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When would you bother?

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Chung
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 Message 9 of 25
14 October 2013 at 9:16pm | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
How long a stay in a foreign country would you need to have, in order to bother to learn the local language?


This depends for me more on the languages involved than the length of the stay where they're used natively. If I were going to Bulgaria and China, my predilection for Slavonic languages would lead me to do more than just dabble in Bulgarian (e.g. probably get TY Bulgarian or similar and probably start working on it as soon as I feel that there's a greater than 50% chance that I'm going to Bulgaria in the next 4 months) even if I were planning to be in Bulgaria for just a couple of nights. On the other hand, it'd probably take a stay of at least a couple of weeks for me to bother learning Mandarin properly and beyond a handful of survival phrases and recognition of a some signs that don't come with English translations.
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PeteP
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United States
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Studies: Romanian

 
 Message 10 of 25
14 October 2013 at 11:32pm | IP Logged 
I would look at Book 2 (It means TWO languages, NOT the follow up to Book 1 :-))

http://www.goethe-
verlag.com/book2/index.htm


Book 2 has lots of languages with free download of audio and VERY cheap books (around
$10).

A neat feature is that you can pair L1 and L2 however you like. For example you could
learn Macedonian through Norwegian.

Book 2 would only give you a "touristy A1", but hey, that would be perfect for a few
days in country. And hey, it is free.
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 11 of 25
14 October 2013 at 11:33pm | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
How long a stay in a foreign country would you need to have, in order to bother to learn the local language?


As little as a weekend, but that depends on my reason for going to the country.

I've only been in countries where I speak the language: the UK, Ireland, Germany, Norway and Spain. Wait a second - Norway? No, I didn't speak Norwegian. I didn't have to. Imaginary scenario: If I were to stay there for more than a weekend (A month? A year?), I'd probably listen to (and shadow) audiobooks. Since I love the Bergen accent, I'd hunt down an audiobook narrated in that accent.

Solfrid Cristin wrote:
So would you do French for a weekend in Canada (French speaking part), Catalan for a few days in Barcelona, Finnish for a weekend in Helsinki and Nynorsk for a few days in Western Norway?


French - I know some already, and would brush it up.
Catalan - Spanish worked fine when I was there, I'll maybe learn some Catalan if I go there again.
Finnish - who knows!? Basic greetings, if nothing else.
Nynorsk - see above.
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Serpent
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 Message 12 of 25
15 October 2013 at 1:50am | IP Logged 
My logic is similar to tarvos'. If the language is related to something I already speak, I'd do LR to work on my passive understanding and shadowing to have a nice pronunciation even if I can't say much.

In fact, in spring 2012 this was my plan for Polish (I wanted to *seem* serious about the language), but I just never bothered to stop ;)

I would do this for Estonian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Dutch, Czech... also Turkish although the approach would have to be different.
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1e4e6
Octoglot
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United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian
Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan

 
 Message 13 of 25
15 October 2013 at 3:22am | IP Logged 
The last time I visited Norway was to Bergen in June 2010, and I spent only five days
for a holiday with my family, yet spent couple hours per day for approximately 2 months
on Norwegian. I am not sure if that was necessary, but I think the need to learn enough
to communicate on a basic level switched into interest after the first month. This also
during the last two months of a year of university.

I personally would try to learn A1 at least even for two days of a holiday, but that is
just my feeling. Quite a few switched to English for me in Bergen, probably because I
made serious mispronunciations, and I had a Newcastle jersey on for half of the trip.
The most complicated thing I had to say was at an off licence near the Fisketorget,
when they would have more stock of 500 mL bottled water without gas (because apparently
many stores close on Sunday, and I kept running out of water, and there seemed to be
quite a lot of fizzed bottled water), but I felt good that at least they did not switch
to English for me there.

Thus basically any place for holiday for any amount of time I would learn as much as I
could, time permitting. I do not like going anywhere and trying to make everyone speak
English, though it may be easier for me.

Edited by 1e4e6 on 15 October 2013 at 3:30am

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Lorren
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United States
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Studies: Russian

 
 Message 14 of 25
15 October 2013 at 4:29am | IP Logged 
If a country was the main focus of my trip, then I probably would spend time learning the language, even if I was only going for a day. My trip to Mexico for the day earlier this year prompted me to start learning Spanish. When I went to Germany several years ago, I spent a couple of months reviewing the language (I was there for a week).

If I'm going to go through several countries on a trip, I probably would only bother to learn the language for the main focus of my trip. When I went to Germany, I also ended up going to France and Luxembourg, but I didn't take any time to learn those languages, other than the dabbling in French I had done at one point in time.

How much time I spent learning the language would depend on how interested I am in knowing the language. I am still working on Spanish even though I went there in the spring, mainly because it's a useful language to know. If I was going to spend a couple of days in a country, but didn't at the time want to put in the effort to focus on becoming fluent in the language, then I'd probably learn enough to shop, eat at a restaurant, stay at a hotel, and some basic conversational stuff.
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Ari
Heptaglot
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 Message 15 of 25
15 October 2013 at 6:41am | IP Logged 
I'm the other way around. If I don't know the language or plan to learn it, I'm unlikely to want to go to the country. :)
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mike245
Triglot
Senior Member
Hong Kong
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese
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 Message 16 of 25
15 October 2013 at 10:36am | IP Logged 
I think it would have to be a stay of about a week (with at least some prospect of future trips) before it feels worth it to make a full-fledged effort to learn the language. The two main languages that I’m studying at the moment are because of country stays: (1) Cantonese because I’ve been living here for the past six months and plan to be here for a few years, and (2) Japanese because I will be making a two-week trip to Japan in November.

I usually like to learn a little bit of a language before going to a country, unless the language has little interest or personal use to me (e.g., learning Czech to visit Prague), it is simply too hard to learn within the limited time I have (e.g., Thai, Korean), or I feel I can get by with completely English or some other language I already know (e.g., Dutch, Catalan, continental Portuguese).

I travel a lot, so this results in a lot of language wanderlust, but language study really allows me to make the most of my trips. I have no real desire to reach high levels of fluency or literacy in a bunch of different languages, but I love the idea of going to different countries and being able converse with the locals in their respective native languages.


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