Do you speak another language besides English?

[+ purplekow]

I have come to think of it as something like: "Va coule Up your ass" but yes FU is certainly the intent and all of my nieces, nephew right down to my great grand nephew know how to use it in a sentence. Va Naples was also used in my Sicilian household. Strangely going to Naples was considered worse than going up someone's ass and here, years later, I agree.

Nothing against Naples, I just have come to enjoy going up some people's ass.

[Odinochka]

I was surprised, I had learnt French and not Italian or Spanish, but travelling in South America I found I could read and understand Spanish and Italian newspapers reasonably well. I couldn't speak the languages but could understand the printed word. (More so Italian than Spanish.)

 

That is because they are in the same language family. They share common sentence structure and many words are cognates. The kink in the hose happens with language specific idioms.

 

On the language front--French, Spanish, and Russian (courtesy of your tax dollars)

[+ Gar1eth]

I have always wondered if a native Spanish speaker would be able to understand Italian. What about Portuguese?

 

If I can use the reverse situation-then not always. I formerly had some acquaintances from Brazil. One of them spoke and understood Spanish fairly fluently. That might have been because he had done an exchange year at an American high school and taken Spanish. His friend also from Brazil did not really understand Spanish at all.

 

 

An interesting thing is Afrikaans and Dutch. Apparently Dutch speakers have an easier time understanding Afrikaans than vice versa. I think I've heard that Afrikaans speakers sound to the Dutch much like their grandparents speak-if it's not the reverse.

 

Gman

[whipped guy]

I have come to think of it as something like: "Va coule Up your ass" but yes FU is certainly the intent and all of my nieces, nephew right down to my great grand nephew know how to use it in a sentence. Va Naples was also used in my Sicilian household. Strangely going to Naples was considered worse than going up someone's ass and here, years later, I agree.

Yes, while normaly translated as FU the literal trsnslation of vaffanculo is indeed "up the ass"! There are also more colloquial ways to say it in Neapolitan as well as in "a fond' o mazz' "! Also, telling someone to go to Naples (Ah! Va' a Napoli!) was the basic equivalent of telling someone to go to hell, but was usually used when a person did not really want to technically use a naughty word!

[Epigonos]

My father immigrated from Europe in 1910 as a child. His native languages were Slovenian and German. My mother spoke only English thus our household language was English. In high school I took Spanish for three years and at the University I majored in Latin American history and minored in Spanish as an undergraduate. In graduate school I switched the two. I spent a year in northern Mexico studying Spanish in Saltillo and after graduating with my B.A. I joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in Guatemala. Upon returning from the Peace Corps I became a high school Spanish teacher and taught for 36 years. During that time I spent much of my vacation time in various cities and resorts all over Mexico.

 

Spanish is my second language and I'm as comfortable in it as I am in English. I have never, however, been able to switch back and forth between the two. I definitely do not have the ability to simultanuiously translate from one to the other -- the ability to do so is a special gift (skill) that I have never possessed.

 

Yes, as an English speaker, one can get along in most foreign countries. However, speaking the language shows a special interest in the country and people one is visiting. It also opens a mired of doors that are not always opened for English speakers only.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Epigonos

[+ purplekow]

Language areas of the brain are amazing. When I speak French, I occasionally, unintentionally, slip into Spanish ,as of the two, that is by far and away the better. I never slip into English from French nor Spanish. I, as almost all will, always do math in my main language, English. When I try to do math in Spanish, I need to actively translate in my head. When I am stuck for a word in Spanish, I mentally will scan English synonyms and sometimes come up with the Spanish word.

Idioms, as frequently they make little logical sense, need to be used to be retained.

[+ Funguy]

Gran Dio! E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma! È spenta! Mia vendetta e notte e giorno ruggirà intorno a te! Ti maledico! Che orrore! Sciagurato! È computa la vendetta! Numi pietà.

I could go on!

 

Dio abbi pieta di me….tremo davanti a lui. Risparmiarmi il mio unico e solo TB!

