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Good at languages, bad at dialects? | ||
Tags: Code-switching | Dialect | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5114 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 10 05 November 2010 at 1:31pm | IP Logged |
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Some people can change between local dialects of their own language without effort. Usually this is because they learned both (one in the family - one in the street) but on some occasions they can swich between several dialects.
With my interest in languages I feel I should be able to do that too, but I could not speak another Norwegian dialect to save my life. I speak a neutral, standard Eastern Norwegian (standard østnorsk) and I cannot even speak the dialect from the town where I grew up. (The fact that I was punished at home if I used it might explain why). I occasionally try to use another dialect to tell a joke, but not even someone heavily sedated would think I was local. I do however have no problems switching between my regular Andalusian, Spanish dialect, and a more normalized Madrid-dialect - allthough most natives at some point pick up on my Andalusian accent even when I use the standard dialect. What is the situation whith the rest of you? Are you good at speaking other dialects, or are you just as incompetenet as I am? In short: Does an interest for languages in general make you more prepared for speaking different dialects as well? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6740 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 2 of 10 05 November 2010 at 6:29pm | IP Logged |
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In Italy in some regions the coexistence of standard Italian and local dialect
is widespread . In Veneto usually 90% of the population speak allways in veneto dialect . Also in other parts of Italy (Sicily,Rome,Naples) this situation happens, more in the countryside than in the big cities . The linguistic unification of italy , happened with the coming of the Tv in the sixties , and with the big immigration inside the country. And at the time dialects became unpopular and almost forbidden. Now there is a revival of dialects all over the country.There are groups born to protection and keep alive the local languages everywhere and schools that teach dialects allways called "languages" I personally can speak piedmontese and sicilian , and I can understand veneto and neapolitan . But it is because I like languages and dialects .I am curious about them. Here there are allways two ways to speak a dialect : "broad" and "narrow" the broad is easier , the narrow is almost a secret language. Ther is a famous writer, Andrea Camilleri of best sellers that writes in a mix of Italian and sicilian and is easily understood by almost every Italian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6936 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 3 of 10 05 November 2010 at 6:35pm | IP Logged |
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My interest in languages has made me fascinated by the dialectal or non-standard (not necessarily colloquial) elements that I encounter. However speaking/using these types of elements is usually very "hit-and-miss" with me. If I do speak in a "dialect" (per the observations of friends who are native-speakers of my target languages) it's inadvertent on my part and attributable to mixing elements of foreign languages.
It's happened to me a few times with Czech, Polish and Slovak. We here all know that these languages are related to each other. There are indeed areas where at least two if not all three "intersect" to the point where it wouldn't be far off the mark to say that people are using a mix of varying proportions drawn from the standard languages. On a couple of occasions, Poles told me that I was speaking Polish like a shepherd or mountaineer living on the border of Poland and Slovakia. The dialect of the people living in this part of Europe can be approximated to a Polish-Slovak hybrid with a certain amount of words not attested in other Slavonic languages. For me the reason was certainly the more prosaic one where I was speaking Polish with a noticeable (but not overpowering) Slovak influence in lexicon, syntax and accent caused by my lack of mastery in both languages. Another time I was talking about cheese with a Polish friend and I kept referring to it as "syr" (which is the Slovak form) rather than "ser". My friend understood me perfectly but she noted that my using "syr" instead of "ser" was making me sound as if I had learned Polish in some long-forgotten village. Another example involved Czech and Slovak. I was hanging out with Czech friends and as the night progressed my Slovak started to take on more Czech elements, and even some of my responses were coming out in Czech rather than Slovak. Other Czechs whom I hadn't met yet asked me later if I had been raised near the border of Czech Republic and Slovakia because my mixed language gave the impression that I was fluent in the transitional Moravian-Slovak dialect rather than in the standard languages that foreigners learn. To reiterate: It's difficult for me to speak deliberately in a dialect in spite of interest in foreign languages. Yet I'm certainly prone to lapsing inadvertently into dialectal communication in less-controlled environments on the conditions that I have some background in languages that are rather closely related BUT don't have full mastery in any of these languages. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5704 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 4 of 10 05 November 2010 at 7:02pm | IP Logged |
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I can't really change between different English dialects/accents and I'm not sure I would want to try, it's too difficult for me. There are too many English accents and I really dislike some other American accents. I speak with a slight Texas drawl, although I live in Washington state now.
