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When would you bother?

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25 messages over 4 pages: 1 24  Next >>
montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4588 days ago

2371 posts - 3676 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

 
 Message 17 of 25
15 October 2013 at 11:07am | IP Logged 
A bit like 1e4e6's experience with Norwegian, only more so:


Because our daughter became a confirmed "a-ha" fan back in their heyday, and we also
learned to like them a lot, we booked for their "last ever" concert in Oslo, at least a
year in advance of the actual concert. In fact the tickets for that sold out within an
hour of opening, I believe, and we had to "make do" with their second-last concert!
(However, we did make their final London concert, which was fantastic).

Anyway, with a year to prepare, I bought TYS Norwegian, and promised myself that I'd
try to do some each day. I'd like to tell you that I kept that promise, but I didn't.
:-}

Nevertheless, it wasn't totally wasted, as I found I could at least understand a
reasonable amount of the written language on signs and in newspapers. I couldn't
understand any of the spoken language at all, and that may reflect the fact that I
didn't concentrate on the audio enough, although I don't think the audio on that course
(or the TYS Danish which I got later) was all that useful. I did also try listening to
Norwegian radio via the internet. We also spent some days each in Denmark and Sweden,
en route to Oslo (we flew to Copenhagen, and travelled on by train to Sweden and later
Norway), and of course I found that a knowledge of written Norwegian was at least some
use in understanding signs, etc, in Denmark, and to some extent Sweden. And of course,
when I came to study Danish (somewhat more seriously) later on, knowledge of written
Norwegian again came in useful.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 3842 days ago

818 posts - 1189 votes 
Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 18 of 25
15 October 2013 at 5:34pm | IP Logged 
It would take a stay of more than 2 years for me to bother learning the language.


For those with short stay requirements - do you enjoy the process of learning a new
language?

For me, learning a language involves a significant investment of time and effort. A
reward of short duration use of the language just isnt worth it.
1 person has voted this message useful



vonPeterhof
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4532 days ago

715 posts - 1527 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German
Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish

 
 Message 19 of 25
15 October 2013 at 6:29pm | IP Logged 
About two years ago I decided that whenever I were to travel somewhere I would try to learn as much of the local language beforehand as I possibly can without compromising the studies of my current target languages too much. Unfortunately, in that time I've only had one such opportunity and the language happened to be Abkhaz. Due to its staggering dissimilarity to all the other languages I've ever attempted, an extreme shortage of decent resources and my inability to cut down on my Japanese studies, after about two months of studies I barely had the confidence to even utter basic greetings in Abkhaz. I would expect things to go a bit more smoothly with Serbo-Croatian, but those travel plans for this years summer fell through, so I've yet to implement this "policy" with any degree of success.

OT: Solfrid Cristin, sorry for not getting back to you earlier. I replied to your PM last night, but it seems like your inbox is full. Could you please delete some messages so I can try again?
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Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5094 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 20 of 25
15 October 2013 at 8:00pm | IP Logged 
vonPeterhof wrote:


OT: Solfrid Cristin, sorry for not getting back to you earlier. I replied to your PM last night, but it seems like
your inbox is full. Could you please delete some messages so I can try again?


I have spent the evening reading through and deleting 80 messages, so now it should work :-)
1 person has voted this message useful



languagenerd09
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
youtube.com/user/Lan
Joined 4860 days ago

174 posts - 267 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai

 
 Message 21 of 25
15 October 2013 at 11:08pm | 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?

Oh, and in 15 minutes I am off to Estonia, but I am hoping that I will get by with Russian and English, so I have no Estonian books in my
handbag :-)


Personally, even if i'm going to be in a country for less than an hour, I will make it mandatory to at least learn how to say hello, thank you,
please, goodbye and a standard phrase such as " one coffee/tea/water, please" if at an airport for example.

