I attribute this to the fact that I don't really remember learning grammar at school in English, and the grammar is generally so simple that you can kind of pick it up without making any conscious effort. Not so in other languages, I've found.
Polish is my native language. I don't speak any other Slavic language, but due to the similarities between the three, my Polish helps me understand the general gist of what a person means when they speak Czech or Slovak. I've tried to understand people speaking Ukrainian or Russian on occasion, but that's a bit too far. I can sort-of make out a few words here and there, if I'm lucky.
English I've learnt, but by now I consider myself proficient enough that I might as well be a native speaker (I do think I've passed the point that most learners of a language never do, where it doesn't feel like it's a foreign language that I'm speaking. I even think in English with some frequency.)
This does not have direct impact on any language skills, but I studied Linguistics at college (in an English Studies department), so that helps me with understanding the inner workings of language in general, and of English specifically. I figure I'm more comfortable with early Modern English (say, Shakespeare) than most natives are. It always surprises me a bit that Britons or Americans tend to have trouble reading Shakespeare without annotations...
Also, I love to pick apart the grammar and etymology of languages I don't speak (reading Wikipedia articles about the grammar of random languages is something I do surprisingly often). Also, to learn songs in languages I don't know a single word of. I'm weird that way.
EDIT: Tlaloc,QuoteI attribute this to the fact that I don't really remember learning grammar at school in English, and the grammar is generally so simple that you can kind of pick it up without making any conscious effort. Not so in other languages, I've found.
It's not actually due to the simplicity of the grammar. If English is your native language, that's what the difference is between learning a language and acquiring it, according to some theories in linguistics. Languages acquired early in life are not picked up as a skill, but an almost innate ability that our brains are hard-wired to pick up. It changes later in life, that's why you have to pick up theory and rules and learn exceptions by heart in foreign languages. That's also the reason why uneducated people can always speak their own language grammatically, correctly and with no effort. Their brains don't need to "learn" much, when the person is young enough that the language "settings" of the brain have not... solidified yet to match their native language (or languages).
This is related to the theory of Universal Grammar, which Wikipedia explains pretty well if you're interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar
Interesting. And frustrating. I really hope one day to speak Czech with some degree of fluency and to be fair I can if the topic stays on certain points. Other things however and I'm all at sea. It's just learning vocabulary and grammar day by day for the time being.
Yeah. I'm sure. It helps being immersed and having a relationship and close friends who speak English as a second or third language and their firsts are Slovak and Czech.
Wow, this forum is impressively multilingual! English is the only language I am fluent in, but I am (painstakingly slowly) making noticeable improvements in my Spanish. I'm assuming it's more common to speak multiple language in Europe than it is here in the states?
So my last post has a typo in it but I'm leaving it there because I think it's hilarious that there's a typo in a post where I claim I'm fluent in English. Anyway:I can only add that I do this too...
I think you're right about travel outside the U.S. being outside the norm for people who live here. I live in southern California, and discounting travel to Mexico (which is less than an hour away by car), I and most people I know have never travelled to another country. I have no stats or anything to support this but I would also assume this holds true for much of the country.
Something interesting to note is that a foreign language was also mandatory for me here stateside, but it was only two years, very few languages were offered, and it didn't happen until grades 9 and 10. It was treated as such an afterthought that what little knowledge stuck from these classes, slid back off pretty quickly. Conversations with spanish-speaking friends and coworkers has proven a much more usable education.
I speak only English. However, I can just about manage shopping and getting a room for the night in French and German. As I now have a Japanese daughter-in-law I am trying to start a Japanese course - but I doubt, with so little language-fu to build on and the ravages of age on my memory capacity, that I will reach a useful level with it (however interesting I may find what I do learn).
Wow, this forum is impressively multilingual! English is the only language I am fluent in, but I am (painstakingly slowly) making noticeable improvements in my Spanish. I'm assuming it's more common to speak multiple language in Europe than it is here in the states?
Is there much commonality across the Chinese and neigbouring languages like there is for romantic, Germanic/gothic and Scandic languages?
Is there much commonality across the Chinese and neigbouring languages like there is for romantic, Germanic/gothic and Scandic languages?Cornelius's post covers this comprehensively from a linguistic point of view, but there is the cultural complication of written language. Imagine if French, German, English, Spanish and Italian all shared a common written language, so that people could not understand each other's speech, but could communicate freely in writing. That is essentially the situation with Chinese languages. Cantonese and Shanghainese, for example, are mutually incomprehensible, but speakers of these two "dialects" can communicate in writing.
Just english for me, but I wanna learn French and Japanese. My computer is filled with pretty much every single quick guide, walk through, or learning software I could get my grubby little hands on from the library, but I have yet to touch any of them.
My wife and I have a trip to japan coming up in 2018 so maybe that'll light a fire under me to actually learn some of the dang language so I don't look like a complete idiot
Just english for me, but I wanna learn French and Japanese. My computer is filled with pretty much every single quick guide, walk through, or learning software I could get my grubby little hands on from the library, but I have yet to touch any of them.
My wife and I have a trip to japan coming up in 2018 so maybe that'll light a fire under me to actually learn some of the dang language so I don't look like a complete idiot
Practise and persistence makes perfect. Start now! :psyduck:
English, Swedish, Bengali.
Basic French.
Proficient in Gobbledygook
Can't speak for the rest of Europe, but from what I've heard, yeah - there tend to be at least a few years of foreign language classes in schools throughout European countries.