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How do polyglots do it?

  Tags: Polyglot
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
159 messages over 20 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 19 20 Next >>
jpmtl
Diglot
Groupie
Canada
Joined 3762 days ago

44 posts - 115 votes 
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 145 of 159
12 January 2014 at 3:05am | IP Logged 
Michel Thomas does not have a strong Polish accent when he speaks French.
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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6965 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 146 of 159
12 January 2014 at 3:24am | IP Logged 
jpmtl wrote:
Michel Thomas does not have a strong Polish accent when he speaks French.


He had a strong accent when he spoke Spanish.
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s_allard
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5190 days ago

2704 posts - 5425 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 147 of 159
12 January 2014 at 5:39am | IP Logged 
Michel Thomas has a (Polish?) accent in English and Spanish. The little I've heard of him in French
Michel Thomas

doesn't sound like a native French accent to me. I surmise it's Polish but I may be wrong.
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Spanky
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5716 days ago

1021 posts - 1714 votes 
Studies: French

 
 Message 148 of 159
12 January 2014 at 6:59pm | IP Logged 
1e4e6 wrote:
I have watched CBC for a while until I stopped watching most Anglophone television outside cricket, but I that think a good, neutral and clear accent is provided by both Peter Mansbridge and Amanda Lang from The National. I am sure that Canadians know these two newscasters.


I love Mansbridge's voice and accent. I have never been a fan of Amanda Lang, but as the clip shows, she truly can spit like a Canadian. Double points for finding perhaps the only time Lang ever talked hockey...
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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
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 Message 149 of 159
12 January 2014 at 9:00pm | IP Logged 
emk wrote:
...sometime early last year, I finally crossed some threshold where 80% of people were willing to humor me and speak French.


I have only visited Québec once, and that's long time ago, but I don't remember that it was particularly hard to be allowed to speak French - not in Montréal, and certainly not in the town Québec where French was de rigueur. Maybe the local Quebecqois changed to English with emk because they could hear that he is a native Anglophone, while they left me in peace with my slightly mouldy French because they didn't know from which planet I came?

by the way, I have still not seen a date for a possible polyglot meeting in Montréal, but I have recently spoken to one of my old acquaintances about driving around a few days in the French speaking part of Canada, so maybe I'll get there even without the lure of a conference.

Edited by Iversen on 12 January 2014 at 10:41pm

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emk
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5292 days ago

2615 posts - 8806 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
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 Message 150 of 159
12 January 2014 at 10:17pm | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
I have only visited Québec once, and that's long time ago, but I don't remember that it was particularly hard to be allowed to speak French - not in Montréal, and certainly not in the town Québec where French was de rigyueur. Maybe the local Quebecqois changed to English with emk because they could hear that he is a native Anglophone, while they left me in peace with my slightly mouldy French because they didn't know from which planet I came?

Well, when I visit Montreal, I spend a lot of time in a specific neighborhood. And according to official statistics, the population of that neighborhood is almost evenly split between anglophones and francophones. But in reality, a large minority of the population appears to be completely bilingual, and most of the rest can function quite comfortably in their second language. For example, at the local bakery, the employees will often switch languages every few sentences: They address one customer in French, then another in English, and then they call the order over to a coworker in French—shortly before addressing yet another coworker in English.

And I've watched the Bonjour Hi dance play out first hand quite a few times.

When many of these people speak English, they sound like anglophone Canadians. When they speak French, they have heavily dipthongized vowels and they speak at full native speed. In this environment, where people switch so readily between languages, it doesn't take much to tip the conversation into English: a brief look of incomprehension, hunting for a word, or even a third party who says, "Did you know emk is from the US?" The latter is personal pet peeve, especially when I've been speaking French for the last 30 minutes. But apparently US residency will override any amount of first-hand evidence that I speak French.

With the truly bilingual, I assume that the conversation will switch to English sooner or later. With francophones who speak B2/C1 English, I do my best to carry on happily in French unless I'm obviously making a pest of myself by doing so. And with people whose English is only B1, I'll work hard to keep the conversation in French for my own sanity.

Iversen wrote:
by the way, I have still not seen a date for a possible polyglot meeting in Montréal, but I have recently spoken to one of my old acquaintances about driving around a few days in the French speaking part of Canada, so maybe I'll get there even without the lure of a conference.

