Learning A Foreign Language
Discussion
5 weeks ago I broke a bone in my foot and I as live in the countryside, I've sort of been a bit isolated and bored to tears. This has led to hours on PH and watching Escape to the Country and Kojak 
In my search to find something productive to do during my 6 week sabbatical I've come across a website that I thought I'd share with PH!
In my line of work I have to deal with foreign colleagues and the one thing that always strikes me is how good their English is!
Here in the UK few of us learn a forgeign language past our GCSEs and what we do learn in school is fairly limited. I suppose it's just laziness; people in France, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain etc all speak English, so we don't really need to learn their languages.
Anyway, I have found a great website where you can speak to people in different countries and teach eachother your respective languages. It works via instant messages, but you can also do voice chat and just normal emails. It's free aswell
I was thinking as many PHers are jetsetters, it might be useful for you to brush up on a foreign language. Is anybody else learning a foreign language or learnt one since leaving school?
http://www.sharedtalk.com/
In my search to find something productive to do during my 6 week sabbatical I've come across a website that I thought I'd share with PH!In my line of work I have to deal with foreign colleagues and the one thing that always strikes me is how good their English is!
Here in the UK few of us learn a forgeign language past our GCSEs and what we do learn in school is fairly limited. I suppose it's just laziness; people in France, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain etc all speak English, so we don't really need to learn their languages.
Anyway, I have found a great website where you can speak to people in different countries and teach eachother your respective languages. It works via instant messages, but you can also do voice chat and just normal emails. It's free aswell
I was thinking as many PHers are jetsetters, it might be useful for you to brush up on a foreign language. Is anybody else learning a foreign language or learnt one since leaving school?
http://www.sharedtalk.com/
catmartin said:
I suppose it's just laziness; people in France, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain etc all speak English, so we don't really need to learn their languages.
We (in the Netherlands) had to learn all those other languages as everyone speaks English, but no-one speaks Dutch as we are a tiny country and our language is only spoken in Holland.I used to live very close to the German and Belgian borders, so if i would go to Germany the people there would expect me to speak German, but... if Germans would come to Holland they'd still expect us to speak German. Same goes for the French language in parts of Belgium, they just expect us to adjust hence our schools are really focused on teaching foreing languages.
I did German, French, English and Spannish in school, and happen to be half Egyptian as well so language wise i can get around
I often hear collegues say they wish they spoke more languages but then i always say that the whole world speaks their language (English) so they can afford to be a bit lazy language wise really.
Medic-one said:
catmartin said:
I suppose it's just laziness; people in France, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain etc all speak English, so we don't really need to learn their languages.
We (in the Netherlands) had to learn all those other languages as everyone speaks English, but no-one speaks Dutch as we are a tiny country and our language is only spoken in Holland.I think people in other countries also benefit from all the music,tv and films that are in English. Hence many people from Scandanvia having American accents a lá Jack from Lost.
One of the weirdest experiences I've had is my French exchange student singing along to Britney when she didn't speak a word of English her entire stay! Conversely, I've started listening to Shakira's Spanish albums again to improve my skills
catmartin said:
One of the weirdest experiences I've had is my French exchange student singing along to Britney when she didn't speak a word of English her entire stay! Conversely, I've started listening to Shakira's Spanish albums again to improve my skills
This is something that amazes me with Thais. They can't say v or th sounds, they confuse Ls and Rs, and they have difficulty with words that end in an l - hence football becomes footban. Yet get them singing and they can make just about any sound. scorp said:
TVR Moneypit said:
Thanks for the heads up.
Trying to learn Maderin and improve my Cantonese, but the wife cant really be arsed to teach me any more :rolloeyes:
Trying to learn Cantonese myself, talk about deep end.. Trying to learn Maderin and improve my Cantonese, but the wife cant really be arsed to teach me any more :rolloeyes:
d language. Tonal like Thai, but usually spoken 100 times faster.catmartin said:
many people from Scandanvia having American accents
I used to have a sort of US accent going, from all Hollywood movies and music, then I moved to UK, and now people ask me if I'm Canadian or even Australian. I suppose that means my English is somewhat better than the usual Finnish F1 and WRC stars. 
catmartin said:
Medic-one said:
catmartin said:
I suppose it's just laziness; people in France, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain etc all speak English, so we don't really need to learn their languages.
