Learning another language

Your English grammAr is bad also boy.

Stay behind after school.

 

Out of interest , have you met Daniel Stendel or Chris Stern and conversed in German? Bet they appreciated it if you have.

 

Daniel yes, 3 times, Stern not yet, Winkler once before he left.

The first time Daniel really appreciated it as his English wasn't so good. After that though he often switched into English and it was obvious he wanted to learn and was more confident.

When he first came I offered my services to the club free of charge to help him with his English. My offer was declined.

 

For me the immersion theory has never worked, the only time I ever really improve at languages I speak are when I put the hard yards in and crack the grammar books, and even then my improvement levels are painfully slow. I like to blame it on my brain not being predisposed to language acquisition, but I think I just have the lazy native English speaking disease.

It's been painful recently, I live in Germany but had to get my Russian up to scratch again to visit the wife's family out in Bashkiria, none of whom speak any English. For a good few months of intensive Russian study and having to speak German at work my brain fused the two languages into some 'foreign' hybrid.

 

Are your wife's family in Ufa? I've never been but I've heard it's well worth a visit. Went to neighbouring Kazan a few years ago, that's an absolutely stunning city.

 

Not ashamed to admit it, i'm a proppa dumplin when it comes to Spanish had lessons, bought cds, watched Dora the explora, and i think Grassy ass is the only real thing i learnt, until mi brother in law said Grassy ass meant Spanish prostitute

 

Ola Boa tarde .. I'm being nosey... Which part of Portugal are you based.. I was living in setubal when I lived over there....

 

I got ok at Portuguese when I spent some time in Brazil. Apparently my Barnsley accent helped with the Brazilian accent. Forgot most of it now through lack of use...

 

My parents are fluent greek speakers after living and learning over there over the last 20 years. Their greek however is 'village' and i've seen my dad struggle conversing with an Athenian. It is one of my great pleasures in life to sit up the mountain listening to my parents speaking with their neighbours (and drinking their raki).

 

Pedrogao Grande, 40 minutes from Coimbra. Remember the fire 2017

 

I lived in Germany for a year (albeit attached to the RAF) and really tried to improve my German but not that well. I can read it and speak a bit but lack confidence - I struggle to understand when I hear it! We have friends in Berlin and I doubt I've ever spoken more than a few sentences with them - they want to improve their English!

I've done a few international events with the YMCA and was always impressed at how the Scandinavian delegates did so well with languages - always English, and often very passable French, German or Italian. Did find though that in those environments conversations got slowed down and dialects tempered down and I suppose that's the key to helping understanding.

If you want to learn TK go for it!

 

OK - I'm a language teacher. Trust me! I learned French and German at school and studied French at University. I also taught (and still do) English to non-English speakers though I am mainly retired. It's true that you learn a foreign language easier when you are younger - but that doesn't mean you can't learn one at an older age. I am trying to get to learn some Mandarin Chinese right now (I am 70) because most of the students I teach are mainland Chinese. There are lots of ways and some good ideas online. Films and programmes with sub titles are good - though not so much so in Chinese when you have the characters to cope with. Look up Duolingo on the internet - it's a free resource and covers all the main languages. There are lots of other online resources too to help you. When on holiday - try out your skills with the locals. People have different ways of learning too - and remember that understanding comes before production. That means you listen and understand but it is harder then to speak and write the language. Learning Chinese - I need to recognise some characters but I don't plan to be able to write it. Getting the sounds right is a big enough challenge! I try things on my students and they look at me gone out - "What's he trying to say!!??" and they can help me out too...

 

My other half has just got a good grasp of Italian in a few months doing online courses. She's fluent in Spanish though so that is a big help. I can do a bit of French and Spanish but whimp out when I have to start doing the hard slog of grammar and tenses.
I did try to get a grasp of gaelic when I moved over here but found it damn near impenetrable. I've got a bit better but still look at words written down that bear absolutely no resemblance to how they're pronounced. It's got me beat I'm afraid.

 

I have been trying for years to learn mandarin.

You must have had very understanding listeners as I have found that you are judged by skin colour , so if you try and speak mandarin they think yoh speaking English coz you are an amg moh and they get very confused.

 

there's also a duolingo app which is a good way to get started

 

You're right about the scandinavians. I have quite a few norwegian friends and i can converse with them as easily as any native english speaker.

 

A huge reason why the Finns and Scandinavians are so good at English is that all their telly is subtitled rather than dubbed. In Finland, even the kids' programs are BBC in original language. This means that they get used to hearing the sounds from a very early age. It has the added bonus that Finnish kids learn to read in their own language very quickly, as they need to read the subs to understand what's going on.

This may sound quite banal, but there's been a lot of research done on it. And from my own experience, I can compare the standard of English in those countries to that in Italy, Spain and Russia, all countries that dub their TV.

I'd be interested to know whether the Dutch and Germans also tend towards subtitles rather than dubbing, as their English also tends to be very proficient.

 

I believe that Dutch tv is subtitled instead of dubbed and some shows in rare cases are just broadcast in English without the subtitles at all.

 

Yes that's a really good point. It's dubbed in France also.