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Regret you learned such language??? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Hashimi Senior Member Oman Joined 6052 days ago 362 posts - 529 votes  Speaks: Arabic (Written)* Studies: English, Japanese | Message 33 of 39 11 June 2009 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
Who said that?! A native well educated Japanese has less than 20,000 word. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lecorbeau Diglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 5813 days ago 113 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Turkish | Message 34 of 39 11 June 2009 at 6:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hate to say it, but in no way does this guarantee native bilingualism. Canada, Switzerland, and Belgium are multilingual countries where the language policies, as far as I'm concerned, are failing miserably. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| keith1569 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5447 days ago 61 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Sign Language, Spanish | Message 35 of 39 11 June 2009 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So far no regrests..Currently I am torn for the next language that I am gonna learn. Granted I have a few years to figure it out, but still conflicted
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6232 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 36 of 39 11 June 2009 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
How do you think Swiss language policies are failing? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lecorbeau Diglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 5813 days ago 113 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Turkish | Message 37 of 39 12 June 2009 at 7:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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The languages in which their government operates may be a different story, but the Swiss people (French, German, and Italian-speaking...you can forget Romansch), in my experience at least, generally master English and have a tenuous grasp of another Swiss language.
I can't tell you how many Swiss I've met (inside as well as outside Switzerland) who have superior English skills but very iffy French or German. In that spirit, I have yet to meet a non-Ticino Swiss that speaks good Italian. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6232 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 38 of 39 12 June 2009 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
It definitely varies. There are a fair number of Italian speakers in Grigione, for one. On the purely anecdotal side, I'd point to the administrator of this website as a non-Ticinese Swiss who speaks good Italian. I also find that, while there are quite a few monolingual Ticinese, many have quite high levels of French and/or German - often higher than their level of English. This is especially true of educated ones who are at least middle aged - most of them went to other regions in Switzerland for university. Native bilinguals also help - at least in Ticino, French/Italian and German/Italian native bilinguals seem to be pretty common. They usually have one parent who natively speaks one language, and one who natively speaks the other. The language policies, however, are somewhat per-canton. There was a bit of an uproar when some decided to teach English as a first foreign language before other Swiss languages. In light of this, I have trouble seeing how the -policies- are doing anything other than what they're designed to - even if that design is controversial. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5956 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 39 of 39 14 June 2009 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm sort of in LeCorbeau's boat...
I know a good deal of Italian and a bit of German. I started with Italian because I wanted my first language to be relatively easy, and I know French. I didn't learn Spanish because Spanish seemed like such a common extra language to have. I was motivated in part by vanity when I started, and I thought that learning Italian was a sexier proposition. I don't regret learning it, but if I had to do it over, I'd opt for Spanish instead. It was after moving to the US that I really started kicking myself for my decision to go with Italian. As far as German goes, it's hard to say... I don't know enough to really judge, but I know too much to give it up for the sake of another language. I actually wanted to learn Russian, but the Russian course that my school was offering conflicted with my teaching duties, so German it was. It's more immediately useful to me than Italian (I'm in political theory / philosophy), and while it's purportedly quite a bit more difficult, I was surprised at how beautiful I found the language to be. Again, it's too soon to tell, but it also seemed slightly easier for me to grasp to logic of the language than it was for Italian. So Italian may have been a bit of a mistake, but it's counterbalanced by German, which is a slightly pleasant surprise. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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