[mike carey]

An interesting thing is Afrikaans and Dutch. Apparently Dutch speakers have an easier time understanding Afrikaans than vice versa. I think I've heard that Afrikaans speakers sound to the Dutch much like their grandparents speak-if it's not the reverse.

Yes, when I was travelling in Europe in the 70s I spent some time with South Africans. They said that Dutch and Flemish speakers were reminded of their grandparents when they heard South Africans speak Afrikaans. That's amazing linguistically. It's as if American or Australian English had become separate languages from English: South African Dutch speakers weren't separated from the Dutch for all that much longer than we were from England, but Afrikaans became a separate language when our languages did not become separate. What is similar though is that our accents froze and preserved how English was spoken when we became separate communities from the UK. Researchers say that Australian English became set with its accent within 10 years of settlement here in the early 19th century.

[+ Funguy]

I learned Italian while in High School as my father learned it during the war (that's WW II) in Italy and Sicily. At home when he wanted to speak to me only in front of others, he would use Italian. I travel to Central America about once a year and I am picking up my Spanish but I will frequently wind up with Span-talian and sound like either a Spanish idiot or an Italian idiot. i understand much more than i can speak in both languages.

 

WG is fervently helping with my italian! Grazie mio amico.

[+ sync]

For me being monolingual is a blessing. I get myself into enough trouble with English alone.

[+ Gar1eth]

Yes, when I was travelling in Europe in the 70s I spent some time with South Africans. They said that Dutch and Flemish speakers were reminded of their grandparents when they heard South Africans speak Afrikaans. That's amazing linguistically. It's as if American or Australian English had become separate languages from English: South African Dutch speakers weren't separated from the Dutch for all that much longer than we were from England, but Afrikaans became a separate language when our languages did not become separate. What is similar though is that our accents froze and preserved how English was spoken when we became separate communities from the UK. Researchers say that Australian English became set with its accent within 10 years of settlement here in the early 19th century.

 

I've been told it's because Afrikaans is basically 18th Century Dutch which has in some ways been simplified-loss of genders and of case inflection. Could the difference between Dutch and Afrikaans have occurred because there was less commerce between Holland and S. Africa as opposed to the UK and either the USA or Australia?

 

Another part of the puzzle is that the Dutch make a distinction with how their grandparents talk/talked to how they currently speak. I'm assuming the big change might be due to increasing homogenization of the local dialect probably starting around WW1 and increasing after WW2 due to urbanization and mass media. For example-I was born in 1961. My grandparents were born in either the late 1800's or early 1900's. They also didn't die until the 1980's and in one case the early 1990's. In general I can't really say that they spoke that much differently than I do today or that my nieces or nephew speak that much differently than I do. So for modern Dutch to say that their grandparents spoke a lot differently than they do today means the Dutch language has changed significantly over the last 100 years.

 

Also I have to tell y'all that I've been watching a lot of British game shows on my iPhone through YouTube. And I can tell you that our vocabularies maybe fairly congruent with the people of the UK. But some of the accents, compounded by me only listening to copies of the program and on a small iPhone speaker, have me scratching my very bald head as to what they are saying. Of course I know not everyone in the UK can understand everyone else either. And the accents can be a lot more extreme than would occur in most of the USA.

 

Mike -do the accents in Australia vary as much as they do in the UK-or would the variations for the most part be more similar to the lesser variations we see here in the USA?

 

Gman

[+ Gar1eth]

We also had a discussion on here once with our dear departed sabbatical Belgian about the differences between Quebec French and France/Belgium. He remarked how Quebec programs were dubbed in France. I'm assuming French in Quebec has as its basis the French of 17th Century France left to evolve without the use of mass media to keep in constant contact with the mother tongue as would occur today.

 

Gman

[liubit]

I have always wondered if a native Spanish speaker would be able to understand Italian. What about Portuguese?

