Do you speak another language besides English?

[+ WilliamM]

In 1989 I remember finding it very difficult to find an English speaker in Paris. I'm not talking about the man on the street. I don't expect an average New Yorker to know French. But I was trying to make reservations to leave Paris for Amsterdam. Wouldn't you have thought there would have been an English desk somewhere in the Gare du Nord to help me?

 

Yes, I understand that happening in 1989 because the area around the Gare du Nord is very French, including the train statition. Gman, that very likely would not happen now, except in areas where tourists never visit.

[+ WilliamM]

And it's funny, I remember a girl in my German class in college. She seemed intelligent. We were in groups one day. I remember remarking how I thought Latin was helping me in German. She said she had taken Latin in high school too but didn't see how the two were alike. I was stunned. I can only think her Latin class wasn't very good if she couldn't see the relationship in the grammar

 

It was not necessarily her teacher. I took Latin in the eight grade and as a freshman in high school. I can not speak French after five years in high school and college, but I can read French to some extent with a dictionary. And did extensive research in French in graduate school. I do not attribute any of it to my Latin classes -- in fact the opposite.

To be fair to you, Gman, I lked Franch far more than Latin.

Edited September 7, 2015 by WilliamM

[+ Gar1eth]

It was not necessarily her teacher. I took Latin in the eight grade and as a freshman in high school. I can not speak French after five years in high school and college, but I can read French to some extent with a dictionary. And did extensive research in French in graduate school. I do not attribute any of it to my Latin classes -- in fact the opposite.

To be fair to you, I lked Franch far more than Latin.

 

I loved Latin-but part of this may be due to the fact that I loved my teacher. She was quite a character.

 

And while I don't know a lot about French, my scant knowledge is that it's not really inflected very much-although I have heard verbs can be irregular-compared to German. If however you really understand the Noun Cases of Nominative, Genative, Accusative, and Dative in Latin along with the Latin parts of speech, the knowledge readily transfers over to German. The main problem with German being the endings have changed over time so that most of the endings are either -e, -en, -em, -es, or -er so it's easy to get confused. In Latin the endings are more varied and so easier to differentiate among them.

 

Gman

[+ WilliamM]

I loved Latin-but part of this may be due to the fact that I loved my teacher. She was quite a character.

 

And while I don't know a lot about French, my scant knowledge is that it's not really inflected very much-although I have heard verbs can be irregular-compared to German. If however you really understand the Noun Cases of Nominative, Genative, Accusative, and Dative in Latin along with the Latin parts of speech, the knowledge readily transfers over to German. The main problem with German being the endings have changed over time so that most of the endings are either -e, -en, -em, -es, or -er so it's easy to get confused. In Latin the endings are more varied and so easier to differentiate among them.

 

Gman

 

My best friend had the same experience with Latin, so it must have been my teacher. Thanks for continuing the discussion, Gman. I have not thought about my high school Latin teacher in depth for many years. She also taught a freshman algebra class and failed most of the students.

[+ Gar1eth]

I loved Latin-but part of this may be due to the fact that I loved my teacher. She was quite a character.

 

Gman

 

My best friend had the same experience with Latin, so I understand.

 

The teacher in high school was a nice person, but not a great teacher. She had a class in algebra as well as Latin the previous year. My freshman algebra class was full of people who failed her class.

 

The next year I had French and geometry together with a different teacher. She was much better. I actually enjoyed both her language and math classes.

 

Oh see my teacher was great. Plus she was one of those teachers who didn't care how popular you were. In fact she didn't really like the popular kids (athletes and student council) unless they were smart and worked hard. She liked the smart hard workers. She even liked the not so smart hard workers. She would even pass the not so smart if they showed they were trying. When my best friend and I went to college, we were both able to place out of the 1st two years of Latin by taking the department's test. Now the test was stupidly easy. But I actually understood Latin although I don't know how well I would have done as a freshman student taking a first semester junior level course as we hadn't had as much actual readings from Latin writers in high school as they did in the sophomore college classes. My best friend understood next to nothing about Latin. But my teacher was so good (and the test so poor) that he also placed out of 4 semesters of Latin.

