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Epicurus
Joined: 18 Jun 2009
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 Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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I would put German and Spanish as easiest with French close behind. The trucka is going to the gasolina estacion. 'What kind of language is this?'
Ken:> |
I don't what kind of language it is, but it's not Spanish.
George W Bush Spanish perhaps. |
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MissSeoul
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: Somewhere in America
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| Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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Korean ( native )
English ( 1st foreign language while middle/high school student )
German ( 2nd foreign language while high school student )
Chinese ( home studied while middle school student, no problem to read all Chinese writing on korean newspapers )
Japanese ( took some classes after graduate college )
Arabs ( practiced some while I was in Saudi Arabia, no problem to communicate with shop owners while shopping )
Living in English speaking country ( US ), excellent speaking/reading, but average writing  |
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Bucky
Joined: 19 Jul 2009
Location: Vancouver (formerly Yongsan-gu, Seoul)
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| Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 5:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
No offense, but from some of you quarda/penta-lingual people I am picking up the faint odor of bovine excrement. Then again, most of you probably aren't yanks, and therefore actually DO have language skills to match your claims.
I've found that Americans in general GREATLY exaggerate their foreign language capabilities, though there are a number of individuals who can prove me wrong on this. I've heard "I speak Spanish/French" from a fair number of folks who are truly at a pre-school level. Come one folks, we are language instructors, be honest and sober in calculating your foreign language abilities. You don't need to impress anyone here.
Hats off to anyone who is tri or even bi lingual, who didn't grow up with the language. |
Probably... But some of us (like myself) grew up speaking at least two languages so picking up a third or a fourth doesn't seem as big a deal as it might be for someone who grew up speaking only one.
One of the advantages of having an immigrant family while growing up in Canada, I guess. |
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earthbound14
Joined: 23 Jan 2007
Location: seoul
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| Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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I speak English and French.
I also seem to be able to understand Spanish about as well as I understand Korean...which is sad because I studied Korean at uni for 6 months (and have lived here for 4) yet I've never once taken a lesson in Spanish. |
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samcheokguy
Joined: 02 Nov 2008
Location: Samcheok G-do
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| Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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| MissSeoul wrote: |
Arabs ( practiced some while I was in Saudi Arabia, no problem to communicate with shop owners while shopping )
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Oh god not again. The schtick must stop. The language in Arabic is al'arabi
.Anyone who lived in Saudi would know that. You are the weirdest poster in the world. Nobody ever used 'Arabs' as the name of a language. Ever my poor rural kids would say 'speak Arab' not 'speak Arabs!'
But at least I get a laugh...  |
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tzechuk
Joined: 20 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 10:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Bucky wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
No offense, but from some of you quarda/penta-lingual people I am picking up the faint odor of bovine excrement. Then again, most of you probably aren't yanks, and therefore actually DO have language skills to match your claims.
I've found that Americans in general GREATLY exaggerate their foreign language capabilities, though there are a number of individuals who can prove me wrong on this. I've heard "I speak Spanish/French" from a fair number of folks who are truly at a pre-school level. Come one folks, we are language instructors, be honest and sober in calculating your foreign language abilities. You don't need to impress anyone here.
Hats off to anyone who is tri or even bi lingual, who didn't grow up with the language. |
Probably... But some of us (like myself) grew up speaking at least two languages so picking up a third or a fourth doesn't seem as big a deal as it might be for someone who grew up speaking only one.
One of the advantages of having an immigrant family while growing up in Canada, I guess. |
What Bucky and Epicurus said. |
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earthbound14
Joined: 23 Jan 2007
Location: seoul
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| Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| No offense, but from some of you quarda/penta-lingual people I am picking up the faint odor of bovine excrement. Then again, most of you probably aren't yanks, and therefore actually DO have language skills to match your claims. |
Well I say I speak French..which I do, but to be honest I have a hard time following films from France and speaking fluently with French people. I can communicate easily, I just have no idea about slang or any other forms of French that are used by regional populations of French people. I grew up in an English environment but went to an immersion school (kindy to 12). So I learned to speak with other immersion students. So we had our own form of French that is a little more basic and unfortunately derived from many direct translations from English. Translations that English speakers speaking French understand but native speakers do not.
I can easily go to French countries though and pick up the language relatively naturally. So far I've only stayed in a French speaking place long enough to pick up the accent and limited slang.
Korean has been really hard to master and as I find French so much easier to pick up I tend to be dissapointed easily by Korean. Spanish on the other hand is really easy to pick up.
The good thing about having another language though is that you have a broader base to aproach new languages from. For me I have good pronunciaton of Korean despite the fact that I have similar difficulties learning the language (grammar/vocab) as mono lingual people. But as a French speaker I can easily learn Spanish compared to other English only speakers (due to similarities of grammar, vocab and pronuciation).
I normally just don't like having to write this...so I just tell people I speak French. |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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>I would put German and Spanish as easiest with French close behind. The trucka is going to the gasolina estacion. 'What kind of language is this?'
>I don't what kind of language it is, but it's not Spanish.
>George W Bush Spanish perhaps.
I swear that this would have been acceptable Spanish when I lived in Veracruz state on the Pacific coast: El carro va a la gasolina estacion, and so forth! Admittedly, this was not very pure Spanish and that may be part of the reason I found it so easy to learn.
