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What is your linguistic age? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5146 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 9 of 23 26 October 2011 at 10:40am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, Norwegian is perhaps a bit peculiar in that just from the way people use gender, conjugate their verbs and from the vocabulary they choose, you can tell not only where they are from and their level of education, but you can guess how old they are and what political orientation they have. And I can relate to the part about the difficulty of being fluent in a language, which is an ever changing thing. I was fluent in French when I was 14, and although I cannot claim fluency anymore, I still get my share of compliments for my French. The look on the face of a Frenchman who hears out of the mouth of a midde aged foreign woman, a word that was considered cool among teen agers in 1976 is however priceless. :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Remster Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4617 days ago 120 posts - 134 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: German, French | Message 10 of 23 26 October 2011 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm 19 years old, but some people say I talk like a 60 year old who is attending a royal meeting.
I have a lot of trouble with ''formal and informal''. For me the terms are rather vague. Except for my family, I guess I always say ''U'' etc... (U is the formal second person in Dutch.) I also never use slang words and I always try to type and speak (grammatically) correct. I guess I'm a rare example in my age range. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aloysius Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6052 days ago 226 posts - 291 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: French, Greek, Italian, Russian | Message 11 of 23 26 October 2011 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I tend to get a lot of warnings from Microsoft Word against my using too formal language. Might be a sign of something, I suppose ...
/aloysius 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6432 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 12 of 23 06 November 2011 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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People sometimes think it's a bit odd when I use expressions that were more typical in the 1930's or so. I think it might partly be do to the long generations in my family. My grandmother didn't marry until in her 30's (very unusual back then), and had my mother when she was 36. My mother had me when she was 42. So the main influences in my life have been much older than me. That is, the generation-gap has been wider than usual. (And I'm no spring chicken myself, so if I ever have children, they will be in the same situation.)
I also have Asperger syndrome, so part of it may be due to that. I have always had a slight accent and had a slightly unusual way of expressing myself, and that is typical. I hardly spoke at all to anyone outside my family when I was a child. (I used to bark at other children and make other animal sounds though. So maybe making all those strange sounds can be to my advantage when learning languages.) Others have mentioned that Nordic languages have lost the formal you in the past few decades. This is true also in Norway, but I've been told that the formal "De" was much more common in the cities and that in the countryside people have always used the familiar "du". I don't know if it is true or not though. In any case, I've never in 12 years here, heard anyone, even people in there 80's and 90's, say "De". But if that is because old people are hipper than we think, or if it's because I've mostly lived in rural areas, I don't know. In English, of course, we went the opposite way. We lost the familiar "thou," and kept the formal/plural form "you". But that was a couple hundred years ago, so nobody remembers now. "Thou" or something similar still exists in some dialects though, usually instead of "you." 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Leipzig Hexaglot Newbie Wales Joined 4615 days ago 22 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC2, Lowland Scots, SpanishC2, Portuguese, Catalan Studies: Welsh, Tok Pisin, German, Italian | Message 13 of 23 06 November 2011 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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That's a fantastic and thought-provoking question. Now that I think about it, I have very frequently been told - with regards to how I communicate in all my languages - that I speak and write in a formal, somewhat old-fashioned manner. Friends have joked that I am like a living Georgian (of the Georgian era, rather than of the Georgian nation!)
I recall how, at the age of 19-20, I met up in a busy café in Spain with a prospective landlord who had hitherto only known me by voice; it took a minute or two to persuade him that I was indeed myself despite his having imagined that I was in my forties or fifties! Despite being rather formal in style, I do love slang, but I am rather more drawn to the colloquial language of bygone eras than that of the current day, for whatever reason. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5659 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 23 06 November 2011 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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When speaking I am a very informal person, I like young people's jargon and I think I have quite a young voice on the telephone (no smoking! no alcohol!), so people might wonder why this doesn't change while I grow older. But it's my general attitude, so this is independent from my birthyear.
Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 06 November 2011 at 10:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6515 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 15 of 23 07 November 2011 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been told that I speak like a book (or as a waterfall, because when I do speak I speak fast). And even though it is rarely specified, that book would not necessarily be from the present milennium. But given that I spend more time with written texts than with idle smalltalk that can't be a surprise, and I have not planned to change into a creature of these constantly babbling times soon.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5659 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 23 07 November 2011 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | ||
If Iversen speaks too fast, let him speak Esperanto, this will slow down his speech! :) Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 07 November 2011 at 3:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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