 

I will say she wasn't very flexible. She wasn't willing to teach English grammar -so that students who really didn't know or understand English grammar -parts of speech and types of clauses-weren't really going to do well in Latin. She would say the English teachers should have done that.

 

Gman

[+ WilliamM]

I will say she wasn't very flexible. She wasn't willing to teach English grammar -so that students who really didn't know or understand English grammar -parts of speech and types of clauses-weren't really going to do well in Latin. She would say the English teachers should have done that.

 

My favorite teacher was my sixth grade teacher. A few years ago I found out she was in an assisted-living facility in Massachusetts. I decided to visit, but it was a very tough decision because we had no contact in 50 years. I was lucky, she did remember me immediately, perhaps because I was in her last class before becoming a principal. As I was leaving, many of the staff asked what she was like as a teacher; they all knew her only as a principal whom they very much disliked. They were very surprised when I said what a great teacher she was.

 

I did understand because she could occasionally be very hard on students, especially those whom she believe could do better work. And she never afraid to say exactly what she thought. She was a very good teacher, especially in math and English because she came up with ways to make things like the multiplacation table into a contest. And she gave students tasks that were difficult, but some how she know they would succeed (even if they did not).

 

That visit was something I will never forget.

Edited September 7, 2015 by WilliamM

[Rudynate]

My best friend had the same experience with Latin, so it must have been my teacher. Thanks for continuing the discussion, Gman. I have not thought about my high school Latin teacher in depth for many years. She also taught a freshman algebra class and failed most of the students.

 

I took four years of Latin in high school. Our teacher made it very easy to learn because we had quizzes all the time and she didn't tolerate kids not doing their homework. In Latin, if you don't keep up with assignments and memorize the vocabulary, you're dead in the water.

[BSR]

On the subject of mandatory study of a foreign language, I'm all in favor of it for little kids but oppose it for older kids (middle school, high school, college). From 3 to 7, kids pick up languages like a sponge. If you took kids that age and just had them watch an hour of children's programming in another language every day, you'd be amazed how much they learn and retain. But make sure the teachers for the 2nd language are native speakers because I don't think it does kids a bit of good to hear a foreign language spoken with an American accent. Obviously, I would exempt kids from immigrant families who were struggling to learn English. While the native English speakers are in Spanish (or Mandarin, or what have you) class, the immigrant kids get extra instruction in English. Time & energy focused on a 2nd language or intensive English instruction would take time away from, gee, fingerpainting, but that's a tradeoff that I'm willing to make.

 

But with older kids, foreign language study is such a bleepin' waste of time and energy. First and foremost, the quality of language instruction in the U.S. sucks. I often strike up conversation in Spanish with American kids who have studied Spanish for a number of years in high school and college, and their Spanish almost always sucks royal. Even the occasional Spanish major often doesn't speak great Spanish. There are a lot of non-native speakers who teach foreign language, and that's just a complete waste of kids' time. Because students spend years studying the language spoken in an American accent, when they hear real Spanish (or real French, or real German, or what have you), they're at a loss because they've never heard the language spoken in the native accent. So the system is forcing kids to study a language, taught by lousy instructors who far too often don't speak the language all that great themselves, while American students fall further and further behind their peers around the globe in reading, math, and science. Eliminating the foreign language requirement won't solve all the woes of the American educational system, but forcing kids to study a foreign language sure as hell isn't helping them any.

 

Here's an anecdote about how powerful TV is as a learning tool for foreign language study. I knew a guy back in Boston who admitted to housing three Palestinian friends who were here illegally. They thought they could get student visas but for whatever reason couldn't. They could get them for the fall semester, but they couldn't afford the travel back and forth. So this guy took the three in, and they basically "hid out" from January until the start of the fall semester. With little money and the fear that Immigration was after them, the three just sat and watched TV all day and all night. If they weren't eating, sleeping, or in the bathroom, they were watching TV. This was before the Internet, so they had little to no access to Arabic media. The up side to all this was that by the time they were "legal" in the fall, they could understand every single word of English - slang, colloquialisms, familiar language, idiomatic expressions, street talk, folk wisdom, EVERYTHING! It didn't matter how quickly an American spoke, how badly he mumbled, or how much slang he used, these guys understood every word. Once they started their program in the fall semester, they were the envy of all the other foreign students. Wow, who would have guessed that watching every single episode of "Three's Company" could serve to further a person's education?

