Foreign Languages: Daunting for you or Ease ?

[Alexandria Profile]

Good Morning,

Having grown up as an only child in a multi lingual household and attending bilingual primary and secondary schools in Barcelona and university in France, languages have come to me fairly easily.

Of course, grammar in all languages is pure science fiction, however, I have conquered ..

Catalan, Spanish, English, French and I have a 3 hour a week course in my office for Italian for the last couple of years .. ( in Company classes are on going in English in our business as well ) ..

Have a lovely day ..

[Sakkarin Profile]

One of my strangest memories is on a backpacking trip having conversations with a Swiss guy who was speaking in French, but I was replying in German, as I could understand his French, but speak better German, which he could understand. I'm not sure why he didn't speak English, but for the sake of the memory, who cares?

My schoolboy French and German have long since faded.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

I didn't start learning languages at school until I was 11 but was used to my multilingual cousins from Amsterdam and had travelled to France and Switzerland and picked up some words
We all had to learn French (very well taught) and a second language, either German or Latin. I chose German as I wanted a living language
Coming from near to the channel ferry ports we always went across the channel for holidays, and so I got some practice
I've always tried to keep up my languages, for example buying local magazines when I travel or listening to films, radio etc.

Two things improved my French, first I had an unplanned year working in a shop in London where many customers were French or Italian so my working language was French for about half the time. Second I then acquired my late partner who was French. My German was lower key, I always read some scientific papers in German, but over the last 15 years I worked with Germans and went to Berlin many times so it improved

So my spoken French is quite fluent, though my accent is, I am told, "cute" (in other words, bad!). My German accent is probably better but I am much less fluent as I don't have the vocabulary

Both languages I can read quite well - I will use recipes in either language And I can make sense of a menu in Italian or Spanish, though of course there is always something I haven't seen before.

[karadekoolaid Profile]

I learned French and German at school. My French was fluent, until I arrived in Venezuela . German - I can just about manage a phrase or two. My Spanish is now perfect, of course. I can understand some spoken Italian, but apart from that...
Learning a language is a question of learning to LISTEN first. I spent almost 3 months without speaking; just listening to furious rat-tat-tat of Venezuelan Spanish. When I finally did speak, the accent was pretty good.
The very worst thing you can do when learning a language is to grab a pen and start writing. That phase comes LAST!!

[scullion Profile]

pretty much the same re french and german as kk.
i learned spanish along with my kids when they were little (until they went to school to do GCSEs) and did a couple of years of italian, as the lessons were free, at uni.
i think i learn in a different way to kk, though, and i prefer, or rather find it much easier, having the grammar structure/pattern to hang the rest of it on.
i found that spanish was a doddle if you have english and french and then italian was just 80% spanish (which caught me out on a couple of occasions!).
german was more difficult but then it was an uglier language to learn (sorry to any german speakers). i've only used it three times since leaving school so it's practically gone.

i know a few words of cornish.

[Renée Profile]

Five years of French at school and college from the age of 11, which I found useful on visits to France. I could ask questions but couldn't always understand the replies, unless I asked them to speak more slowly ... plus lentement s'il vous plait, I think! Many years later, I studied Spanish for a year. I loved the language, but then we moved house and I gave up. I realised that I would never need to use the Spanish language, because my holidays were visits to friends in Canada and America.

[Joanbunting Profile]

I am hopeless at languages and have real difficulties writing in any

I supposedly learned French and Latin at school but was badly taught and didn't ever see the need - like so many young people from the NE.

Then I met M at school. He is a total natural. He had a solid grounding in French and Latin at a previous school and is also very very musical. He went off to do French at Uni where he also did Italian for a couple of years, We travelled together , mostly in France and I began to see the point and, like KK learned to listen. M spent a year at a French university and a year teaching in Lyon.

We were married soon after he graduated and took off to the Bahamas where for some reason he became friendly with some Spanish speakers and quickly picked that up - I didn't. He also taught himself Russian and some Mandarin, well 5 or 6 polite phrases

On our return to the UK he got a job in our old school as a languages teacher and went on to become a HoD meanwhile having German lessons, thanks to the local authority. and improving his Spanish by the same means.

We spent a month every year in France and I started to learn and then, one day we bought this house, more or less on a whim. I was completely thrown in at the deep end, but fortunately had good neighbours who were patient and tactful and we shared a love of cooking, so that's really how I got the confidence to open my mouth and say things.

Meanwhile our daughter began to display her shared talent with her father. She has a wonderful ear and was a real mimic from the moment she could speak. She ended up doing her degree in English and French law and was at uni in Grenoble for half her course. her first law firm sent her to learn Spanish and latter she lived in Germany with her husband and family on two tours so added German.

