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Help from your native partner | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| raeve Diglot Groupie GermanyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6362 days ago 65 posts - 66 votes  Speaks: EnglishB2, German* Studies: Swedish, Serbian, Spanish | Message 1 of 17 01 February 2010 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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What are your experiences with learning a language with help from a domestic partner/boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife? (if applicable)
My boyfriend is native in Serbian, but despite him occasionally muttering something to himself and eavesdropping on phone calls with his parents, I didn't have the courage yet to ask him to speak Serbian with me. Usually he gets blank stares from me when he asks me something in Serbian. That's mostly because I don't feel very confident about my knowledge of Serbian yet. Even though I'm at chapter 15 of my selflearner's book, I can barely form a correct sentence in this crazy difficult language without thinking half an hour about it. When did your partners start speaking the language with you? Does it make sense at an early stage of learning, or should I first study some more until I feel more confident?! 1 person has 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 2 of 17 01 February 2010 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||
Dive into this opportunity! I learned most of my Portuguese through a relationship with my former ex girlfriend from Brazil. Do not hold back. Learn as much as you can!! If your boyfriend really liked you he would help you study and everything! It's a great opportunity to show your interest in his culture and his family. It would bring you closer. In all honesty if I had that opportunity I wouldn't hold back at all. He can really help you with your pronounciation and everything, even vocab when you say "Hey what is this?" Although the relationship with my girlfriend didn't last (she cheated on me...) My love for the language and knowledge of it has! If it wasn't for that opportunity my pronounciation wouldn't even be close to what it is today. You will make MUCH more progress by learning from him than you will from any self-study course. I know first hand! Best of luck! Remember, never be nervous. Speaking and trying things like phrases and forming sentences is how you learn. Expect mistakes, that's how I've learned. When you make one, recognize it and try again another time. Be lighthearted about it all. Don't get angry about something, just try to laugh it off when you screw something up, and put forth more effort :) I hope it helps you!! -Jordan Edited by datsunking1 on 01 February 2010 at 6:03pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bob Greaves Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6679 days ago 86 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 3 of 17 01 February 2010 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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My wife is Japanese and I used to study Japanese. I thought it would be a good idea to have conversations at home in Japanese (I was able to convese socially, get around Japan on my own, but not good enough for a business meeting). Somehow this turned out to be a disaster: she would get very tense and worried that she couldn't answer my questions about grammar etc. and it would end in an argument. So in the end we gave up and I actually used to pay a Japanese guy to have 2 hour conversations with me each week.
It always puzzled me as to why my wife and I had a problem in conversing in Japanese, and one day someone lent me a book on bringing up children bi-lingually. The author gave a very interesting comment to the extent that relationships are often founded in a particular language and that changing the language of the relationship can be extraordinarily difficult. There was no data attached to his claim, but I did find it interesting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kyssäkaali Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5553 days ago 203 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish | Message 4 of 17 02 February 2010 at 5:54am | IP Logged | ||
I can believe it. I once knew a German-Mexican couple, and they spoke English amongst themselves. I confronted them about this utter nonsense and they explained that even though they are both studying the other's language, switching to any language besides English just "feels weird." I guess if I ever get a Finnish boyfriend I will have to make sure we speak Finnish right from the get-go, which is scary considering how shit my Finnish is, haha! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5923 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 5 of 17 02 February 2010 at 6:00am | IP Logged | ||
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My wife just spoke Spanish AT me until I understood. I thank her for that.
1 person has 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 6 of 17 02 February 2010 at 6:05am | IP Logged | ||
You, sir, are an extremely lucky man. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 17 02 February 2010 at 9:20am | IP Logged | ||
I'm sorry, but this made me laugh. I also agree with what you said Jordan, it could only help. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5529 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 8 of 17 02 February 2010 at 9:27am | IP Logged | ||
This is certainly my experience! My Polish girlfriend and I live in Norway, and we've always spoken English as when we met, my girlfriend spoke good English but not much Norwegian. Her Norwegian's quite fluent now, and so we tried switching to speaking Norwegian at home so she could practise more, but it feels really strange and we always end up switching back to English. My Polish is now good enough for us to have simple conversations (such as asking what she wants for dinner etc.) so we do speak a little Polish together, which is good. I do sometimes have to remind her to answer me in Polish rather than English though! I'll be interested to see what it's like when my Polish (eventually) is as good as her English... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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