Taking as an example, my five months earlier this year in Thailand, I flew to Bangkok via Dubai and whilst at Dubai I had a three hour change-
over time, so I made it out of a mark of politeness for example at a café (mind, my friend told me what to say and what I should expect to
hear, she's an Arabic native speaker herself)

Me: "as-salamu alaykum, finjan qahwa, min fadlikh "
Café Server: "ay shay'akhar?"
Me: "laa, shukran"
Café Server: "afwan"
Me: "ma'saalama"
Café Server: "ma'saalama"

Then of course, the time I was in Thailand, I was immersed in the language as I was teaching at a Thai high school, living with a Thai family -
so I could hear the language consistently - alongside hearing their dialect (Isan).

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?


Yes, an example being when I went to Norway to visit my friend for a weekend, I bought the course "Teach Yourself Complete Norwegian" and I
made sure that I tried to use as much of the words I'd learnt as possible and I still try and watch/listen to Norwegian TV and read the news
articles to see if there are words I can find that I know the meaning of then try and understand things in context.
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montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4588 days ago

2371 posts - 3676 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

 
 Message 22 of 25
15 October 2013 at 11:27pm | IP Logged 
Gemuse wrote:
It would take a stay of more than 2 years for me to bother learning the
language.


For those with short stay requirements - do you enjoy the process of learning a new
language?

For me, learning a language involves a significant investment of time and effort. A
reward of short duration use of the language just isnt worth it.



Well, in my case, I always hoped (and still hope) to go back to the various
Scandinavian countries quite a few times, so it was a kind of investment in the future.
As it happens, I haven't been back yet, but I still certainly hope to. Even if I never
go back, I'll still consider it worth it, as I'm very interested in the culture.



I don't know whether I would do this with all potential destinations though.
I find myself veering towards the idea of learning language families. I'll hopefully
get to a decent level in Danish, then see if I can revisit Norwegian, and then maybe
Icelandic. I'll keep maintaining and hopefully improving German, and hopefully work on
Old English properly.

Romance: I have a good grounding in Spanish and French, and did Latin at school, though
not very well, so I wonder if I should try to work on that. Then maybe work on Italian
a little more seriously.

Celtic: I'll continue with Welsh, and then see how the SSi Cornish course is coming
along (not very far at the moment). Then I suspect it would be Irish, since I have some
direct Irish heritage, and it's (just about) a more living language than Scottish
Gaelic.

I think those three families will keep me busy enough for the foreseeable future, and I
don't really see myself going for the non-European languages in any case, somehow.


1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6463 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 23 of 25
16 October 2013 at 1:50pm | IP Logged 
Like Languagenerd09 (and others) I like to know a few basic words and expressions when I visit a place, and I also like to have some general background knowledge about the local language - for instance from reading a language guide like those of Kauderwelsch or Assimil - but I don't consider this as real language learning. It is more at the level of remembering my room number, some relevant bus numbers and opening hours of the zoos and museums. Or the names of important animals like lions, elefants, gazelles and monkeys When I come home I mostly forget those words and expresions again, but sometimes certain terms stick in my memory (like "tembo" for "elephant" in Swahili, because I have stayed in a camp with "tembo" in its name. But I wouldn't try to learn a whole language just for a trip that lasts a week or two.

On the other hand, if I chose to live permanently or at least for a year or so somewhere outside Denmark I would definitely set out to learn the local language - not only for my own sake, but also as a sign of respect for the population there.
1 person has voted this message useful



languagenerd09
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
youtube.com/user/Lan
Joined 4860 days ago

174 posts - 267 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai

 
 Message 24 of 25
16 October 2013 at 2:00pm | IP Logged 
In regards to my living in Thailand this year I also made it mandatory to welcome the
customs and culture of Thai lifestyle, so I would often be helping elders, going to the
market, helping cleaning, help prepare food with students and teachers then of course I
went to the temple a few times.

Most importantly was using wai, and the correct form of it! I would make sure that I
gave the correct 'level' of wai given the circumstance of who the person was, so a
student was wai at the chest, teachers (as they were all older than me) was wai at the
tip of my nose and slight bow, the headteacher (or school director as they refer to in
Thailand) was mid-nose placed wai with bow and then a monk was wai on forehead and
complete full bow.

Also ensuring that I said " sawatdikhrap" to every teacher every morning - it's a
custom in Thailand to greet fellow co-teachers.


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