So *that's* where they got it from!
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@PleegWat I took 5 years of Spanish from through high school (including 1 year in 8th grade), getting A's, and passed the AP Spanish test. Could I speak Spanish, even then? Hah no. I could understand it when spoken slow and with the "correct" accent (ie the textbook one), but was out of my depth with any real speaker. I could write and read...sort of. Minimally and slowly. And my spoken was miserable.
Then I learned Russian with 7 weeks of classroom experience and by about 3 months in to a 2-year church mission I could speak it reasonably (if with a limited general vocabulary). Nearly 20 years later (wow, it hurts to say that, doesn't feel that long ago), I can understand it moderately, can speak it haltingly (vocabulary has degenerated and grammar takes more thought to form), and sort of still read and write, although I haven't done either for a long time.
And now I can't speak any Spanish--the language switch in my brain goes straight to Russian when it leaves English.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
I took 5 years of Spanish from through high school (including 1 year in 8th grade), getting A's, and passed the AP Spanish test. Could I speak Spanish, even then? Hah no. I could understand it when spoken slow and with the "correct" accent (ie the textbook one), but was out of my depth with any real speaker. I could write and read...sort of. Minimally and slowly. And my spoken was miserable.
Heh...I took 3 years (skipped Spanish 2 and got "promoted" to Spanish 3). There was a local Mexican soccer league that played on Sundays. I (and several others from school) joined a team managed by the father of a guy my age (he still cuts my mom's grass). The parents spoke Spanish but the son only spoke English.
Our team was about half guys from the high school and half rando-Mexican wetbacks. I'd communicate in Spanish with our Mexican players. The dad was kind of upset that I spoke better Spanish than his son.
Since I stopped playing soccer my Spanish speaking has really declined, though I can still communicate with the cleaning ladies who don't speak English.
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@boomzilla I think the key is actually using it consistently and frequently, especially with native speakers and by necessity (rather than just as a school exercise). Immersion works so much better than study if you can only do one.
However, I knew a fellow missionary. He had been out 2 months longer than I had been, and his Russian was terrible. Like I'm not going to conjugate any verbs or decline any nouns or adjectives, and I'm just going to literally translate words in standard English word order bad. To the point that even other missionaries (who could generally understand each other, because we know what we're trying to say) struggled to understand him, and natives had no hope. He didn't study. He should have.
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@Benjamin-Hall some people are just not very smart. But yes, a reason to use the language is key.
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@boomzilla said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
I took 5 years of Spanish from through high school (including 1 year in 8th grade), getting A's, and passed the AP Spanish test. Could I speak Spanish, even then? Hah no. I could understand it when spoken slow and with the "correct" accent (ie the textbook one), but was out of my depth with any real speaker. I could write and read...sort of. Minimally and slowly. And my spoken was miserable.
Heh...I took 3 years (skipped Spanish 2 and got "promoted" to Spanish 3). There was a local Mexican soccer league that played on Sundays. I (and several others from school) joined a team managed by the father of a guy my age (he still cuts my mom's grass). The parents spoke Spanish but the son only spoke English.
Our team was about half guys from the high school and half rando-Mexican wetbacks. I'd communicate in Spanish with our Mexican players. The dad was kind of upset that I spoke better Spanish than his son.
Since I stopped playing soccer my Spanish speaking has really declined, though I can still communicate with the cleaning ladies who don't speak English.
Yeah, using is definitely key. While I probably picked up slightly more English in 6 years of school eduacation than French/German in 3, the majority of it is almost certainly because of watching subtitled TV shows, trying to follow the storyline of video games, and at a later point reading books in English for fun and chatting on IRC.
I know my father's German wasn't any good either until he had to do military service on a base in Germany.
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@PleegWat said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@topspin said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
I can understand a tiny bit but not speak it, whereas they usually understand German
Only insofar as it's mandatory in school.
Depends on where you are. People in seaside tourist areas usually speak German to some degree or other (and improvise the rest with Dutch, if they need to) while people in other parts of the country probably try English on anyone who they perceive to be a foreigner.
So you now get German tourists coming to where I live, using English because they’ve been told that in the Netherlands, you need to speak English to be understood … when most people — especially shopkeepers and similar — will speak German well enough that the conversation can just take place in that instead. Said German tourists are then frequently surprised to hear this.
Mind you, last time I was in Germany some years ago, at a convention nearly all the Germans switched to English the moment they perceived I was not a native German speaker. Following which I obstinately continued in German, because it’s annoying when you’re trying to speak someone else’s language and they then think they’re being helpful by using another one. Most then switched back to German, but I remember one who persisted. Because of that, so did I. (This is different from another situation I was once in, when I was speaking German to a German, who was speaking Dutch to me. In England.)