Edited September 7, 2015 by BSR

[samandtham]

First and foremost, the quality of language instruction in the U.S. sucks. I often strike up conversation in Spanish with American kids who have studied Spanish for a number of years in high school and college, and their Spanish almost always sucks royal. Even the occasional Spanish major often doesn't speak great Spanish. There are a lot of non-native speakers who teach foreign language, and that's just a complete waste of kids' time. Because students spend years studying the language spoken in an American accent, when they hear real Spanish (or real French, or real German, or what have you), they're at a loss because they've never heard the language spoken in the native accent. So the system is forcing kids to study a language, taught by lousy instructors who far too often don't speak the language all that great themselves, while American students fall further and further behind their peers around the globe in reading, math, and science. Eliminating the foreign language requirement won't solve all the woes of the American educational system, but forcing kids to study a foreign language sure as hell isn't helping them any.

 

Spot on. I always require a native speaker when I learn a language, irrespective of whether they are teaching me the standard register of their language or not. Nothing against non-native speakers, but accent is a very important aspect of learning for me, in that I actually want to speak with an accent that would make a native go: "Are you sure you're not local?"

 

(It's only happened twice in my travels, but hey, I still wear that like a badge of honor!)

 

I guess I can say that I got lucky when I took French in college. My professor was a Marseillais who then was only living in the US with his wife for five years. He has picked up on a number of Americanisms, but not the accent, and he is (was) very adamant that it would stay that way.

[Rudynate]

O

 

Here's an anecdote about how powerful TV is as a learning tool for foreign language study. I knew a guy back in Boston who admitted to housing three Palestinian friends who were here illegally. They thought they could get student visas but for whatever reason couldn't. They could get them for the fall semester, but they couldn't afford the travel back and forth. So this guy took the three in, and they basically "hid out" from January until the start of the fall semester. With little money and the fear that Immigration was after them, the three just sat and watched TV all day and all night. If they weren't eating, sleeping, or in the bathroom, they were watching TV. This was before the Internet, so they had little to no access to Arabic media. The up side to all this was that by the time they were "legal" in the fall, they could understand every single word of English - slang, colloquialisms, familiar language, idiomatic expressions, street talk, folk wisdom, EVERYTHING! It didn't matter how quickly an American spoke, how badly he mumbled, or how much slang he used, these guys understood every word. Once they started their program in the fall semester, they were the envy of all the other foreign students. Wow, who would have guessed that watching every single episode of "Three's Company" could serve to further a person's education?

 

I was at a Meetup in Mountain View and I talked with a guy from a tech startup in Mexico. His English was outstanding and what was particularly interesting was how rapidly he spoke. He said he learned most of his English by watching English-language TV.

[Guest]

Before I go on foreign trips, I'll often spend a few months learning the spoken language in my car using the Pimsleur system, which works quite well for me. I'm pretty good at picking up accents, and was told in China a number of times that my "pronunciation is very good" (although my vocabulary extremely limited). With Mandarin and other Chinese dialects in particular, pronunciation is critical, because if you pronounce a word incorrectly, you will be saying something completely different. Mandarin grammar is extremely easy--practically non-existent. But it's not a language to take if you can't get your pronunciations down pat. The sentence "Is mother cursing the horse?" translates to "Ma ma ma ma?" but each "ma" is pronounced differently (mā mà mǎ ma?). Although my knowledge of Dutch is minimal, I have been mistaken for a Dutchman in Flanders...

[Guest]

Yes, I understand that happening in 1989 because the area around the Gare du Nord is very French, including the train station.

