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Advice on Spanish and French/German/Por.. | ||
Tags: Professionals | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| justonelanguage Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4249 days ago 98 posts - 128 votes  Speaks: English, Spanish | Message 25 of 91 09 September 2012 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm sorry for being an arrogant jerk. Arrogance and smugness are terrible qualities, and I actually hate overly confident people. (like people that say that they can master a language in very little time) Sometimes it is hard to be very modest, but I think it's good to be self-deprecating, to a point. It's just that I got annoyed with the last post about "you have inefficient study methods for learning vocab" and I'm stressed with studying for the test. (and doing well, of course!)
How do people balance their desire to learn languages with other commitments? Maybe that's the main question of this thread.People that have 5 children, work 2 jobs, etc and live in a country that has only one de facto language? If you live in Switzerland it's not as tough to be trilingual in English, Swiss-German, and French/Italian. In a country like...Canada, for example, unless you live in Quebec it's hard to find a LOT of French speakers. One can also do Skype conversations but it's just not the SAME as living abroad...
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6384 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 26 of 91 09 September 2012 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Have you tried Anki though? It's also fantastic for memorizing factual information. I certainly don't underestimate the difficulty of studying medicine itself... tbh I forgot that you said you're a medical student. I thought you'd graduated already.
It's just surprising to see someone with such high standards (for himself AND everyone else) who's not monolingual. Normally it's monolinguals who shout the loudest that you can only be considered good if you're as good as in your native language... not the people who already seem to be pretty damn good. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4917 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 27 of 91 09 September 2012 at 3:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
I know you mentioned that you'd lived abroad before, but if anything is a good antidote for arrogance, living in another country is it. As long as you keep an open mind and realize that you still have a ton to learn, it doesn't have to feel humiliating. Personally, I think that for a person in their 20s it's the best time to go through that type of experience. It certainly was for me. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| justonelanguage Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4249 days ago 98 posts - 128 votes Speaks: English, Spanish | Message 28 of 91 09 September 2012 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think I saw from one of your posts that you are a translator? Obviously, your language skills will be very strong considering it is your job!
It certainly was very humbling being abroad; before going to Spain (and other countries) I thought that I knew everything about Spanish. However, I didn't realize that natives kind of "dumb down" their speech with you so you understand them. To understand a full-speed conversation between native speakers and know when to jump in seems very hard; how long did it take you to do this? I'm still not at that level! My Chilean friend says that they (Chileans) are known for speaking very fast and for speaking a lot of slang. Actually, I haven't been abroad since college...sometimes I wish I lived in Switzerland so I could know English, French, German, and Italian. :( It really wasn't my intention to be an arrogant jerk; I'm actually usually very modest, believe it or not! Do you polyglots (or language aficionados) plan on teaching your children a lot of languages? I was going to teach my kid English, my wife would speak to them in Spanish, and then we would send them to a Mandarin immersion school from early on. Or maybe we'd have a Mandarin nanny.
Edited by justonelanguage on 09 September 2012 at 3:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6384 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 29 of 91 09 September 2012 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
Also, forgot to respond to this.
And please don't send your children to a Mandarin school unless they show enough interest in the language. It's damn hard, and while it's useful, it's quite possible that they won't appreciate it. Edited by Serpent on 09 September 2012 at 3:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| justonelanguage Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4249 days ago 98 posts - 128 votes Speaks: English, Spanish | Message 30 of 91 09 September 2012 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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No, I've never heard of Anki. I memorize one word a day...and that eventually builds up.
My standards for knowing a lot of languages aren't very high; I personally think that everybody should try to learn at least one foreign language to get to know more people's and cultures. I strongly support study abroad also since it makes you more empathetic to immigrants and helps you grow as a person. But in terms of proficiency in a language, I'm not too picky, as long as the person doesn't do things like "yo sabo", "juego dos instrumentos, or "soy 17 años". I'm picky about the term "fluency", however. Somebody I know that has only studied a romance language for two years in High School said that they were "fluent." (they hadn't been abroad, just classroom stuff) For "fluency" I really think its a level that requires from 3-10 years abroad--thus I don't consider myself really "fluent". For other people I probably am, but not for my own definition.
Edited by justonelanguage on 09 September 2012 at 3:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4917 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 31 of 91 09 September 2012 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I'm a translator. I suppose my Spanish is strong, but if I'm good at my job, it's because of terminology research, more than anything. And most of that has happened outside of Mexico and Spain - the two Spanish-speaking places I've lived. It's a much different thing than the everyday Spanish spoken by natives. As you discovered, when you're new to a country, natives will simplify their Spanish for you. That's natural, and just take it as part of the warmth and consideration that anybody would (or should) extend to a non-native speaker. The goal, of course, is to get that to not happen and to feel comfortable with natural native speech. I've come to realize that that only happens with living in the country for an extended period. To be clear about my own Spanish, I still learn something new daily, some 30 years after having first lived in Mexico. It's a never-ending process. The same can be said for my native language, too. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 09 September 2012 at 3:50pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| justonelanguage Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4249 days ago 98 posts - 128 votes Speaks: English, Spanish | Message 32 of 91 09 September 2012 at 4:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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No, I just tend to like Latin women because Spanish was my major. Plus, it keeps the Spanish fresh. :)
Obviously I wouldn't marry somebody just for their languages but it is something that would be ideal in a wife. I would send them to Chinese (Mandarin) school because I'm Chinese, so it would help them with their heritage. They would be sent there when they are extremely young so it would be pretty easy for them to pick up. I kind of base this on my own experience with English; I didn't speak it until kindergarten but picked it up very quickly. I'm willing to be corrected, but my understanding is that kids can learn multiple languages very easily and that people that insist on raising them monolingual to ensure academic success are probably misguided. The reason I'm so gung-ho about speaking Spanish very well is because my native tongue is a "village" form of Chinese that has only a few million speakers in China. I'm trying to "replace" my lost language. (It's a cousin of Cantonese) I forgot it, but its worldwide utility is very little. It could help my future kids talk to relatives in China, but considering I don't know any of my relatives in China, I don't think it's that big of a deal. To HHenry, I also learn new things daily in Spanish--recently I found out that I had been using "portero" incorrectly as "janitor." I knew, obviously, that it was "goaltender" but it does appear in the RAE as "janitor." However, a friend pointed out that the most used term was "conserje." Qué pena!
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