I wish I could claim that having an interest in languages made me more prepared for speaking or even just recognizing different dialects, but that hasn't happened yet. I sometimes wonder, Which dialect should I learn? For Spanish, I aim for speaking what I think is a Mexican dialect/accent. I think that's what I hear most often and the easiest (by a slight margin) for me to understand. For the other languages, I'm not sure which dialect(s) to learn. For example, with Swedish I go back and forth between attempting to speak Skånska dialect and what I think Stockholmska sounds like. Unfortunately I struggle with both dialects, so when I eventually visit Sweden I think my Swedish pronunciation could end up being a strange mishmash of both. My favorite Finnish dialect is Savo, but I think most of the Finnish I hear on the Internet is probably a Helsinki dialect, so that's likely to be the one I'll speak. I don't know which Afrikaans dialect to learn, so I try to imitate what I have heard and hope it will be intelligible. Edited by mick33 on 05 November 2010 at 7:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6483 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 5 of 10 07 November 2010 at 10:26pm | IP Logged |
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I'm very interested in dialects, but I usually keep them as passive unless I can see that I can find enough materials to learn them as independent entities (Platt, Scots). I have just for fun written texts in at least two Jutish dialects (i.e. dialects of Danish), and in a couple of cases I have successfully made short imitations. For instance I once spoke to a foreigner who had been an au pair with a family from Copenhagen. Then I said the next couple of sentences in broad Low-Copenhagenish, and she exclaimed "That's exactly how they speak". Nevertheless I feel it to be in some sense inappropriate to speak a language or a dialect if I haven't studied it closely and know both its pronunciation and its special vocabulary. In those cases where there are several main dialects (English, Spanish, Portuguese) I have accepted that I can't limit myself to one of them, but then the alternative is to place myself somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, speaking a reasonably consistent mix of the dialects I encountered.
I am not a perfectionist, but I like to know what it is I'm speaking. Edited by Iversen on 07 November 2010 at 10:30pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| polyglHot Pentaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 4846 days ago 173 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 10 15 February 2011 at 5:52pm | IP Logged |
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I speak a very intricate "farmer" dialect of our vast kingdom of Norway, so whenever I
speak to Osloites, they just look at me with a blank stare. Specially since many of them are now Polish, Sweedish or Arabic. However I can fake an Oslo dialect, and many more from Norway. I don't know about English or other languages. I can do the British accent but I'm more comfortable in the American one. Yes, I love those dialects! Or accents rather. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Segata Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 4951 days ago 64 posts - 125 votes Speaks: German*, Japanese, English Studies: Korean, Esperanto | Message 7 of 10 15 February 2011 at 6:42pm | IP Logged |
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I cannot speak any German dialect (unfortunately) and if I tried, nobody would take me serious ;)
However I can speak a Kansai-ish Japanese pretty well. People who are from Kansai will probably realize that it sounds a little "off", but I fooled several people in Tokyo ;) ("Oh by the way, didn't you just speak Kansai dialect?") This might sound strange, but I learned this dialect by watching television. A significant portion of my listening practice was Japanese comedy, which is often performed by people from the Kansai area. The fun thing is, even though I usually speak standard Japanese, I tend to automatically speak Kansai dialect whenever I'm angry or emotional. Well.. I can't speak any English dialect though, so I guess it really comes down to how much time you've spent learning or acquiring a specific dialect. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| GibberMeister Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Scotland Joined 5588 days ago 61 posts - 67 votes Speaks: Spanish, Catalan, Lowland Scots*, English*, Portuguese | Message 8 of 10 16 February 2011 at 12:35pm | IP Logged |
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As far as native languages go I can switch from Scots to Standard Scottish English no problem. I can also do fairly good Irish and Ulster Scots dialects, Geordie (NE England) and even London English as well as a more neutral southern English accent.
I think I'm just a good imitator really. In Spanish the only native accent I can really do is the Murcian one, and even then I sometimes give myself away after a few minutes. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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