 

??The area around the Gare du Nord is known for it's large immigrant population, particularly from Turkey and the Middle East. Only about 2/3 of the population of the 10th Arrondisement were born in France. It's a good part of town to find Turkish, Middle Eastern, or Halal restaurants.

[+ Gar1eth]

My favorite teacher was my sixth grade teacher. A few years ago I found out she was in an assisted-living facility in Massachusetts. I decided to visit, but it was a very tough decision because we had no contact in 50 years. I was lucky, she did remember me immediately, perhaps because I was in her last class before becoming a principal. As I was leaving, many of the staff asked what she was like as a teacher; they all knew her only as a principal whom they very much disliked. They were very surprised when I said what a great teacher she was.

 

I did understand because she could occasionally be very hard on students, especially those whom she believe could do better work. And she never afraid to say exactly what she thought. She was a very good teacher, especially in math and English because she came up with ways to make things like the multiplacation table into a contest. And she gave students tasks that were difficult, but some how she know they would succeed (even if they did not).

 

That visit was something I will never forget.

 

I understand how you feel. When I was in grad school, my parents still lived where I grew up. And I would visit 'Mama' ( that's what all of us called my Latin teacher) routinely on school breaks. And you have to understand-over my two years with her in high school we were studying for Junior Classical League Tests (Latin Competitions between schools). We studied during lunch and after school. And for the Nationals competition in the summer, we used to study at her house in the summer. My specialties were Derivatives and Vocabulary. I won some ribbons and trophies over the two years.

 

 

Anyway at one point my parents moved away from where I had grown up back to our hometown. I never went back to where I grew up as I had no family and no real friends left there. The few friends I had had moved away.

 

So nine or so years after my parents moved away, a friend of the family let my mother know that 'Mama' had pancreatic cancer. I didn't do anything at first. I wasn't sure how I felt. I mean I felt bad- but I don't deal well with death-and that's a fatal disease. I was trying to think about what to say to her. Finally my mother rightly said, if she dies before you talk to her, you'll feel very bad. My mom was right. So I called up my teacher, and we had a nice conversation. I also made plans to go back to where I grew up a few weeks later. I was able to get there on a Friday-visit with her in the afternoon at her house and then visited with her again on Saturday and left Saturday afternoon.

 

I don't know if any of y'all have ever been around anyone with pancreatic cancer. I mean I've seen terminally ill people before. But my teacher was so thin and cachectic that I wouldn't have recognized her. And the cachexia was of fairly recent vintage with the cancer. She showed me a picture that was probably takes of her within the last three years. Even though I wouldn't have seen her for 6 years at the time the picture was taken, in the picture she looked very much as I remembered her. So the cachexia with the cancer must have happened only over a two year period or so.

 

Anyway it was a really good visit. We talked about old times and gossiped about people who had been in my class. I was really glad I went, and I know she was glad to see me. I had wanted to try and get our old school group back together to go see Mama even though most of us no longer lived anywhere near there. But she ended up dying about 2 months later. But I was so glad I had gotten to see her before she passed.

 

Gman

[+ WilliamM]

Before I go on foreign trips, I'll often spend a few months learning the spoken language in my car using the Pimsleur system, which works quite well for me. I'm pretty good at picking up accents, and was told in China a number of times that my "pronunciation is very good" (although my vocabulary extremely limited). With Mandarin and other Chinese dialects in particular, pronunciation is critical, because if you pronounce a word incorrectly, you will be saying something completely different. Mandarin grammar is extremely easy--practically non-existent. But it's not a language to take if you can't get your pronunciations down pat. The sentence "Is mother cursing the horse?" translates to "Ma ma ma ma?" but each "ma" is pronounced differently (mā mà mǎ ma?). Although my knowledge of Dutch is minimal, I have been mistaken for a Dutchman in Flanders...