I got through just in time that I got to drop conversation in both German and French and only had to do reading
There was a distinction between that? I (in the late 80s/early 90s) was just taught both, and I had no choice in the matter.
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@Gurth said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@PleegWat said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
I got through just in time that I got to drop conversation in both German and French and only had to do reading
There was a distinction between that? I (in the late 80s/early 90s) was just taught both, and I had no choice in the matter.
Introduced in the late 90s ('Tweede fase'). HAVO got conversation in one of them mandatory; VWO had to do reading for both. And one or two years later they did some further adjustments, adding conversation in one of the two to VWO and dropping the math requirements on some of the VWO profiles (initially all VWO profiles had some minimal amount of maths required)
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@Gurth said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
at a convention nearly all the Germans switched to English the moment they perceived I was not a native German speaker. Following which I obstinately continued in German, because it’s annoying when you’re trying to speak someone else’s language and they then think they’re being helpful by using another one
I do that usually, but with no ill intent. Most foreign students here at least speak some English if they don't speak German.
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@topspin said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
I do that usually, but with no ill intent.
Contrary to some Swiss, or Belgians. I once was in a restaurant in Basel (in German-speaking Switzerland, but on the border with France) and the waitress only condescended to understand our French when we made clear we were French tourists, not Swiss, and that it was therefore not our fault if we didn't speak German (though she probably still saw it as some sort of genetic defect).
Similarly, I went once with friends in a brewery tour in B*****m (near Antwerp, IIRC) and the one Belgian with us took care to start any discussion by dropping in the fact that we were all French, so that everyone tried to speak French with us (he would have understood
the garbled sounds that pass for language thereFlemish, but he didn't want to have to play interpret for the rest of us).Though I also saw the reverse in Canada: in the Rockies, a tourist office had one queue labelled French so we went there without much thinking. The officer was nice, but we clearly spoke much better English than he did French (but since we had started in French, it seemed rude to us to switch to English midway), and the Quebec tourists just behind us probably could have made the effort to speak English to him rather than sticking with their cââlisse of a language.
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@remi said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
the garbled sounds that pass for language there
And still ... you where in a rather easy dialect zone ... try the locals at the coast ...
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@remi said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@topspin said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
I do that usually, but with no ill intent.
Contrary to some Swiss, or Belgians. I once was in a restaurant in Basel (in German-speaking Switzerland, but on the border with France) and the waitress only condescended to understand our French when we made clear we were French tourists, not Swiss, and that it was therefore not our fault if we didn't speak German (though she probably still saw it as some sort of genetic defect).
Actually, that might not be about France in this case. French is also an official language of Switzerland and is part of school curriculum, so in theory all people in all cantons should know at least a little bit.
In reality, though, they don't and make point of speaking their own German dialect. Which is sometimes quite a problem, because their francophone co-citizens learn only standard High German, which is... not exactly the same.
One (francophone) Swiss student in Germany told me that this is actually the reason she went abroad.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
In reality, though, they don't and make point of speaking their own German dialect. Which is sometimes quite a problem, because their francophone co-citizens learn only standard High German, which is... not exactly the same.
Like that, the Swiss are not understood by both the French and the Germans… and that's the way they like it.
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@remi said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
we were French tourists ... she probably still saw it as some sort of genetic defect
Are you trying to claim she was wrong?
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@HardwareGeek French nationality can be acquired, therefore it's not genetic
:qed:.
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@remi said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
French nationality can be acquired
Whereupon you have to spend 14 days in le quarantaine, wearing le masque, then take the test again to see if you've kicked it
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@Applied-Mediocrity Don't worry, it's not very contagious unless you have a sexual relationship with someone who has it (and even then, the child is more likely to catch it than the parent).
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@remi said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@HardwareGeek French nationality can be acquired, therefore it's not genetic
:qed:.But you then pass it on to your children, so at least congenital, if not genetic.
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@dkf said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@Kamil-Podlesak said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
In reality, though, they don't and make point of speaking their own German dialect. Which is sometimes quite a problem, because their francophone co-citizens learn only standard High German, which is... not exactly the same.
Like that, the Swiss are not understood by both the French and the Germans… and that's the way they like it.
Native Germans usually do understand Swiss German - after all, they do understand each other (usually...). They just need to resist the urge to burst in laughter. It's the people that speak German as second or even third language that are completely lost.Disclaimer: Just my observation.
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@PleegWat said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
Introduced in the late 90s ('Tweede fase'). HAVO got conversation in one of them mandatory; VWO had to do reading for both. And one or two years later they did some further adjustments, adding conversation in one of the two to VWO and dropping the math requirements on some of the VWO profiles (initially all VWO profiles had some minimal amount of maths required)
We had none of this newfangled “profiles” business, we just had to pick a number of subjects we wanted to take in the last couple of years, and could do them in just about any combination we liked, whether that made sense or not. So if you wanted to do, say, history, science-oriented maths, biology and oh, I don’t know, French, you could.
