• How I came to respect bilingual speakers
    163 replies, posted
I speak English, German (and sort of Pennsylvania Dutch), and learned Mandarin Chinese in the army. I studied Spanish for five years when I was a kid, and even though I can read it fluently and write it alright, all through high school I thought I had some inability to understand the spoken language. It turns out everyone was just from Puerto Rico, lol. Whenever I try to speak it, I am out of practice and the words want to come out in German, sadly. Speaking, listening, and reading are all different skills that need to be practiced separately, as they're either passive or active activities and use a different part of your brain. [QUOTE=Konigstiger96;19098226]我不知道这是什么 Truly badass.[/QUOTE] Awesome, I'll take three.
As long as you can understand two languages you are all set.
I fluently speak English and spanish. Pretty useful, living in Texas.
Man in my General Chem lab in college we had a fair amount of Chinese study abroad students so we had to have a Chinese lab assistant. Sometimes our professor would ramble something off and the aide would start chatting in Chinese. The aide had a few conversations with me and my friend and would always laugh at the way we worded things. I guess we mess up the language a bit. Another thing, I was taking a Chinese history course and we had a few Chinese kids in there. He'd ask them, in fluent chinese, about certain topics and they'd try to explain it in English. Of course, he'd also ramble in French. Best part, he's Canadian.
How well does Rosetta Stone work?
[QUOTE=Nenghis;19081018]I speak Danish, English and German. German is fucking insane.[/QUOTE] The past tense forms make me want to rage. [editline]09:49AM[/editline] [QUOTE=bregitta;19097900] [b]My Mum's family are German and I would love to be able to learn that too, but the words are so long that even buying a simple language books scares the hell out of me. 'Butterfly' is 'Schmetterling'..it's such an angry language. And I don't understand why these languages have 'feminine' or 'masculine' words..English makes so much more sense in that department (but I agree it'd be SHIT to learn).[/b] [/QUOTE] Just wing it, you have a 33.3% chance at getting the form right.
What about trilinguals?
i speak romanian, which is russian with fancy words for food
It's best to learn before you start puberty. So if you want your kids to know another language, start young.
I speak schoolboy French and German, the latter being totally fucking confusing and the former being a breeze.
Damn right you better respect us, shit's hard. The worst thing I do is mixing the language up by using English words in the middle of the sentences when I'm speaking to a polish person, it confuses the shit out of them. OP, you need to speak to other bi-linguals, try taking to them in the language you're learning (obviously they have to know it), they'll correct you and give you tips ect. I often find the easiest way to get better at a language is through conversation.
[QUOTE=MachiniOs;19148305]Damn right you better respect us, shit's hard. The worst thing I do is mixing the language up by using English words in the middle of the sentences when I'm speaking to a polish person, it confuses the shit out of them. OP, you need to speak to other bi-linguals, try taking to them in the language you're learning (obviously they have to know it), they'll correct you and give you tips ect. I often find the easiest way to get better at a language is through conversation.[/QUOTE] I agree. It doesn't matter how many exercises or tests you do, you need to start talking /writing in another language on a regular basis, that should give you a pretty good idea of how proficient you are at mastering another language, besides... nobody will turn your back on you if you sound wrong speaking in another language, people's always ready to help you out :P On the other hand, I really can't stand chinese/korean people trying to speak in spanish... They make me RAGE!!! UGGGGHHHH!!!! [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVXViw1qx9o[/media]
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