 

Unicorn, do you plan your vacations yourself. I do. I spend my time deciding what countries I want to visit, visa requirements, if any, and booking hotels and travel plans within countries and from country to country. Everyone prepares for a trip differently. I am terrible at foreign languages, so I give you a huge amount of credit for learning more than just a little of the language of the places you are visiting. It would be like having an appointment with a dentist for weeks at a time for me.

[marylander1940]

I wish the ability to speak other languages was genetic. I have German, Dutch, Russian, and Polish ancestors. I wish that gave me a leg up in learning German and Dutch.

 

Gman

 

For many years it was a bad thing to have a 2nd language at home, it was like being less American then others and exposed the children of the family to name calling and others ways of discrimination.

 

Many Italians refused to allow their children to learn their ancestor's language but they kept their cuisine intact and even make Americans develop a taste for it. Italian has contributed 100+ words to American English, most of them about food but others like: "vigilante", capo, mafia, fresco, gesso, etc

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Italian_origin#Art_and_architecture

 

 

Back to food...: "Throughout the 50s and 60s, Italian food was becoming a part of the American diet and delicatessens offered salami, capocollo, mortadella, pepperoni, mozzarella and provolone, while spumone was a popular dessert, and variations of minestrone abounded. During the 70s and 80s, many Italian-inspired regional dishes became popular in America -- Eggplant Parmigiana, Fettuccini Alfredo, Penne alla Vodka, Shrimp Scampi, Chicken Piccata, Chicken Cacciatore, Steak Pizzaiola, Osso Buco, Veal Marsala, Pasta Primavera, Calamari fritti, Saltimbocca, Salsiccia, Caponata, Calzone and Stromboli. Grissini, semolina bread, risotto, broccoli rabe, arugula, radicchio, Gorgonzola, Parmigiano Reggiano, ricotta, olive oil, pesto, prosciutto, sun-dried tomatoes, pizzelle, cannoli, zeppole, torrone, gianduja, panettone and espresso were common additions to meals."

[AdamSmith]

My ex-husband is a Cajun who taught me a lot about language pick-up. Of course he was fluent in French, also had one year of Catholic high school Latin, so when we took a week's vacation in Italy, after a day he was speaking a passable pidgin Italian. And watching him, I realized I could do it too. Just from the semester of Dante in facing-page translation.

 

Yesterday I wrote here that I can't understand it spoken to me, but I can speak it very childishly. And of course the effort of doing that is much appreciated.

[+ WmClarke]

I am fluent in Sarcasm, but that's about it--despite 5 1/2 years of French classes and 1 1/2 years of Russian classes. But I can still count to ten in those two languages.

[marylander1940]

I am fluent in Sarcasm, but that's about it--despite 5 1/2 years of French classes and 1 1/2 years of Russian classes. But I can still count to ten in those two languages.

 

I understand bitchinese

 

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bitchinese

[Rudynate]

. There are a lot of non-native speakers who teach foreign language, and that's just a complete waste of kids' time. Because students spend years studying the language spoken in an American accent, when they hear real Spanish (or real French, or real German, or what have you), they're at a loss because they've never heard the language spoken in the native accent.

 

My French teacher was an old lady, close to retirement who spoke French with this godawful American accent. She made no attempt to speak with an authentic accent. Even as a kid, I used to ask myself, "What's wrong with this picture?'

 

Many years ago, I knew a wealthy old lady. She was the widow of a Texas oilman and seemed to have piles of money - she drove around in a Bentley and had a small household staff. She spoke French fluently, but with that same godawful American accent that my French teacher used. She liked to surround herself with people who spoke French, preferably native speakers, but non-native speakers who were skilled enough were OK , too. She would have lunches and dinners with 10-12 guests where only French was spoken. It was incongruous to hear her speak, because, on the one hand, her command of the language was so good, but on the other hand, her accent was so bad. I could never understand how somebody could have made the effort to become fluent in the language and yet make no attempt to speak with an authentic accent.

