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Tri lingual parties a regular occurrence?

  Tags: Multilingual
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
43 messages over 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6  Next >>
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 1 of 43
18 January 2014 at 5:15pm | IP Logged 
I am going to a small party tonight, where I have no idea how much we will speak of Spanish, Norwegian and
English. The participants are as follows:

A Peruvian with a native Spanish, a B1 in English, an A2 in Norwegian and an A2 in Italian
A South African with a native Afrikaans, a C2 in English and Dutch and a B2-C1 in Norwegian- no Spanish.
A Chiliean with a native Spanish, a B2 in Norwegian and probably very little English
A Singaporian (if that is what it is called) with a native Tamil and English, a C1-C2 in Norwegian, and a B2 in
Mandarin - no Spanish
A lady from Portugal with native Portuguese, a B2-C1 in Norwegian, unknown English and a B2 in Portuñol
delivered at a 200 miles an hour speed
And yours truly with a native Norwegian, a C2 in English and Spanish, a C1 in French, a B1 in German and
Italian and an A2 in Russian. And a PhD in international body language :-)

Most Norwegian parties I go to I know which language will be spoken - today I have no idea. This is the party
version of the wolf, the sheep and the cabbage.

Do you frequently have the same challenge or are we in this group of friends just a little weird?

Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 18 January 2014 at 5:15pm

6 persons have voted this message useful



Zimena
Tetraglot
Groupie
Norway
Joined 4352 days ago

75 posts - 146 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish
Studies: Czech, Mandarin

 
 Message 2 of 43
18 January 2014 at 5:48pm | IP Logged 
I'm not sure I'd say I've experienced the same thing "frequently"... but then again, I'm not at all a party-person to begin with :D

Anyway, the last time I went to a proper party with a group of people, we ended up speaking a mixture of Norwegian, Spanish, German and English, more or less in that order, and with the first two as the "main" languages.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Sizen
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4099 days ago

165 posts - 347 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German

 
 Message 3 of 43
18 January 2014 at 6:02pm | IP Logged 
Lately, I've had to use and be exposed to many languages every few weeks. It's just
where I am right now, but I'm in contact with a lot of foreign students, and whenever
we go out, I speak English with most of them, but also French because there's 7 or so
French students and a little bit of my Spanish when I can corner a helpless
hispanophone. I also listen in on the conversations of the Brazilian students and try
to comment in English when I understand what they're talking about, and other than
that, there's usually people speaking German, Mandarin and the occasional other
language (I got to break out my Japanese a few times!).

English is pretty much the default language though, since everybody except a couple of
people have B2+ English.

Before that, I never really had these kind of experiences. I guess there was one time
when my cousin, married to a Japanese lady, visited my grandparents while my family and
I were also staying at my grandparents' house. Lots of French (it is a French Canadian
household) and English between everybody, and then some Japanese between my cousin, his
wife, my brother and myself. My first true multilingual experience at a party. :)
2 persons have voted this message useful



shk00design
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4204 days ago

747 posts - 1123 votes 
Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin
Studies: French

 
 Message 4 of 43
18 January 2014 at 10:57pm | IP Logged 
The last party I went to before Christmas it was hosted by a group of Africans from Kenya. Besides English spoken
most of the night, occasionally the adults would talk among themselves in Swahili (the national language) &
Kikuyu spoken mostly in Central Kenya. The kids are brought up to communicate in English instead of the
mother-tongue. And then there is always 1 or 2 from outside the group who would participate in conversations
in English.

Living in a bilingual country with English & French as official, people are not expected to know Swahili. Africa is a
continent colonized by the Europeans where most countries adopted either English or French as 1 of the official
languages so outsides are not expected to know a native tongue.

Edited by shk00design on 18 January 2014 at 10:59pm

1 person has voted this message useful



maydayayday
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4979 days ago

564 posts - 839 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2
Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese
Studies: Urdu

 
 Message 5 of 43
18 January 2014 at 11:30pm | IP Logged 
I just wish.....

I went to more parties like this!
7 persons have voted this message useful



fabriciocarraro
Hexaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
Brazil
russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4475 days ago

989 posts - 1454 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French
Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese

 
 Message 6 of 43
19 January 2014 at 12:12am | IP Logged 
I'm kind of used to it. When my wife's friends come to visit, they usually speak in Russian, I speak in a mix of Russian and English to the friend and my wife and I speak in Portuguese to each other. It's pretty funny, but cool! =)
1 person has voted this message useful



maydayayday
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4979 days ago

564 posts - 839 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2
Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese
Studies: Urdu

 
 Message 7 of 43
19 January 2014 at 12:30am | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
... stuff deleted .....a PhD in international body language :-)



Made me smile quite a lot!
1 person has voted this message useful



1e4e6
Octoglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4050 days ago

1013 posts - 1588 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian
Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan

 
 Message 8 of 43
19 January 2014 at 1:35am | IP Logged 
That sounds very similar to the international society that I attended in university, and
foreign language society (even though I was not even in any Humanities school).

Edited by 1e4e6 on 19 January 2014 at 1:37am



1 person has voted this message useful



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