underestimated how many people might be interested in reading your log.
Anyway, best of luck for 2014! (In all aspects, not just language learning) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5781 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 3 of 6 05 January 2014 at 1:02am | IP Logged | ||
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So, yeah, what prompted me to suddenly take up James' suggestion from a couple of weeks ago?
Something that happened at work. I was (as always) bored out of my mind at work when I suddenly thought of Benny (the Irish polyglot). One of the waitresses had moved to Brazil as a small child and so was essentially a native speaker (or near native) of Portuguese. I had never tried to talk to her in my pitiful Portuguese as, well, it's pitiful. Anyway, I'm there washing dishes, desperately willing the clock to move faster when, as I said, I thought of Benny. I'm stuck here doing this job that is pretty demanding physically but demands only a miniscule fraction of my brain usage, and I won't try and converse in Portuguese because my Portuguese is crap...I can just imagine the look of pity on his face regarding that kind of thinking. So, I thought, screw it...what do I have to lose? It all went really well at first. She was surprised, complimented me on my pronunciation (thanks to Pimsleur and a certain UK public library, my pronunciation in the only part of my Portuguese which doesn't suck), taught me a few new words and generally made an effort to converse. The reaction to this halting conversation from my coworkers (both chefs and waiting staff) was positive. Not speaking any themselves, they clearly overestimated my Portuguese and so were quite impressed. This would be a happy story if I'd left it there. :-( So this continued for an hour or so, every time she cleared some plates to the pot-wash sink we exchanged a couple of sentences, me in my halting Portuguese saying something I probably spent the last 10 minutes thinking how to express in Portuguese ha ha. The trouble came when I tried to say something in Portuguese (I forget what, but it was something about why I hate washing pots so much and how over the years it starts to really get you down) and failed. I should have either left it or said it in English, but instead (and I still don't really understand why) I said it in Spanish (she is fluent in Spanish). The conversation changed very quickly into a real conversation! I was elated to find that (for all I'm sure I was making mistakes), real, meaningful conversation is possible for me in Spanish, even after neglecting it for over a year. I was able to explain why I hate pot-washing so much, she told me what she hated about waiting on tables and I was able to respond appropriately with humorous suggestions. And yet the atmosphere around also changed. Where my halting, pathetic attempts at Portuguese had somehow impressed them, this new fluent conversation actually annoyed my co-workers! The chefs started giving me more and more extra jobs to do even though I was already very busy (I even pointed this out to her as part of our Spanish conversation and we discussed this treatment). Bear in mind that at no point did I actually stop working during this conversation. Eventually I had so many extra jobs that I actually did stop talking for fear of any more (as I was by now working flat out trying to keep up and any more jobs would have seen me physically unable to cope). Anyway, I found out that they got rid of her after that. The official reason was that they decided not to take her on at the end of her trial period (in the UK your first 3 months or so constitute a de facto trial period and until this period ends, employers do not need a reason to dismiss you); but I've been told that the real reason is that her having that conversation in Spanish with me had been "the last straw". Go figure. Actually, I've noticed this reaction before. In 2010 (I think) I worked in a restaurant and discovered that one of the waiters was Venezuelan, so I started conversing with him in Spanish. A few days later I was moved to their other site. When I lived in Spain in 2008, I started to come to work half an hour early to practice my Spanish with the bar person (also Venezuelan), at that time of day he had nothing demanding to do and just used to polish glasses etc. That also proved unpopular and the chefs used to start giving me jobs even though I hadn't technically started yet! Seeing my attempts to practice my Spanish turning into half an hour a day of unpaid labour, I soon stopped. I don't really understand this reaction. It doesn't really affect my pot-washing so where's the harm? I know that waiters and bar persons have more complicated jobs and so for a while I was thinking that chefs and managers didn't like it because it was distracting the waiter/waitress/bar person; but then I'm allowed to chat with them in English: how on earth can it be more distracting for them to chat in their native language!!!! So yeah, what should I make of that? I think with Spanish maybe life is trying to tell me something. In all the years learning Spanish I never once had anyone to talk to in the language for any length of time. Is it really just bad luck? I once arranged to talk to the wife of a chef who was Spanish, I offered to pay a modest sum for the privilege and they both seemed keen as she wasn't working and was extremely bored...he promptly got himself sacked for drinking at work before a time could be arranged. One day I turned up for work and he was gone. Maybe I'm not supposed to speak Spanish.it does seem that way. And yet I'm loathe to throw away all that effort, though and there have been times of real pleasure: watching El Chavo del 8, or Aquí no hay quien viva, the first two series of La que se avecina, the early series of Aída, Capulina and Viruta, Mortadelo and Filemón, Cantinflas...bit of a pattern here...hours and hours of laughter. F*** it...confused.com Edited by Random review on 05 January 2014 at 1:23am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5781 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 4 of 6 05 January 2014 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||
Yey! Thanks, mate. I know how you feel, btw. I had to work a ton of hours in December (due to the season rather than choice) and it made me ill too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 5 of 6 05 January 2014 at 1:53am | IP Logged | ||
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YES! I will definitely be here reading your log. Interesting stories.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 6 of 6 09 March 2014 at 1:35am | IP Logged | ||
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What's going on?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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