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Languages you never studied, but know | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5448 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes  Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 9 of 31 20 April 2010 at 4:41am | IP Logged | |||||
That's quite interesting to say the least. But what I don't understand is that this native German speaker that I know says he doesn't understand Yiddish at all... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5567 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 10 of 31 20 April 2010 at 6:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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My German teacher in college (a native speaker from Austria) told me she could understand Yiddish without much difficulty. Edited by Levi on 20 April 2010 at 6:25am 1 person has 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 11 of 31 20 April 2010 at 7:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have met an educated person from Hamburg who didn't even understand Low German, which in principle is the local language (or dialect) of the area.
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| 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 12 of 31 20 April 2010 at 9:07am | IP Logged | |||||
Migtht I suggest that there is a powerful psychological barrier, here? When I was a child I grew up in an area with a colourful sociolect, and if I tried to use it at home I was physically beaten, and serverly reprimanded (and of course was bullied at school for taking "posh"). My mother would not accept that I used words from what she considered an uneducated language. I am therefore in the curious position of being able to switch with ease between two different dialects in Spanish (my own Andalusian dialect, which is also quite colourful :-)) and the standard Castellano which I needed in order to teach it to my students, but I am totally unable to reproduce my native dialect, or indeed any other Norwegian dialect other than the neutral "Standard Eastern Norwegian" which I speak. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5352 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 13 of 31 20 April 2010 at 9:19am | IP Logged | |||||
I think that you might be right about a psychological barrier being in play, in terms of what can and cannot be understood. I have a few Dutch friends which claim that they understand German, albeit have never studied it, though my German friends all say that they do not understand Dutch, unless they study it. Furthermore, I have a friend from Baden Würtenburg who speaks a horrid German dialect, and he says that he never speaks Hochdeutsch, because it is easier for him to speak his dialect. He later told me that other students at the university always ask him to repeat what he says, but that this is easier for him than to actually speak in Hochdeutsch, and they learn to adapt. There has to be a willingness to understand, and with that, understanding comes much more easily. 1 person has 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 14 of 31 20 April 2010 at 10:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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I often also see that it seems to be easier for Portuguese, and in particular Brazilians to understand Spanish, than the other way round. When I was a student I worked as an Oslo-guide, and often had Brazilian groups, and I used to greet them in the following manner (in Spanish): "Good morning, and welcome to Norway, I hope you understand me, becuase I don't understand you". They would all laugh, but 5 minutes later I would get my first question in Brazilian. I then had to explain that I really did not understand what they said, something which evidently puzzled them. I may be too bold here, and I am deeply sorry if I offend anyone, but I think both German/Dutch and Spanish/Portuguese are a combination of the fact that one of the languages (German/Spanish) has a clearer pronunciation and is the dominant language both regarding exposure and political influence.Hence, easier to understand.
Of course, as time passed, I got more used to the Brazilian, and now I can get by talking with Portuguese people, but it took a while. Lack of exposure can even cause difficulties of understanding between languages that are in principle mutually understanding, and dialects within the same language. Visiting Sweden, some friends of mine and I were flabbergasted,that the young Swedish girl selling ice cream could not understand our Norwegian, and that we had to talk English to her. And I notice that my own daughters claim not to be able to understand Swedish, even if I know that after two days there they would understand absolutely everything. I have also had the experience at age 13, to meet an old Norwegian woman whose Norwegian was so dificult for me to understand, and vice versa, that we had to speak English to each other. It is all about exposure. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5585 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 15 of 31 20 April 2010 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I can read Portuguese and Italian very well, and my German comprehension isn't too bad. Dutch and Afrikaans are there too, I could live there without being oblivious lol :D
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| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6454 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin | Message 16 of 31 22 April 2010 at 12:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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I understand about 70-80% of written Norwegian without ever having studied the language. Almost all Romance languages are easily comprehensible because I already speak Italian and Spanish. I have for example read texts in Portuguese and in French. :) I read Russian pretty well, so I can also read some basic stuff in nearly all other Slavic languages (except for Polish and Czech, I think!).
My Estonian reading and oral comprehension skills are quite good, because the language is similar to Finnish, my native language. Without any studying it's almost impossible for a Finn to understand Estonian, though. I have learned words here and there and some grammar mainly by watching Estonian TV and checking out Estonian websites. My skills are only passive, but I hope one day I'll have time to study that language, too. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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