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| quote: | Originally posted by Blake
Jeez, how many flippin' languages are you proficient in!? I should've gone the linguist route, rather than having taken the math/science path I currently find myself on. Things like learning languages come much more natural to me than the rigidities of formulas & such. |
Not many, actually. Meat knows my German sucks, and although I can go through the basics without much difficulty, I butcher the language all the time, and I wouldn't ever be able to talk about Wittgenstein in his original language (much to Meat's amusement, I'm sure  ).
| quote: | Originally posted by Blake
It's certainly something I'd like to get back into, once I'm done with my formal studies. Years of Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin, and German, all down the drain, due to lack of immersion.  |
I feel your pain. Spanish simply destroyed my Italian (I lived in Turin for a couple of years as a kid), and after a decade or so not speaking Spanish, I've got a good pronunciation, but I just can't remember the damn words (Woscar can confirm I often slip to Portuñol when I'm tired or in a hurry).
My Japanese is about to go down the same route, even though I try to make sure I speak it every day in my office
| quote: | Originally posted by Blake
In reference to your thread about how we think to ourselves, I realized last week, after hopping into a cab with a Spanish speaking driver, that now whenever I try to formulate sentences in my head in a particular foreign language (in this case, Spanish), it always ends up being a mixture of words from at least two additional languages. If I can't think of a word in one language, my brain defaults to the next most familiar foreign language. The end result: me keeping my mouth shut  . Ah well... for now I'll stick to stick to leisure language learning. Next up, Hindi! |
Hahaha, that's awesome!
Hindi is a kick ass language too, I must say 
| quote: | Originally posted by Blake
Oy! Keep your anti-American comments to yourself! |
Actually, that goes to pretty much all major English-speaking countries, with the possible exception of South Africa. And the bit of Canada Jay happens to live in
I'm willing to bet most Brazilians are monolingual as well... reason why you definitely SHOULDN'T come here and try to survive with basic Spanish, a mistake too many a tourist have made
| quote: | Originally posted by zyklon-jay
The French here reflects the French spoken during colonial times and is actually just an older version of the french spoken in france today. There are a lot of anglicisms used in Montreal, leave the city and they diminish. If you look at that list i would venture that 90% of the non native french speakers live in the Montreal area.
A lot of tourists and non francophones are suprised at how little french they need to get by (aka none) in Montreal. Its like a weird little island, because once you leave it's surroundings not too many people speak anything but french or native tongues...unless they are living near the US border of course. Some even live in the states and drive to work in canada. |
That's interesting
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