If there's going to be a polyglot meeting in Montreal, especially one which is open to a poor diglot like myself, I would love to hear about it before it sells out completely. :-)

Anyway, to get back on subject, I suspect that most polyglots have several things going for them: (1) they already know how to learn a language, (2) they can pick up extra languages within a family at a substantial discount (Spanish is so much easier for me than Egyptian, and I don't even study it!), and (3) they spend a fair amount of their time learning languages.

Edited by emk on 12 January 2014 at 10:31pm

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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
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 Message 151 of 159
12 January 2014 at 11:04pm | IP Logged 
I may actually be making a pest of myself by insisting on speaking languages before I'm truly advanced, like during my recent stay in the Netherlands. But I had paid a lot of money to get there and I have few other opportunities to speak most of my languages. So they simply had to deal with it.

In those few cases where I didn't stick to Dutch it was usually because I knew that I had forgotten a certain central word - like when I stood in Delft and wanted to order breakfast on January 1 (where you can't expect anything to function in the Netherlands). The attempt to remember the word spoilt my attempts to formulate nice Dutch sentences, and the receptionist promptly switched to English. My solution was to ask (in English) what the word for "breakfast" was (it is "ontbijt"), and then I continued the conversation in Dutch. We just had to get past the hurdle. Another case: I didn't remember the correct word for "chip card for public transport in the Netherlands" so I simply asked for a "transport card" in English at the railway station at the airport Schiphol - actually the thing is called an "OV-chip card". And finally I had a conversation in German with a lady in a museum in Rhenen. That's all. I asked for brochures in Dutch, I bought my Museum card in Dutch, I checked in and out at the hotels in Dutch and I had a number of short conversations in Dutch in spite of the fact that my spoken Dutch definitely wasn't above B1 (and probably still isn't, although it is better now than before the trip).

Since one extremely stubborn person at the ticket sale of the Montpellier Aquarium continued to speak to me in English in June 2012 even though I with equal stubbornness spoke in French I haven't had a case where native speakers of my travel destinations point blank refused to speak their own language, and I sometimes wonder why others report problems. I'm perfectly sure my accent is horrible in most languages, but the deciding factor seems to be that I know that I have adopted the local language, and that I only did so at the point where I could think reasonably fluently in that language. If I had tried to soon (apart from very simple touristic communications) then I might have felt insecure, and then the locals would have sensed this condition and tried to steer me away from their language.

Edited by Iversen on 12 January 2014 at 11:13pm

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s_allard
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5190 days ago

2704 posts - 5425 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 152 of 159
13 January 2014 at 3:18am | IP Logged 
I don't want to generalize but I think that what occurs in Montreal is not that different from what occurs in places
where many natives, especially those who come into contact with foreigners, speak good English. The first thing I
think we should keep in mind is that most, if not all, speakers are more at ease in their first language and
generally prefer to speak it. Yes, there are people who are perfectly bilingual, or seem so, but that is not the
majority in Montreal.

When addressed in French that is clearly understandable, or even so-so French, most French-speakers will reply
in French. For example, there is no reason all why the employees of the public transit system will prefer to speak
to you in English. What often does occur is that the native French speaker soon perceives a difficulty in the
interaction and thinks that the solution is to switch to English on the assumption that the other partly is more
comfortable in English. This happens often with the police.

The challenge for the foreigner is to be convincing enough - that doesn't mean perfect - for the other party to
continue in French. A classic situation that I've seen many times is something that happens in stores, especially
when the time comes to pay. The interaction has been going along in French but when the cashier announces
the sum and detects a hesitation on the part of the buyer who might not be comfortable with numbers in French
or even with the look of the money, that cashier will switch to English.

The ultimate solution to this general problem is a) to have a good grasp of the language, especially the
conversation openings and b) establish the language of interaction from the beginning by confidently and
fluently engaging the person. If you fall apart after a few minutes, you only have yourself to blame.

I should add that there are some people who have nothing better to do and want to practice their English or who
want to establish a rapport of authority or power by showing off their better command of English than your
command of French or whatever language in question. I'm afraid that in these situations the only solution is to
demonstrate your equal or superior skills in their language.

Edit: Changed "... prefer to speak to you in French" to "... prefer to speak to you in English"

Edited by s_allard on 13 January 2014 at 6:34pm



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