[+ Charlie]

On the subject of mandatory study of a foreign language, I'm all in favor of it for little kids but oppose it for older kids (middle school, high school, college). From 3 to 7, kids pick up languages like a sponge. If you took kids that age and just had them watch an hour of children's programming in another language every day, you'd be amazed how much they learn and retain. But make sure the teachers for the 2nd language are native speakers because I don't think it does kids a bit of good to hear a foreign language spoken with an American accent. Obviously, I would exempt kids from immigrant families who were struggling to learn English. While the native English speakers are in Spanish (or Mandarin, or what have you) class, the immigrant kids get extra instruction in English. Time & energy focused on a 2nd language or intensive English instruction would take time away from, gee, fingerpainting, but that's a tradeoff that I'm willing to make.

 

But with older kids, foreign language study is such a bleepin' waste of time and energy. First and foremost, the quality of language instruction in the U.S. sucks. I often strike up conversation in Spanish with American kids who have studied Spanish for a number of years in high school and college, and their Spanish almost always sucks royal. Even the occasional Spanish major often doesn't speak great Spanish. There are a lot of non-native speakers who teach foreign language, and that's just a complete waste of kids' time. Because students spend years studying the language spoken in an American accent, when they hear real Spanish (or real French, or real German, or what have you), they're at a loss because they've never heard the language spoken in the native accent. So the system is forcing kids to study a language, taught by lousy instructors who far too often don't speak the language all that great themselves, while American students fall further and further behind their peers around the globe in reading, math, and science. Eliminating the foreign language requirement won't solve all the woes of the American educational system, but forcing kids to study a foreign language sure as hell isn't helping them any.

 

Here's an anecdote about how powerful TV is as a learning tool for foreign language study. I knew a guy back in Boston who admitted to housing three Palestinian friends who were here illegally. They thought they could get student visas but for whatever reason couldn't. They could get them for the fall semester, but they couldn't afford the travel back and forth. So this guy took the three in, and they basically "hid out" from January until the start of the fall semester. With little money and the fear that Immigration was after them, the three just sat and watched TV all day and all night. If they weren't eating, sleeping, or in the bathroom, they were watching TV. This was before the Internet, so they had little to no access to Arabic media. The up side to all this was that by the time they were "legal" in the fall, they could understand every single word of English - slang, colloquialisms, familiar language, idiomatic expressions, street talk, folk wisdom, EVERYTHING! It didn't matter how quickly an American spoke, how badly he mumbled, or how much slang he used, these guys understood every word. Once they started their program in the fall semester, they were the envy of all the other foreign students. Wow, who would have guessed that watching every single episode of "Three's Company" could serve to further a person's education?

+1

 

Recently, at an AT&T store, I was helped by a young salesman who had the barest hint of an accent. I asked if he were Canadian, and he said he was from Uzbekistan. He had come to the US in his 20s, speaking no English, and had spent a few months at a relation's apartment in San Francisco, watching American television all day long, to learn English. When I probed a bit deeper, it turned out that he already knew three other languages before he came to the US. Most language learning research shows that the earlier one learns another language, and the more languages one knows, the easier it is to master another one.

 

When Serena Williams won the French Open in 2002, she tried to give an acceptance speech in high school French, and it was such a garbled mess that the audience could hardly keep a straight face. When she won again eleven years later, she accepted in fluent, idiomatic French that left them cheering. In the meantime, she had bought an apartment in Paris and lived there for long periods, and had a French tennis coach (and rumored lover). There is no substitute for being immersed in the culture when trying to learn a language as an adult.

[Epigonos]

I tend to disagree regarding the desirability of having a native Spanish speaker teaching Spanish - especially in California. Here in California a native Spanish speaker can become qualified to teach Spanish, in a public school, if he or she passes a competency exam; many have never taken a class in Spanish grammar or literature. The exam although written is objective – true/false and multiple choice and many who pass it are virtually illiterate. They don’t know Spanish grammar and their vocabulary is a terrible combination of Spanish and English. In other words they don’t speak Spanish they speak Spanglish or Cholo.

