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Languages you never studied, but know | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 31 19 April 2010 at 6:12pm | IP Logged |
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As I registred for this forum, I was debating with myself how to classify the languges I knew that I have never actually studied, but which I understand by virtue of the other languages I know. The typical example are the Scandinavian languages. As a Norwegian you always feel a bit sheepish, when you say that you speak Swedish and Danish, because
a) everyone does because they are so similar to Norwegian, b) you could not actually pull of a full conversation passing for a native, as your accent would give you away immediately. Yet after having grown up with Swedish television (I grew up in the dark ages when there was just one TV-channel in Norway, so we naturally spent much of our time watching the Swedish channel) - there is no Swedish dialect I do not understand, and I can just as easily read a text in Danish or Swedish as in Norwegian. Sometimes for fun, I chat with a Swedish friend of mine where we do 30 minutes in Norwegian and then 30 minutes in Swedish. Hilarious. Then we have Portuguese, which I have never actually learned, but I have read a couple of Agatha Christies in Portuguese, I can plod through a newpaper article when I need to and can speak some pidgin-Portuguese which is a mixture of the few words I have picked up from my reading, and the Spanish and Italian I know. Works like a charm. :-) Yet I cannot in all honesty say that I speak any Portuguese, so I put myself up as a beginner. That felt a bit weird, as it then fell into the same category as Arabic which I studied for 6 weeks 30 years ago, and where I remember some 20-30 words. Then there is Dutch - which is an exception, as I have actually had exactly 10 hours of formal training, and a large amount of studying on my own. 20 years ago.:-) I have again read a couple of books and some newpaper articles in Dutch, but I can only say a few sentences in Dutch which might stand a chance of being understood. And I do realize, that my ability to read the language is 95 % due to the fact that English, German and English are so similar to Dutch. Nevertheless, it does feel weird to say "beginner" when I can read books in it. Is there any chance of having any new categories like"Advanced beginner", "Understands but does not speak"? How have the rest of you dealt with this? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| goosefrabbas Triglot Pro Member United States Joined 6368 days ago 393 posts - 475 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German, Italian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 31 19 April 2010 at 6:49pm | IP Logged |
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Well, the forum's definitions are:
Basic Fluency - you understand at least 80% of a regular newspaper in your target language and can hold regular conversations about any topic, understanding what people say and getting your point across. Advanced Fluency means that you can read a popular novel and not miss more than 2 words per page on average, and hold advanced conversations with minimal mistakes. So, for example, if you can easily read books in Dutch and Portuguese but not exactly speak them, maybe you can average out Advanced Fluency and Intermediate and write down Basic Fluency. :) In any case, within the forum I'd assume that most members know of the mutual intelligibility of the Scandinavian languages. Outside is probably a matter of preference and who you speak to (to Norwegians I don't think saying that you understand Swedish is necessary). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 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 3 of 31 19 April 2010 at 7:03pm | IP Logged |
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The problem with those definitions is that they don't differentiate between passive and active skills, and I would say that languages you only know through a related language are passive - i.e. you can't produce sentences in such a language without showing clearly that you just know its general sound and a few words and constructions. But of course the distinction between passive and active skills also has its limitations. You mention that you often converse in Swedish, and this just goes to prove that a good passive understanding of a language is the best possible background for making such a language active. This even includes a case like Latin which is quite different from even the Romance languages and traditionally has been taught as a purely passive language. But once you decide to 'activate' it it is much easier to start writing/speaking it than it would be to learn such a language from scratch.
Personally I have waited to put Swedish on my list because I needed to study Swedish to become aware of the differences between Swedish and Danish - more than you would expect. In contrast: when I write in Norwegian Bokmål I basically do as you do with your Swedish acquaintance: I check a few spellings and maybe a couple of words, but apart from that I just make an educated guess about how things might be written in Norwegian and then I hope that the result isn't too bad. And therefore Norwegian is not on my list, - and it won't get there until I can write in Nynorsk which is much more fun to read for a Dane. Edited by Iversen on 20 April 2010 at 7:13am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 31 19 April 2010 at 8:24pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for your suggestions and comments. I was also a bit uncertain of how to classify languages I have studied at some point in my life, but largely forgotten. I have exam papers which state that I know Latin. But it is almost 30 years since I passed that exam, so even if it was a 6 month's study I even forgot to put it in my list here, as it feels like ancient history. I also spent some weeks/months learning both Arabic and Hebrew, but again, we are talking 35 - 25 years ago. Even if I remember some words and phrases, and at one point spent a lot ot time learning them it still feels a bit weird listing them, but I guess that is what the "Beginner" category is for. :-) At least I noticed when I went to Israel last year, that some of my Hebrew is actually still there, and when I was in Egypt in February I got a warm reception when I turned out my few Arabic words and sentences when asked if I knew any Arabic.
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| Smart Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5339 days ago 352 posts - 398 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French Studies: German | Message 5 of 31 19 April 2010 at 9:22pm | IP Logged |
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I love this thread because when I was listing my languages, I had some similar problems.
I can read and write Italian, Portuguese and Catalan. Yet I can not speak or converse in any of them. I am also not studying them. I can understand all 3 when spoken and reply in either English, Spanish or French. (depending on what language the other person knows). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5922 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 6 of 31 19 April 2010 at 10:02pm | IP Logged |
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I can read Portuguese very well, and I can understand it well, too. Italian is harder
to read, but a little easier to understand. Catalan is pretty understandable on both fronts. All of this is passive knowledge... learn Spanish, get three languages free? ;) I can read Portuguese Wikipedia, no problem. Spanish and Portuguese have an absolutely ridiculous amount of lexical similarity (something like 87%?). I wonder if it would be more accurate to say that there's some Spanish-Portuguese dialect continuum. Cantonese and Mandarin are considered dialects of each other, but a Taiwanese girl in my school can't understand Cantonese at all. Why are Spanish and Portuguese called languages while Cantonese and Mandarin are popularly called "dialects"? Rhetorical question up there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6142 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 7 of 31 20 April 2010 at 3:27am | IP Logged |
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I too can understand written Catalan even though I have never studied it at all. I'm not sure about spoken Catalan though, that might take some getting used to. I would definitely not say that I can speak it though, because that would be a lie. I have also noticed that I can understand a good deal of Norwegian and Danish from my limited Swedish. Also from Germanic languages I can understand a lot of Dutch... This is a puzzling topic... Edited by ellasevia on 20 April 2010 at 4:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5352 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 8 of 31 20 April 2010 at 4:11am | IP Logged |
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For me, I am surprised everytime I hear Yiddish. It just sounds so weird to me, though at the same time, I can understand an incredible amount. Now if only I understood the alphabet, so that I could read it as well.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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