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ilylavi Diglot Newbie France stitch-loves-tekila. Joined 5878 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German, Modern Hebrew
| Message 81 of 113 21 October 2008 at 7:19am | IP Logged |
I'm French, and my friends who can speak several languages are come from abroad. One of them can speak 4 languages, and she is only 17. She's Romanian, she had learn English and Spanish in her country, and she speaks French since she lives there. I've also English or Turkish friends who lives in France (they're diglot).
I think that be a teenager isn't an handicap to learn languages, but it's more difficult 'cause you can't travel where you want when you want.
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| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6453 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin
| Message 82 of 113 24 October 2008 at 6:20pm | IP Logged |
^Good point. Most teenagers can't go abroad to practise.
By the time I turned 18 I was perfectly bilingual in Finnish and English, and I spoke fairly good German and Swedish, too. The year before I had started to study Italian (mostly by myself) which was to become my third best language and in which I'm very fluent. Later on I learnt Spanish as well.
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| Cisa Super Polyglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6418 days ago 312 posts - 309 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Hungarian*, Slovak, FrenchC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin, SpanishB2, RussianB2, GermanB2, Korean, Czech, Latin Studies: Italian, Cantonese, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Hindi, Mongolian, Tibetan, Kazakh, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew
| Message 83 of 113 30 October 2008 at 12:38pm | IP Logged |
I totally agree!
Not taking the financial side of it, although I´m already 19, my parents still don´t let me go abroad alone. Maybe this summer to China, which will be a huge step for both us from this point-of-view. I´ve also been this year there, but not alone, they were still dead worried about me!
Edited by Cisa on 30 October 2008 at 12:39pm
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| Olympia Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5980 days ago 195 posts - 244 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Old English, French
| Message 84 of 113 26 December 2008 at 12:37pm | IP Logged |
Well, I'm not sure if this has been posted here before, but the website/blog
Multitongue Kids documents the life of a mother raising
her two children with several languages. She is Italian and speaks only Italian with her children; her husband is
Belgian and speaks only Dutch with the children. They live in France and their children attend French school and
have a French-speaking nanny. They are also exposed to English because the parents speak English with each
other because that was their only common language at the time they met. Their two young sons speak French,
Italian, and Dutch fluently, and have limited knowledge of English. It's really quite interesting.
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| Frost Newbie United States Joined 5802 days ago 27 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Norwegian, Faroese, Greek
| Message 85 of 113 03 March 2009 at 5:51am | IP Logged |
Baaaaaaaah, reading through this thread makes me feel like an idiot. Though my family came from Italy, Italian was never spoken around me (despite how proud my family is of their Italian background). English was the only language I was ever around. Additionally, I am an unfortunate victim of the United States educational system where a foreign language I had no interest in (Spanish) was thrust upon me! And I don't even live anywhere near the Mexican border!
Thankfully, I recently was exposed to the joys of language-learning as I dabbled in some Norwegian and Greek and worked on some Faroese with a friend I made who comes from Tórshavn. But still, the urge of becoming fluent in another language is very pressing and I'm still waiting to make the plunge into either Russian or Arabic.
Edited by Frost on 03 March 2009 at 5:52am
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| RedRabbit Newbie United States Joined 5834 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 86 of 113 04 March 2009 at 6:05am | IP Logged |
Frost wrote:
Baaaaaaaah, reading through this thread makes me feel like an idiot. Though my family came from Italy, Italian was never spoken around me (despite how proud my family is of their Italian background). English was the only language I was ever around. Additionally, I am an unfortunate victim of the United States educational system where a foreign language I had no interest in (Spanish) was thrust upon me! And I don't even live anywhere near the Mexican border!
Thankfully, I recently was exposed to the joys of language-learning as I dabbled in some Norwegian and Greek and worked on some Faroese with a friend I made who comes from Tórshavn. But still, the urge of becoming fluent in another language is very pressing and I'm still waiting to make the plunge into either Russian or Arabic. |
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My grandmother is German, yet I only know two German words, and she doesn't know how to speak it anymore. I know people who were born in other countries but moved to the US as children and just forgot their native tongue because everyone else is monolingual in English. It seems like the US has a peculiar ability for stifling multilinguality. There were quite a bit of people who were bilingual between Spanish and English where I used to live, but most of them all lived in the same neighborhood, and at school the native Spanish-speakers kept to themselves, so as a white person I unfortunately never got many opportunities to speak Spanish to anyone.
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| japangirlcmw Tetraglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5774 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: German, Norwegian, English*, Japanese
| Message 87 of 113 13 March 2009 at 4:47am | IP Logged |
I'm 18, and I speak English, German, Japanese, and marginal Norwegian (you don't use it, you lose it). It's really a motivation thing, if you didn't grow up in a bilingual household. I didn't, I just learn languages--It's my passion.
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| apatch3 Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6184 days ago 80 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Pashto, English* Studies: Japanese, FrenchA2
| Message 88 of 113 13 March 2009 at 11:17am | IP Logged |
yep ... i don't know how i would have begun learning japanese if i hadn't grown up in a bilingual household, its really easy if you're bilingual because the wiring is already there you just have to add a few more doohickeys here and there XD.
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