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@topspin said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@Gurth said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
at a convention nearly all the Germans switched to English the moment they perceived I was not a native German speaker. Following which I obstinately continued in German, because it’s annoying when you’re trying to speak someone else’s language and they then think they’re being helpful by using another one
I do that usually, but with no ill intent. Most foreign students here at least speak some English if they don't speak German.
Same here, really, but my point is that it doesn’t really help the person if they’re trying to learn (or improve their skill in) your language and you switch to a different one.
@remi said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
Similarly, I went once with friends in a brewery tour in B*****m (near Antwerp, IIRC) and the one Belgian with us took care to start any discussion by dropping in the fact that we were all French, so that everyone tried to speak French with us (he would have understood
the garbled sounds that pass for language thereFlemish, but he didn't want to have to play interpret for the rest of us).In other words, he skillfully avoided getting you caught up in the Belgian language wars. Chances are that they had no problem with speaking French with you because you were French, but that there may have been some resentment if you had turned out to be Walloons instead.
@Luhmann said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
And still ... you where in a rather easy dialect zone ... try the locals at the coast ...
Heh … I figured, “I speak Zeelandic dialect, I should be able to make heads or tails of West-Flemish” when watching Bevergem. Partway though the first episode, I decided that yes, I could, but it was costing me so much effort that I switched on the standard Dutch subtitles after all.
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@Gurth My mum preferred to watch Baantjer (a Dutch TV show) on the Belgian channel since they subtitled it.
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@Gurth said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
In other words, he skillfully avoided getting you caught up in the Belgian language wars. Chances are that they had no problem with speaking French with you because you were French, but that there may have been some resentment if you had turned out to be Walloons instead.
Yes, that's exactly my point. It was fairly clear from a couple of other remarks that if we had been
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@PleegWat said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@Gurth My mum preferred to watch Baantjer (a Dutch TV show) on the Belgian channel since they subtitled it.
I find that silly on both sides: Dutch channels almost invariably subtitle Flemish shows “because it’s Belgian” and Flemish channels almost invariably subtitle Dutch shows “because it’s Hollandic” even when the actual language spoken is standard Dutch with a little bit of an accent that tells you which country it originated from.
@remi said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
Yes, that's exactly my point. It was fairly clear from a couple of other remarks that if we had been
I’ve heard a number of Flemings comment that, “In Wallonia, I speak French. In Brussels, I speak Dutch.” (For those not up to speed on B•••••m: Brussels is officially bilingual Dutch/French, but has about 80% native French-speaking today while historically, a Dutch dialect was spoken there by the vast majority.)
Mind you, the Walloon friend was not much more accommodating towards them and I got the feeling that he would have been more than likely to do the same (i.e. only speak French even though he could speak Flemish) were the Flemish to come to his town.
It’s a very strange situation in B•••••m, where 1) Wallonia’s (semi?)official stance is that there should be freedom of language, and that of Flanders is that people in its territory should speak Dutch; while 2) Wallonia makes people in its territory use French, and Flanders facilitates the use of French in dealings with the government. And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.
Of course, the chief reason Belgium is an independent country is because its French-speaking elite didn’t want to be forced to speak Dutch two centuries ago. (Most Walloons didn’t speak French either at the time, BTW, but have gradually been “encouraged” to by formal education.)
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@Gurth said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
I’ve heard a number of Flemings comment that, “In Wallonia, I speak French. In Brussels, I speak Dutch.” (For those not up to speed on B•••••m: Brussels is officially bilingual Dutch/French, but has about 80% native French-speaking today while historically, a Dutch dialect was spoken there by the vast majority.)
I wonder: why don't they just speak half-duplex? That is, in conversation between person A and person B, A speaks language X and B responds in language Y.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@Gurth said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
I’ve heard a number of Flemings comment that, “In Wallonia, I speak French. In Brussels, I speak Dutch.” (For those not up to speed on B•••••m: Brussels is officially bilingual Dutch/French, but has about 80% native French-speaking today while historically, a Dutch dialect was spoken there by the vast majority.)
I wonder: why don't they just speak half-duplex? That is, in conversation between person A and person B, A speaks language X and B responds in language Y.
I tried that once when speaking with a foreigner who wanted to similarly exercise a second language. It gets wearisome fast because listening to language X makes you "think in that language" and you might thus answer in language X.
You really need to stay aware of yourself or be very used to code-switching to be able to keep alternating languages.
