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Language learning skills?

  Tags: Learner type
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
Tyrion101
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3699 days ago

153 posts - 174 votes 
Speaks: French

 
 Message 17 of 19
26 December 2014 at 5:08am | IP Logged 
eyðimörk wrote:
Tyrion101 wrote:
I was curious, because I've been to several places where the signage was in different languages (Wales, Scotland, Ireland), and I picked up a fair number of words simply by reading the bilingual signs and paying attention to word order, and was wondering if that meant I might have something.

This is a fun exercise (I love it, and I do it all the time in Breton), but from what I've seen it doesn't lead to much beyond feeling smug about understanding bilingual signs.

Through playing the game with me, my husband has learned the common geographical words and the noun-adjective word order. Sometimes he sees a sign and knows what something means (or asks me to translate a single word and so that he might put everything together)... but it doesn't mean that he's remotely close to speaking Breton. For one thing, signs don't generally include verbs, so he doesn't know a single verb or its position in your average sentence...


Wasn't intending to sound like I was learning a language through signs. I was wondering if this meant I had an aptitude for language learning? Sorry about being misleading, I tend to have a roundabout manner of asking questions that confuses people.
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6383 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 18 of 19
26 December 2014 at 5:08pm | IP Logged 
Well, language learning is a multifaceted task with many subskills. Almost everyone has some sort of advantage somewhere, many just never actually use it (for example "technically-minded" folks). It's certainly good if you can learn something from bilingual signs - sounds like you'd do well with parallel texts, then. Try to think of other things you're good at and/or enjoy, and how you can apply that to language learning.
1 person has voted this message useful



shk00design
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4230 days ago

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

 
 Message 19 of 19
27 December 2014 at 4:28am | IP Logged 
This is an interesting topic worth further investigation. Part of language learning is a person's talent or skill but part
of it is your environment as well.

A while ago I read an article in the Obituary section of a local newspaper. A local doctor living in Thunder Bay,
Canada died. He was well respected in his community because he spoke many languages. He was born with
Russian & Ukrainian parents so naturally he picked up the 2 languages. During the War, he cross the border into
China and lived in Shanghai for a while before moving down to Hong Kong. While in Shanghai he learned to be
fluent in Mandarin. He studied in a university where French was the language of instructions and he worked hard to
master his French. While in Hong Kong he picked up Cantonese.

More recently, an African-American Jerome White who adopted the shortened version of his name JERO became a hit
singer in Japan. His Japanese grandmother got married to an American GI after the War and moved to the US. He
always felt connected to the Japanese culture and grew up singing Karaoke with his grandmother. Being fluent in
English and Japanese, you can say he has a talent for languages. On the other hand, learning languages isn't his
interest. I don't think he intends to learn other languages such as Chinese or Korean. Being a quarter Japanese, he
feel Japan is his ancestral homeland.

People who moved to another country would try to master the local language to get around. Unless some people
who are not good at learning languages would always rely on other people close to them to do the translating when
necessary.

Edited by shk00design on 29 December 2014 at 5:45am



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