Is Your Significant Other A Foreigner? Do You Speak His/Her Language?

[Designer]

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[Designer]

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[jcdeboever]

And why is that funny, exactly?

It's not funny, you are limr! I just love to get your eyes rolling back into your head. You are so awesome. You pay attention to such detail. If I was fishing for limrs, I would be a pro. I really was trying to brighten up your day in a weird way. It's all just fun for me really.

I am so glad my frustration is so amusing to you. No, no really, I like being patronized.

Oh limr.... [emoji25]

 

[Designer]

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[smoke665]

In my life's bucket list, way down toward the bottom is become fluent in another language. No particular need or reason, just because. Many years ago I had a Manufacturer's Rep who handled a lot of overseas sales for us. He not only spoke 7 different languages, but could switch in mid sentence, which I understood to be extremely difficult.

 

[limr]

In my life's bucket list, way down toward the bottom is become fluent in another language. No particular need or reason, just because. Many years ago I had a Manufacturer's Rep who handled a lot of overseas sales for us. He not only spoke 7 different languages, but could switch in mid sentence, which I understood to be extremely difficult.

Not necessarily. It can be more difficult if you don't know one of the languages as well as the other, and sometimes the transitions can be bumpy with a few stumbles over words depending on where or why the transition happens, but it's not uncommon for people to switch. You'll often see it in people who are fairly balanced bilinguals talking to other people in their community who speak both languages. It's called code-switching: start speaking in one language and then switch to another. People don't even always realize they're doing it.

 

[Cortian]

He not only spoke 7 different languages, but could switch in mid sentence, which I understood to be extremely difficult.

Not really. Not IME, anyway. What can be more difficult is not switching languages in midstream, because certain languages express certain things in ways no other language can.

It's called code-switching: start speaking in one language and then switch to another. People don't even always realize they're doing it.

Yup. My wife does it.

What's particularly funny is when she's been on the phone to a Dutch person, gets off the phone, I ask her something (in English) or she wants to relate something to me and she just takes off at a mile-a-minute in Dutch. I wait for her to come up for air and just give her a steady look. She'll look at me in confusion for a second then go "I just said that to you in Dutch, didn't I?"

Usually I get it all. Sometimes not.

 

[limr]

My father did it all the time. I remember once asking him the time and he said, "Il est huit o'clock." His first language was Portuguese, but he was fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, and English as well. He made lots of grammar mistakes and had a thick accent because English was the last language he learned, and he didn't start until he was in his 40s and had moved to New York, but he was definitely fluent. We grew up just knowing how to understand him when he started throwing any one of his other languages into his speech.

I once ordered lunch in France by asking for "une omelette com queijo" (half French, half Portuguese). Some words or phrases or ideas just come more easily in one language than in another.

 

[smoke665]

Not necessarily. It can be more difficult if you don't know one of the languages as well as the other, and sometimes the transitions can be bumpy with a few stumbles over words depending on where or why the transition happens

It's been many, many years, but I think as he explained it, the order/phrasing was different, and caused him pause sometimes. This was man who could stand in a circle of men all speaking a different language and carry on simultaneous conversations. Seems I remember two or three of the languages were Chinese. He was Brazilian, so Portuguese, and Spanish. Dutch may have been another one, can't remember the rest. I usually just stood there nodding my head every so often and grunting.

 

[otherprof]

I’m terrible at learning languages, but have been making some surprising progress in Spanish using Duolingo online.

I'm using Duolingo and Bart de Pau's learndutch.org, which my wife found.

One of my strangest examples from Duolingo
Recently I learned how to say “I am in the witness protection program.”

 

[Gary A.]

View attachment 155346

I’m terrible at learning languages, but have been making some surprising progress in Spanish using Duolingo online.

I'm using Duolingo and Bart de Pau's learndutch.org, which my wife found.

One of my strangest examples from Duolingo
Recently I learned how to say “I am in the witness protection program.”

Oh man ... that is the first thing I learned:

1) Je suis dans le programme federal de protection des temoins;
2) Estoy en el programa federal de proteccion de testigos;
3) Io sono la testimonianza federale programma di protezione;
4) Ich bin in der Bundesrepublik Zeugenschutzprogramm.

 

[Vtec44]

My wife is American and she speaks two languages. I'm American and I speak three languages, four if you include Sarcasm.

 

[pixmedic]

yo no soy marinero, soy capitan.

 

[otherprof]

Language is a funny thing and it definitely atrophies. For those of you who took it at school, I would guess you're right in your estimation that you couldn't really speak it now, but how much can you still read and figure out if you had to?

I took 5 years of French in high school, and then another semester of composition in college. The first time I went to France, I knew I was very rusty and didn't expect to be able to speak or understand well. My strengths were always more in written language, but even so, the language classes you generally find in high schools don't focus as much on the oral/aural skills. They were starting to change when I went through, but if you were taking classes in the 70s or earlier, the main focus was on grammar, repetition drills, memorization, and writing. This is not a recipe that fosters good conversational skills

Still, a lot came back to me and I was able to have simple interactions with people in French. And the longer you stay, the more will come back.

This is in direct contrast to my experience with Turkish, which I learned through the necessity to speak it in my everyday life. I was never very good at reading it, and certainly not writing it. Again, because I haven't used it for years, I've forgotten a lot of it.

My biggest regret is not trying to learn Portuguese earlier in life. My parents spoke it at home when my oldest sisters were young, but once my sisters went to school, my mother decided to switch the home language to English. This was a time when people discouraged bilingualism in children and my mother wanted to avoid the initial confusion she saw my sisters go through as they sorted out which language was which. So by the time I came along (the 5th child), we were all speaking English at home, though my parents still spoke Portuguese with each other sometimes. I always wanted to learn, but didn't insist on it, and now I wish I had. I learned it as a second language as an adult by taking classes and moving to Portugal, but I would not consider myself fluent. I try to keep in practice, but it's hard.

@Cortian I applaud your effort! I would love to learn Dutch. Maybe one day. I've always thought that I'd be an expat again one day, so perhaps the Netherlands will be my next stop

In my life's bucket list, way down toward the bottom is become fluent in another language. No particular need or reason, just because. Many years ago I had a Manufacturer's Rep who handled a lot of overseas sales for us. He not only spoke 7 different languages, but could switch in mid sentence, which I understood to be extremely difficult.

Not necessarily. It can be more difficult if you don't know one of the languages as well as the other, and sometimes the transitions can be bumpy with a few stumbles over words depending on where or why the transition happens, but it's not uncommon for people to switch. You'll often see it in people who are fairly balanced bilinguals talking to other people in their community who speak both languages. It's called code-switching: start speaking in one language and then switch to another. People don't even always realize they're doing it.

In a philosophy class I was teaching we were considering Wittgenstein's idea that to know a language is to know a way of life. A Japanese student agreed enthusiastically, and shared the following story. Her sister, who lived in Japan, had come to the US to apply for a job with the Japanese legation at the United Nations. Part of the interview process was for her to discuss current events with a male interviewer. She had to demonstrate fluency in both English and Japanese, so they had a conversation during which he switched back and forth from Japanese to English. Each time he switched, she had to switch to the appropriate language. Her sister asked how it went. She replied that she had no problem speaking or understanding English, but by the time it was over she had a stiff neck. This was because every time she switched to English, her head came up and she could look him in the eye and even disagree with him. Every time they switched to Japanese, her head went down, her eyes averted his, and she could not possibly disagree with him!

 

[Dean_Gretsch]

My other half ( technically we aren't married at this time ) is English and I understand her most of the time