But again, I am certainly not claiming fluency. Many Americans from the southwest grow up hearing or learning a little Spanish, but I grew up in Canada and really only heard it in Speedy Gonzales cartoons.
Ken:> |
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Joe Batts Arm
Joined: 22 Jul 2009
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| Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:47 am Post subject: |
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| MissSeoul wrote: |
Korean ( native )
English ( 1st foreign language while middle/high school student )
German ( 2nd foreign language while high school student )
Chinese ( home studied while middle school student, no problem to read all Chinese writing on korean newspapers )
Japanese ( took some classes after graduate college )
Arabs ( practiced some while I was in Saudi Arabia, no problem to communicate with shop owners while shopping )
Living in English speaking country ( US ), excellent speaking/reading, but average writing |
That is the understatement of the day! But it does beg the question, why do you not write the way you speak? |
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Epicurus
Joined: 18 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Moldy Rutabaga wrote: |
>I would put German and Spanish as easiest with French close behind. The trucka is going to the gasolina estacion. 'What kind of language is this?'
>I don't what kind of language it is, but it's not Spanish.
>George W Bush Spanish perhaps.
I swear that this would have been acceptable Spanish when I lived in Veracruz state on the Pacific coast: El carro va a la gasolina estacion, and so forth! Admittedly, this was not very pure Spanish and that may be part of the reason I found it so easy to learn.
But again, I am certainly not claiming fluency. Many Americans from the southwest grow up hearing or learning a little Spanish, but I grew up in Canada and really only heard it in Speedy Gonzales cartoons.
Ken:> |
el carro va a la estacion de gasolina is more likely.
in your original example you used trucka, which doesn't exist in Spanish.
Camion, camioneta is more likely.
carro does exist as a word in Spanish, though some places will use coche.
(nota bene, many gringos have issue with the rolling r sound made by the double rr)
there are some similarities and crossover words between English and Spanish. But literal translation and overdependence on words that sound the same will get you in trouble very fast.
e.g. embarazada - doesn't mean embarrassed. It means pregnant.
excitado/a doesn't mean excited. It means horny. |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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there are some similarities and crossover words between English and Spanish. But literal translation and overdependence on words that sound the same will get you in trouble very fast.
e.g. embarazada - doesn't mean embarrassed. It means pregnant.
excitado/a doesn't mean excited. It means horny. |
Definitely. I was always confusing nombre and numero as a beginner. I remember all the Mexicans laughing when one of the teachers complained about bad milk in the refrigerator with 'malo leche', which had a sexual slang meaning!
These 'false friends' such as embarazada probably exist in all languages, and one example that comes to me from German is gift, which in German means poison.
Ken:> |
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shantaram
Joined: 10 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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Korean ( native )
English ( 1st foreign language while middle/high school student )
German ( 2nd foreign language while high school student )
Chinese ( home studied while middle school student, no problem to read all Chinese writing on korean newspapers )
Japanese ( took some classes after graduate college )
Arabs ( practiced some while I was in Saudi Arabia, no problem to communicate with shop owners while shopping )
Living in English speaking country ( US ), excellent speaking/reading, but average writing |
Interesting that you took 'arabs' while living in Saudi Arabia but don't know the difference between an arab and a muslim. I'd say both your writing and your intelligence are decidedly average. Are you a teacher? |
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tacitus14
Joined: 10 Nov 2008
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| Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 8:56 am Post subject: |
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I just wanted to write back against that guy who wrote he was conversational in Latin. (!!!???) I'm about to sit for my candidacy exams in Classics. No, my friend you are not conversational in Latin.
And just to 자랑 a little bit...
Even though my government calls me officially bilingual, I haven't spoken French in a long time, but I still remember the Francois Villion I had to memorize as a kid.
I took enough Spanish to read whatever I want in that language. I never had any problems communicating at an academic level when I studied in Mexico for six months.
My Koreans getting better as long as I work at it. I'm in 4 급 of the standardized system.
I wish my Ancient Greek was better, but I've read many of the bad boys in the original.
And my Latin's fine. Good enough to know that that guy who said he was conversational has no clue. |
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morrisonhotel
Joined: 18 Jul 2009
Location: Gyeonggi-do
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| Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:43 am Post subject: |
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| tacitus14 wrote: |
I just wanted to write back against that guy who wrote he was conversational in Latin. (!!!???) I'm about to sit for my candidacy exams in Classics. No, my friend you are not conversational in Latin.
And my Latin's fine. Good enough to know that that guy who said he was conversational has no clue. |
That was me. How do you figure that? I was educated at a school that Latin (oral and written) was part of the curriculum. I continued studying it as part of my degree. My guess would be that my Latin is probably more advanced than yours unless you had similar schooling experience. At home, my parents would frequently speak in either in Scots Gaelic or Latin so I would improve my linguistic skills (they labour under that oh so middle class delusion that being multi-lingual is the sign of an educated mind). So, my friend, my Latin is at a conversational standard, thank you very much. Obviously, though, this is all relevant to modern pronunciation rather than a direct attempt at any form of 'classical' pronunciation. |
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Epicurus
Joined: 18 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 2:15 pm Post subject: |
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I always liked the guy (I think it was in Caddyshack?) either that or a John Hughes movie where he's in college and his studies are tailored around a
"dead language motif".
Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, etc etc etc |
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