 

Spanish is my mother tongue. Italian is somewhat easy to understand, especially in spoken form, but it can sometimes get real tricky. On the other hand, written Portuguese is an absolute piece of cake. To me, it looks like funny Spanish with a lot of misspellings and weird word order :) As far as spoken Portuguese, it is easy to understand Brazilians, but not so Portuguese, because their accent is a lot more nasal and they do not articulate. In general, it is easier for a native Portuguese speaker (whether Brazilian or Portuguese) to understand spoken Spanish than the other way around.

 

Besides Spanish, I learned English AND French simultaneously as a very young boy, and I am absolutely fluent in those three languages. No foreign accent, particularly in French. Since my primary school education was in Spanish and my high school was in French, I count and do basic arithmetic in Spanish, but solve more sophisticated math questions, such as second degree equations and square roots, in French. Funny how the brain works.

Edited September 5, 2015 by liubit

[Epigonos]

Being fluent in Mexican Spanish I find my understanding of Italian and Portuguese interesting. I can generally get along very well verbally in Italian but can read very little I can generally get along very will with written Portuguese but can't understand much verbally. Spoken Portuguese always sounds, to me, much like Spanish with a VERY strange accent spoken through a mouth full of mush.

My Spanish accent and vocabulary are MEXICAN thus I find I have some difficulty understanding the spoken Spanish of Central and Northern Spain, yet I have no problem in the South. It is interesting that most of the Spanish conquistadores who conquered Mexico, Central America, and South were from Andalucia and Extermadura in the south of Spain and they carried to the Western Hemispheric their form of Spanish.

[Rudynate]

Spanish is my mother tongue. Italian is somewhat easy to understand, especially in spoken form, but it can sometimes get real tricky. On the other hand, written Portuguese is an absolute piece of cake. To me, it looks like funny Spanish with a lot of misspellings and weird word order :) As far as spoken Portuguese, it is easy to understand Brazilians, but not so Portuguese, because their accent is a lot more nasal and they do not articulate. In general, it is easier for a native Portuguese speaker (whether Brazilian or Portuguese) to understand spoken Spanish than the other way around.

 

Besides Spanish, I learned English AND French simultaneously as a very young boy, and I am absolutely fluent in those three languages. No foreign accent, particularly in French. Since my primary school education was in Spanish and my high school was in French, I count and do basic arithmetic in Spanish, but solve more sophisticated math questions, such as second degree equations and square roots, in French. Funny how the brain works.

 

 

That's interesting. Thank you.

[Rudynate]

Being fluent in Mexican Spanish I find my understanding of Italian and Portuguese interesting. I can generally get along very well verbally in Italian but can read very little I can generally get along very will with written Portuguese but can't understand much verbally. Spoken Portuguese always sounds, to me, much like Spanish with a VERY strange accent spoken through a mouth full of mush.

My Spanish accent and vocabulary are MEXICAN thus I find I have some difficulty understanding the spoken Spanish of Central and Northern Spain, yet I have no problem in the South. It is interesting that most of the Spanish conquistadores who conquered Mexico, Central America, and South were from Andalucia and Extermadura in the south of Spain and they carried to the Western Hemispheric their form of Spanish.

 

We have quite a large Brazilian community in San Francisco. When I first heard Portuguese, it sounded like complete gibberish. I have a little bit of an ear for it now, so I can distinguish individual words and it does sound like Spanish spoken in a very peculiar accent.

[AdamSmith]

Being fluent in Mexican Spanish I find my understanding of Italian and Portuguese interesting. I can generally get along very well verbally in Italian but can read very little

 

Really? I can read Italian fairly easily just from French etc but can't understand it spoken at all.

 

Always & ever worth this:

 

Per me si va ne la città dolente,

per me si va ne l’etterno dolore,

per me si va tra la perduta gente.

 

Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore:

fecemi la divina podestate,

la somma sapienza e ‘l primo amore.

 

Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create

se non etterne, e io etterno duro.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.

[mike carey]

Gman, there is virtually no accent difference in Australia. There are some differences in vocabulary, but they are minor. There are accent differences between Australia and New Zealand, but none between the east and west coasts of Australia.