Unfortunately DS takes after his mother, though he is a born communicator so always makes himself understood.

However both GC have spent so much time in different school systems and are fearless with their use of all three

[Alexandria Profile]

Thank you for all your feedback .. How wonderfully interesting ..

Truly have enjoyed reading all of your little short stories on foreign languages ..

Have a wonderful evening ..

[Uschi Profile]

My native tongue is German and I started learning English at school, aged ten. I was lousy at it until I went on a language holdiday cum riding holiday on Dartmoor. I've never looked back since.

For our second language we had a choice of Latin or French and I chose Latin as I thought French sounded a bit soft. Bad choice. I tried to take French as my third language later, but since I managed to pronounce "Mademoiselle" with a glottal stop instead of a "d" that was that.
I think Spanish or Italian would have been better for me. They sound much crisper and are closer to Latin.

For a while in the 1990s we had Dutch TV channels available and since it is close to German and English I picked a bit of that up.

Oh, I tried to learn some Russian, but gave it up.

And I can pronounce Welsh halfway decently.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Helloooooo fellow linguists.
Spanish and French here. I'm jolly useful on holidays.
I can speak some high German too, konen sie bitte die frage wiedersagen! From A-level days. But Tony lived there for 4 years so he can do the honours when we are touring the lakes there.

My discipline was Latin American Politics - which came with Spanish and French. I lived in Lausanne and Malaga.

I did a year of Italian too, but I just speak Spanish when in Italy. And they speak Italian back.
Fine for a working way of our understanding each other.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Uschi, like Elisa.
I'd never know you weren't English.

[Pampy Profile]

Dutch, Italian and French for me. The Dutch and Italian I learned while living there, French at school from the age of 5. I speak better Dutch and Italian but read and write better French. I also learned Latin at school which I did find useful when learning Italian.

[Renée Profile]

Uschi speaks better English than the majority of us and you should hear her speak!! You would never guess that she was German.

[Sakkarin Profile]

The other day something a Welsh friend said made me check out how many Welsh words had crept into everyday English. The list is short, just 44, of which I recognise around half:

Adder, avon, awdl, bach, bara brith, bard, bow, cawl, cist, coombe, coracle, corgi, crag, crockery, cromlech, crumpet, crwth, cwm, cwrw, cwtch, cynghanedd, druid, eisteddfod, englyn, flannel, flummery, gorsedd, gull, hiraeth, hog, hwyl, iechyd da, iron, kistvaen, lawn, lech, mochyn, penguin, sglod, tor, tref, wp, wrasse, ych â fi

As a matter of interest I checked to see if there was a similar list of French words that have ended up in English. I was staggered at how many there are, over a thousand just in the "Cs", and I recognise most of them! So even without my schoolboy French, I already have a vocabulary of many, many thousands of French words. Slipping them into a conversation, and in the correct order, now that's a different matter.

EDIT: Original link doesn't work, click this and go down to "Contents, A-C" on the left, then to "C" for the C-list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_E ... nch_origin

[Renée Profile]

I've just had a look! How surprising.

[Alexandria Profile]

Sakkarin,

Fascinating ..

There uncountable "Anglo-isims" in Spanish ..

And Italian as well and vice versa ..

Internet, colloquialisims, expatriates, emigration, immigration etcetra ..

Thank you for the link ..

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Many French wordsin English come courtesy of the Norman conquest
It's well known that animals are Saxon,Celt or Viking on the farm, Norman at the butchers
Pig, hog, swine -> pork (pork)
Cow, bull, cattle, steer -> beef
Sheep, -> mutton

I'm always surprisedhow little Welsh there is in English. I went to Brittany with a Welsh speaker who could read written Bretagne quite easily, but had trouble with the accent when spoken

[karadekoolaid Profile]

One of the points which always comes up in my English classes is the amount of French used in English. On many occasions they`re amused by some of the definitions.
For example: there´s no word(s) in English for a Coup d`Étât. Or Bon Appetit.
There´s a big difference between a dead-end street and a cul-de-sac
We eat in restaurants.
Bankers treat new clients with a certain sang-froid AND...

Classy ladies wear lingerie

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

I use the German word for lingerie ...... undercrackers.

Dodgy thoughts process, is camera a japanese word. I know robot is Russian.

[Uschi Profile]

If it were down to the vocabulary, English could be classed as a Romance language since you have more words of French origin than German. But since the grammar is that of a Germanic language ... and what a lovely grammar it is!

Talking of underwear ... longish knickers are called "Liebestöter" = love killers.