" . . . ear twisting accents and the benefits of immersion . . . "

[Pressureangle]

On 4/7/2022 at 9:21 AM, p6x said:

There is possibly an age factor. I am not certain, but it appears that many of us have reached the wisdom age?

I am on another forum about a popular console game, and you can tell some participants are a lot younger. Not that it changes anything in what they have to say. However they take offense easily if you contradict them. Sometimes message have unintended consequences as the intended communication is not read the same way you thought you were writing it.

Expressing oneself in English is also an issue for those of us who grew up using other languages. That brings me an idea. Do you think it would be good to use different languages instead of the one only?

six months in Italian, six months in German.... it would be fun! I think?

Drifting from the thread a bit; it's not your language skills that fail with youth, it is theirs. Americans have been systematically trained to eliminate precision in language, and it shows more acutely every year. It's my observation that the English skills, both spoken and written, by non-native speakers are quite usually far above the average US English speaker. 
I can get on in Spanish, French, and German (after a little recent immersion) and touched on Pashto. I lament that I didn't grow up multilingual. 

[Lucky Phil]

2 hours ago, Pressureangle said:

Drifting from the thread a bit; it's not your language skills that fail with youth, it is theirs. Americans have been systematically trained to eliminate precision in language, and it shows more acutely every year. It's my observation that the English skills, both spoken and written, by non-native speakers are quite usually far above the average US English speaker. 
I can get on in Spanish, French, and German (after a little recent immersion) and touched on Pashto. I lament that I didn't grow up multilingual. 

I'm very envious of multilingual people but here's a tip if you're using foreign language forums. If you type SLOWER in upper case it usually makes things much clearer and understandable. Hope this helps.

Ciao

[Pressureangle]

23 minutes ago, Lucky Phil said:

I'm very envious of multilingual people but here's a tip if you're using foreign language forums. If you type SLOWER in upper case it usually makes things much clearer and understandable. Hope this helps.

Ciao

Just like real life.

[p6x]

2 hours ago, Pressureangle said:

Drifting from the thread a bit; it's not your language skills that fail with youth, it is theirs. Americans have been systematically trained to eliminate precision in language, and it shows more acutely every year. It's my observation that the English skills, both spoken and written, by non-native speakers are quite usually far above the average US English speaker. 
I can get on in Spanish, French, and German (after a little recent immersion) and touched on Pashto. I lament that I didn't grow up multilingual. 

Some languages are better suited at describing emotions than others; however, having been an expatriate since 1980, each language has its pros and cons. Having worked in English with many non native speakers, with very Cambridge and Oxford engineers, ivy league Americans, I noticed that everyone resorted to very basic English to enable the best communication. Non native speakers are supposed to have a limited vocabulary, and keep using made up sentences over and over again.

I used to be extremely fluent in many languages, including my native one, and I find myself looking for words more often than not, for the lack of having erudite conversations. Like everything else, a language needs to be written, spoken and read often to be kept at the same quality level. This is why learning a language at school does not take you much further than the very basics.

In 82, I got an assignment for Texaco in Germany, and stayed in a village where absolutely nobody spoke anything but German. This is to me the best way to improve your language skills in very little time.

Today, no matter where you go, even the most remote places, you are bound to find someone who can speak very basic English. It is not as much fun as it used to be. I remember my first job in Italy. I landed in Milano, had a rental car reserved, got the rental company map, and nothing else to find a drilling rig site in the middle of nowhere. People always think that Latin languages are so related that you are able to get by. Not!

Learning anything written in Roman characters is relatively easy. If you cannot read the language, it becomes a lot more challenging.... today, places have information shown in multiple languages, including Chinese, Japanese and so on. My first job in Greece was interesting, but I was lucky because there were so many Germans....

[docc]

1 hour ago, p6x said:

. . .  " for the lack of having erudite conversations. Like everything else, a language needs to be written, spoken and read often to be kept at the same quality level. This is why learning a language at school does not take you much further than the very basics ."

Fascinating. This helps explain why my German from my very earliest youth in Bavaria, three years of "school French," ordering MexFood in Spanish, and keeping my Sport's service records in Italian have me no closer to even remote fluency.

On the other hand, I have developed a repertoire of very bad accents in several languages.

[p6x]

2 hours ago, docc said:

Fascinating. This helps explain why my German from my very earliest youth in Bavaria, three years of "school French," ordering MexFood in Spanish, and keeping my Sport's service records in Italian have me no closer to even remote fluency.

On the other hand, I have developed a repertoire of very bad accents in several languages.

Accents are the most intriguing components of any languages. Take the US for example; you can identify state origin simply from the flow and growl. To the foreign ear, the challenge is different. Those of us coming from Europe have been taught English by teachers with British accents or, the foreign accent of their country of citizenship. This is never a good preparation when meeting a pure bred Texan for the first time. Scholar English never prepares you for North Sea Scottish roughnecks and rustabouts.

Studies have demonstrated that unless you learned it from scratch an spoke it with a native, you will never lose your primary accent. This is the reason why people foreign born and migrating keep speaking with a very defining accent. Usually Latin languages are easily identifiable. Closer to us, I would bet that everyone can tell if you are from United Kingdom, the USA. Australia, New Zealand. Canadian French is also difficult to understand on first hand.

Anyway, the only way to keep your languages to efficiency level, is to use them more often than not, and to find people who have a greater command at them than you, so you can enrich your vocabulary. The key to success though, is to use writing and speaking. Reading is not enough.

[Speedfrog]

After this highly entertaining and educative interlude where we learned about the virtues of multilingualism, the pitfalls of ear twisting accents and the benefits of immersion when trying to master a foreign language, we will resume our scheduled programming...

The forum pages are again loading normally, it must have been a temporary glitch, nothing to worry about. Carry on  

[Pressureangle]

5 hours ago, Speedfrog said:

After this highly entertaining and educative interlude where we learned about the virtues of multilingualism, the pitfalls of ear twisting accents and the benefits of immersion when trying to master a foreign language, we will resume our scheduled programming...

The forum pages are again loading normally, it must have been a temporary glitch, nothing to worry about. Carry on  

Perhaps the translator took a sick day and the substitute wasn't fluent. 

[Speedfrog]

I’m telling the truth, very, slowly

내가 다가갈게 천천히, 아주 천천히
손짓만으로 알 수가 있지 
너가 얼마나 착한 애인지 

[Pressureangle]

1 hour ago, Speedfrog said:

I’m telling the truth, very, slowly

내가 다가갈게 천천히, 아주 천천히
손짓만으로 알 수가 있지 
너가 얼마나 착한 애인지 

[Speedfrog]

눈빛만으로 알 수가 있지 

어떤 세상을 살아왔는지

[p6x]

 

[guzzler]

Ha ha 

I struggle with my native New Zealand English.....

Cheers Guzzler