 

Examples being:

 

English Spanish Spanglish/Cholo

 

To eat lunch Almorzar Lonchear

Shoe Store Zapateria Shoeteria

Brakes Frenos Breques

Truck Camion Troque

Market Mercado Marketa

to park Estacionar Parkear

 

This type of Spanglish/Cholo works just fine along the U.S. Mexican border but is worthless when one tries to speak with someone anywhere else in the Spanish speaking world. As a rule non-native Spanish speaking teachers know the grammar and vocabulary of the language and even if their accent isn't great their students learn correct Spanish.

Having a good accent in any foreign language has more to do with how good an ear a student has. Some students will naturally have an excellent accent and others, no matter how much they try and no matter how good the accent of their teacher is, will never have a good accent. In graduate school I took a class from a professor who was one of the world's leading authorities in twentieth century Mexican literature yet every time he opened his mouth and spoke a word of Spanish I shuttered. It was immediately obvious that he had a tin ear as he spoke Spanish with a heavy god-awful gringo accent.

[Rudynate]

+1

 

Recently, at an AT&T store, I was helped by a young salesman who had the barest hint of an accent. I asked if he were Canadian, and he said he was from Uzbekistan. He had come to the US in his 20s, speaking no English, and had spent a few months at a relation's apartment in San Francisco, watching American television all day long, to learn English. When I probed a bit deeper, it turned out that he already knew three other languages before he came to the US. Most language learning research shows that the earlier one learns another language, and the more languages one knows, the easier it is to master another one.

 

When Serena Williams won the French Open in 2002, she tried to give an acceptance speech in high school French, and it was such a garbled mess that the audience could hardly keep a straight face. When she won again eleven years later, she accepted in fluent, idiomatic French that left them cheering. In the meantime, she had bought an apartment in Paris and lived there for long periods, and had a French tennis coach (and rumored lover). There is no substitute for being immersed in the culture when trying to learn a language as an adult.

 

 

I did a three-week intensive German course at the Goethe Institut in Rothenburg in Northern Bavaria. It was astonishing how fast you learn in the immersion setting. When you don't have the option of peeking at a dictionary, you become very resourceful at understanding and finding a way to say what you want. When I was in Frankfurt, before the course started, I was walking along and I saw a big sign, "Ladenflaeche" on the window of a big empty store. In the context, even though the word was unfamiliar, I recognized immediately that the sign said "retail space." In an immersion environment like that, you have such "Aha" moments 10's of times in a single day.

[liubit]

As I mentioned, Spanish is my mother tongue. Just to add to Epigonos's Spanglish list, one of the funniest expressions I heard in NY was "te vacumo la carpeta", which in Spanish sounds like "I will vaccinate the folder for you", when in fact they meant "I will vacuum your carpet"...Talk about gibberish...

Edited September 7, 2015 by liubit

[Rudynate]

I went to high school with quite a few Puerto Ricans. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the manner in which they combined Spanish and English. Sometimes they would begin a sentence in English and complete it in Spanish. Other times, they would begin the sentence in Spanish and complete it in English. Sometimes they would speak a sentence that was mostly English sprinkled with Spanish. Other times, the sentence would be mostly Spanish sprinkled with English. It was really interesting.

[+ Gar1eth]

I went to high school with quite a few Puerto Ricans. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the manner in which they combined Spanish and English. Sometimes they would begin a sentence in English and complete it in Spanish. Other times, they would begin the sentence in Spanish and complete it in English. Sometimes they would speak a sentence that was mostly English sprinkled with Spanish. Other times, the sentence would be mostly Spanish sprinkled with English. It was really interesting.

 

I used to work with several people with Spanish as their native language. In this instance there were two from Puerto Rico -Angel and Enid with Rafael who was from Mexico. One night I was out with Angel and Rafael. They started talking and picking at each others Spanish-thankfully in my case they were doing it in English. It was so interesting to hear plus very funny. And at one point Rafael said something about Enid (who was not present) -that when she got going, he couldn't understand her- but implying her voice frequently became high pitched, whiny, and spoke extremely fast Spanish. From this I gathered that Puerto Ricans spoke faster than Mexicans.

 

Gman

Edited September 8, 2015 by Gar1eth