[Guest]

I speak a number of foreign languages. Although Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish are quite similar, the pronunciation for Portuguese is very different than for Spanish, so it's difficult for a Spaniard to understand spoken Portuguese. However, if one knows Spanish, one just has to learn the differences between the two languages, and then Portuguese becomes quite easy to learn. Big differences include the fact that the "d" in Portuguese is frequently pronounced like a "j" or soft "g" (ie before an "e" or "i"), and the "t" is frequently pronounced like "ch". Also, "o" is often pronounced like "u". Then there are some major vocabulary differences which must be committed to memory, such as when using "to be" to describe the location of something in Spanish one would use either "queda" or "es" but in Portuguese "fica." Another big difference is "need" which in Spanish is "necessito" versus "preciso" in Portuguese. Once one has the major differences down, it becomes pretty easy to understand the other language well. Many of the differences between German and Dutch are also in the pronunciation. The Germans have a tough time with the Dutch "sch" and "g". There is the old World War II story where the Dutch used the password "Scheveningen" for some resistance meeting. Those who couldn't pronounce it correctly were shot on the spot, assumed to be spies.

[Guest]

Gman, there is virtually no accent difference in Australia. There are some differences in vocabulary, but they are minor. There are accent differences between Australia and New Zealand, but none between the east and west coasts of Australia.

Since I'm going on a New Zealand/Australia cruise in January, I'd love to know the tricks to tell the difference between the two accents. The only way I can usually tell a Canadian from an American is that the Canadians don't pronounce "ou" as a diphthong, but rather as a straight "oo" sound (i.e. when saying "out and about"). Also, Canadians often end their sentences with "eh?" which is another giveaway.

[AdamSmith]

There is the old World War II story where the Dutch used the password "Scheveningen" for some resistance meeting. Those who couldn't pronounce it correctly were shot on the spot, assumed to be spies.

 

Wasn't it 'Schreveningin' with the 'r' essential?

 

I did a bunch of consulting in Nederland in the '80s and that was how they said it. I think.

Edited September 5, 2015 by AdamSmith

[+ honcho]

Born and raised in Italy, Italian remains my first language and I do count always in Italian

 

The director of the wind ensemble at a local university was born in Germany, but received a DMA here

in the US and it quite fluent and literate in English. Nonetheless, when he went around counting people

for pairing students in a class he did so under his breath in German. (which caused one of the students to giggle,

and visibly annoyed him, but he never said anything; he was much too polite).

 

I speak french well enough to almost understand a television news broadcast; certainly well enough to

get through a music rehearsal, but absolutely not well enough to eavesdrop on the subway ...

 

I speak German barely well enough to ask directions in a train station (also having studied it for two years in high school and a year in college).

[Epigonos]

I don't remember the exact wording but there is an old proverb which states that people always pray, swear, and count their money in their native language. I rather like that!!!!!

[whipped guy]

Really? I can read Italian fairly easily just from French etc but can't understand it spoken at all.

 

Always & ever worth this:

 

Per me si va ne la città dolente,

per me si va ne l’etterno dolore,

per me si va tra la perduta gente.

 

Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore:

fecemi la divina podestate,

la somma sapienza e ‘l primo amore.

 

Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create

se non etterne, e io etterno duro.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.

 

Si! Il famigerato Canto III! A modo mio! Yes! The infamous Canto III! Just my way!

 

(La Divina Commedia: Inferno: Canto III)

[Rudynate]

Since I'm going on a New Zealand/Australia cruise in January, I'd love to know the tricks to tell the difference between the two accents. The only way I can usually tell a Canadian from an American is that the Canadians don't pronounce "ou" as a diphthong, but rather as a straight "oo" sound (i.e. when saying "out and about"). Also, Canadians often end their sentences with "eh?" which is another giveaway.

 

 

Close to the US/Canadian border, the accents, as you've noted are nearly indistinguishable. The farther away you get from the border, the Canadian accent becomes pretty pronounced. Some Canadians sound almost like Scots.