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@JBert said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@Kamil-Podlesak said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@Gurth said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
I’ve heard a number of Flemings comment that, “In Wallonia, I speak French. In Brussels, I speak Dutch.” (For those not up to speed on B•••••m: Brussels is officially bilingual Dutch/French, but has about 80% native French-speaking today while historically, a Dutch dialect was spoken there by the vast majority.)
I wonder: why don't they just speak half-duplex? That is, in conversation between person A and person B, A speaks language X and B responds in language Y.
I tried that once when speaking with a foreigner who wanted to similarly exercise a second language. It gets wearisome fast because listening to language X makes you "think in that language" and you might thus answer in language X.
You really need to stay aware of yourself or be very used to code-switching to be able to keep alternating languages.
Yes, it's not easy and it requires training. Which, presumably, should be already supplied by the education system and the media. It worked that way in Czechoslovakia and Flamewaloonia is older by a full century (and it still exists)!
Maybe it works only for closely related languages.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
Maybe it works only for closely related languages.
It only works when there's a willingness among the people for it to work.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
Maybe it works only for closely related languages.
My Indian colleagues can fluently mix English and Hindi during their conversations so it's not as if they need to be related.
It's actually slightly disconcerting overhearing them because you frequently think "I know some of those words".
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@Gurth said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
It’s a very strange situation in B•••••m, where 1) Wallonia’s (semi?)official stance is that there should be freedom of language, and that of Flanders is that people in its territory should speak Dutch; while 2) Wallonia makes people in its territory use French, and Flanders facilitates the use of French in dealings with the government. And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.
Something like that but not quite ... see Wallonia has nothing to say about language or culture (and education). The Walloon Regional government handels most economic related things (and location based stuff).
So this gives three regions that are geographically strictly defined: Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels (that is smack in the middle of Flanders but neither region wanted to give up).
Wallonia (- the German speaking part) + French speaking Brussels form the French Community that does all things related to French Culture and Education.
So this gives three Communities: Flemish, French and German (who everbody keeps forgetting)
The Flemish didn't like the 2 government principle and threw the Community and Region together into one Flemish government, that for some things has something to say about Brussels but not for others.
The official base rule is freedom of language. But ... Federalized governments can choice a base language for all their services and the services that are provided by underlying organisations and governments (eg the local and city councils). EXCEPT for a defined list of localities (mostly those surrounding Brussels) that are declared bilingual.Anyway the language thing is sensitive. I don't mind speaking French (even if I'm terrible at it) but there sometimes is a certain ... reluctance sometimes to adapt to the different language. Even in an IT setting in bigger companies where you work with colleagues who speak both languages every meeting starts with the same question: what language are we going to use?
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
why don't they just speak half-duplex?
Sometimes we do. You get meetings with an English presentation, presented in Dutch where the questions are in French. This generally doesn't help communication however. Everybody is constantly translating and switching languages.
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@JBert said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@Kamil-Podlesak said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
Maybe it works only for closely related languages.
My Indian colleagues can fluently mix English and Hindi during their conversations so it's not as if they need to be related.
It's actually slightly disconcerting overhearing them because you frequently think "I know some of those words".
Isn’t that because a lot of words in Hindi are of English origin? (Or so it seems from what I know about this from TV, anyway.) Including things that, I would think, the language would have native words for, like counting.
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@Luhmann said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
Something like that but not quite ... see Wallonia has nothing to say about language or culture (and education).
You’re right, I meant the respective language communities rather than Flanders and Wallonia.
The official base rule is freedom of language. But ... Federalized governments can choice a base language for all their services and the services that are provided by underlying organisations and governments (eg the local and city councils).
It’s not the federal government that’s the problem, it’s the language communities that either provide language facilities but would rather not (Dutch language community/Flanders) or do their best to prevent having to provide them (French language community/Wallonia).
a defined list of localities (mostly those surrounding Brussels) that are declared bilingual.
For those not up to speed, he’s talking about faciliteitengemeenten (English) here.
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@Gurth said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
faciliteitengemeenten (English)
I was dancing around that word but yes
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@Gurth said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
For those not up to speed
Some of us prefer to remain not up to speed on things related to B*****m.
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@Gurth said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
It’s not the federal government that’s the problem
Federalized eg the subsidiaries, but the problem starts in the constitution by how things are defined based on language and how these rules are interpreted.
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@HardwareGeek
Unfortunately I'm not that lucky.
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@JBert said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
@Kamil-Podlesak said in So *that's* where they got it from!:
Maybe it works only for closely related languages.
My Indian colleagues can fluently mix English and Hindi during their conversations so it's not as if they need to be related.
It's actually slightly disconcerting overhearing them because you frequently think "I know some of those words".
I hear that with a lot of Spanish speakers around here.
