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-- How Many Languages Do You Speak?
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quote:

Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov I have a German oral exam next week that will determine whether I can graduate. lulz.

I can only imagine how difficult learning German must be. I've never met someone who learned it and got the grammar only halfway right.

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 I can only imagine how difficult learning German must be. I've never met someone who learned it and got the grammar only halfway right.

Yeah, there are a lot of rules, that's for sure. I'm ok except for when I get into hatte/h�tte or konnten/k�nnten or werden/geworden territory.

Also, whenever I try to speak, I jump into sentences before fully deciding what case (Nominativ, Dativ, etc.) it is I'm using.

quote:

Originally posted by Banora Whew, who knew dork-speak could be so hot?

quote:

Originally posted by l�cid try { if (buttersFlirting == successful) { takePantsOff(); } if (buttersFlirting != successful) { banHim(); } } catch(e) { if (e instanceof ButtersDoesNotExist) { fail_pic.src="fail.jpg"; } if (e instanceof BanDoesNotExist) { fail_pic.src="sasha_cig_picture.jpg"; } }

fixed.

Strangely, I think the right way to go is without consciously using grammar or rules. You just need a feeling for what sounds right or wrong. But I guess it takes years to develop that.

Edit: Regarding that, I've read that there's sort of a window for learning languages that ends at an age of about 6 or 7 years. Anything you learn after that will never feel like a first language to you and never be as fluent.

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 Strangely, I think the right way to go is without consciously using grammar or rules. You just need a feeling for what sounds right or wrong. But I guess it takes years to develop that. Edit: Regarding that, I've read that there's sort of a window for learning languages that ends at an age of about 6 or 7 years. Anything you learn after that will never feel like a first language to you and never be as fluent.

+1 to the first part - all the way

totally disagree with the second part
I started with French when I was 14 and I'm now fluent (�crit et orale). My parents moved to Canada when they were 35 and they're both fluent. Their accents are funny but they don't speak from memory - they feel the language.

quote:

Originally posted by Ania_xox totally disagree with the second part I started with French when I was 14 and I'm now fluent (�crit et orale). My parents moved to Canada when they were 35 and they're both fluent. Their accents are funny but they don't speak from memory - they feel the language.

The point is more that it will never feel like your mother tongue to you, not that you won't speak it fluently.

Nothing can feel like your mother tongue, but your mother tongue.

On the other hand, I grew up learning Polish and English equally.
There are lots of hybrids like that, especially in Canada.
It's kinda fucked.

quote:

Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Yeah, there are a lot of rules, that's for sure. I'm ok except for when I get into hatte/h�tte or konnten/k�nnten or werden/geworden territory. Also, whenever I try to speak, I jump into sentences before fully deciding what case (Nominativ, Dativ, etc.) it is I'm using.

This stuff was all easy for me when I was in the thick of it. I really love the language a lot.

I speak English and Australian. I sued to speak Indonesian quite well, from studying it in HS, but I can't remember that much now, just random words and insults.

I speak English and I'm a native Spanish speaker too

3

English, Spanish, and Truck.

10-4, bitchez

quote:

Originally posted by Sushipunk I sued to speak Indonesian quite well

How does one sue to speak another language?

wie sagt man "do me" auf deutsch?

mach mich?

quote:

Originally posted by aquila2 How does one sue to speak another language?

Lulz. This is what I get for attempting to write a post before I have coffee in the morning

It was supposed to read 'used'

English and Italian, with a little bit of German (can understand a lot better than i can write

quote:

Originally posted by Unique2701 I hate the way the French construct their sentences. Isn't it like "I you give a present" or something They make things waaaay to complicated.

All of the latin-based languages use different word order to English.

For example, in Italian you would say:

Ti do un regalo (You i give a present)

English and Quebecois which can sometimes be considered French

quote:

Originally posted by Ania_xox quote: Originally posted by Meat187 I've read that there's sort of a window for learning languages that ends at an age of about 6 or 7 years. Anything you learn after that will never feel like a first language to you and never be as fluent. totally disagree with the second part I started with French when I was 14 and I'm now fluent (�crit et orale). My parents moved to Canada when they were 35 and they're both fluent. Their accents are funny but they don't speak from memory - they feel the language.

it does not at all matter how fluent you or your parents appear to be in french when you speak the language - your intuition regarding grammaticality of certain specially constructed sentences will still be different from that of a native speaker. there are many subtleties in french grammar that make it, at times, radically dissimilar to english. the important point is, there is no way that non-native speakers could be receptive to these differences on a subconscious level unless they were already aware of them beforehand (i.e. through conscious learning). and while the natives are not consciously alert to them either, their assessment of certain semantically abstruse or/and scopally ambiguous sentences will differ from yours exactly because they are native speakers while you are not.

e.g.,

--french does not allow raising across an experiencer, so that while in english you can say things like

john seems to mary to have talent

its french counterpart would sound weird to most native speakers

(* means ungrammatical)

*jean semble � marie avoir du talent

and yet the moment you replace the experiencer with a pronoun, the above sentence suddenly becomes grammatical just like in english

jean lui semble avoir du talent

--also, in contrast to their english counterparts, french croire-class verbs allow a non-habitual interpretation for their infinitival complements even in the absence of an overt aspect or adverbs of quantification. e.g.,

je crois r�ver

can mean both "i believe that i dream" and "i believe that i am dreaming"

--the splitting of wh-phrases is possible in french but not in english

combien de livres a-t-il consult�s?
combien a-t-il consult�s de livres?

--in french, finite main verbs must precede adverbial expressions, whereas their corresponding non-finite forms may precede OR follow them. this is different from english. e.g.,

jean parle � peine l'italien
*jean � peine parle l'italien

and yet these are both grammatical

parler � peine l'italien...
� peine parler l'italien...

--the distribution of in situ wh-constructions in french is also radically different from that in english.

there are other, much more subtle differences involving scope and quantifiers, which i'm not going to go into.


the bottomline is, the notion of 'fluency' does not simply involve the ability to produce sentences, it also involves the ability to judge sentences. and this second ability diminishes as early as 7y in people.

go teach a school

Croatian and English fluently, Serbian too because it's similar to Croatian, also some very basic German and I can understand a lot of Slovenian.

just english

I took spanish in college and forgot almost all of it

English, French, French-Canadian, Czech

quote:

Originally posted by Ania_xox Nothing can feel like your mother tongue, but your mother tongue.

English feels more like my first language than french does, but maybe that's because I use it more.

quote:

Originally posted by Cpt.Cocaine English feels more like my first language than french does, but maybe that's because I use it more.

I'm slowly walking down this path as well. I have no one to talk French with here aside from my Mom. I still think in French which can totally screw a conversation but it's all ok

I actually have to switch in and out of 'french mode'. If I say something in french, it triggers french mode, which makes me think all my thoughts in french. Saying something in english reverts it back. If I'm in french mode and I quickly try to switch to english, I sound like I have a heavy accent.

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