We (in the Netherlands) had to learn all those other languages as everyone speaks English, but no-one speaks Dutch as we are a tiny country and our language is only spoken in Holland. my mate who speaks afrikaans can get along in dutch fairly easily. i took arabic lessons for a while which was pretty great as you get to learn the calligraphy as well. stopped going when the arabic OH became an ex. am thinking of learning japanese as there's a local course starting in sept.
Edited by shirt on Thursday 3rd September 10:32
Nihon-go ga dekimasu. Or, 'I speak Japanese'.
We lived there for two years in the early 90's and I learnt the language so I could communicate with colleagues and friends - 'when in Rome' and all that... We rejected the ex-pat lifestyle and lived in a small town where there was no English spoken at all and where all our friends were of course Japanese. Learning Japanese really meant we took far more from our time there than those who stuck to the 'safety' of the ex-pat community.
I struggled with languages at school - but strangely found Japanese really easy to learn. I have since made efforts to improve my conversational-at-best French since we visit France with our kids so often.
Wherever we visit (business and vacations) I also always make an effort to learn at least a few basic phrases - it really embarasses me when Brits go abroad and expect everyone to speak English - and if they don't understand first time, they then say the same thing, in English, only slower and louder - 'cos that works right?
We lived there for two years in the early 90's and I learnt the language so I could communicate with colleagues and friends - 'when in Rome' and all that... We rejected the ex-pat lifestyle and lived in a small town where there was no English spoken at all and where all our friends were of course Japanese. Learning Japanese really meant we took far more from our time there than those who stuck to the 'safety' of the ex-pat community.
I struggled with languages at school - but strangely found Japanese really easy to learn. I have since made efforts to improve my conversational-at-best French since we visit France with our kids so often.
Wherever we visit (business and vacations) I also always make an effort to learn at least a few basic phrases - it really embarasses me when Brits go abroad and expect everyone to speak English - and if they don't understand first time, they then say the same thing, in English, only slower and louder - 'cos that works right?
agree with the brits abroad comment, but again the dutch have us beat. i forget i'm in a foreign country sometimes when i'm there, to the point i ask little old ladies in the street where the nearest tram stop is and they reply in perfect english. its only when you jump in a taxi and they aren't native dutch that the problems start!
shirt said:
agree with the brits abroad comment, but again the dutch have us beat. i forget i'm in a foreign country sometimes when i'm there, to the point i ask little old ladies in the street where the nearest tram stop is and they reply in perfect english. its only when you jump in a taxi and they aren't native dutch that the problems start!
With you on that one - as a frequent visitor to Utrecht and Amsterdam I'm always impressed with the standard of English from even the unlikeliest of people. Unless, of course as you say, they are not native Dutch. I had a very embarrasing moment a few weeks back when entering a Sushi restaurant after a few beers to be greeted by the standard Japanese greeting of 'Irasshaimase' from the oriental staff. I answered back with my own greetings in Japanese only to receive odd looks. None of them, including the chef, spoke any significant amount of Japanese as they were all from other parts of SE Asia.
We settled on communicating in English...again...
T89 Callan said:
I'm trying to learn German from a CD and book but I am really crap at it.
I have learnt more from Das Boot and The World At War. "ACHTUNG PANZER!"
Maybe I'll try this site but I need to learn some German that isn't based on war before I start.
I have learnt more from Das Boot and The World At War. "ACHTUNG PANZER!"
Maybe I'll try this site but I need to learn some German that isn't based on war before I start.
know what you mean. Try a few Rammstein CD's - that'll do it had ham said:
Learning Japanese really meant we took far more from our time there than those who stuck to the 'safety' of the ex-pat community.
I struggled with languages at school - but strangely found Japanese really easy to learn. I have since made efforts to improve my conversational-at-best French since we visit France with our kids so often.
That's because learning by immersion is a language is a lot easier than learning in a formal classroom situation. It's one of the reasons why students studying languages at university have to do a year abroad in one or more countries of relevance. I struggled with languages at school - but strangely found Japanese really easy to learn. I have since made efforts to improve my conversational-at-best French since we visit France with our kids so often.
had ham said:
Wherever we visit (business and vacations) I also always make an effort to learn at least a few basic phrases - it really embarasses me when Brits go abroad and expect everyone to speak English - and if they don't understand first time, they then say the same thing, in English, only slower and louder - 'cos that works right?
Thing is, most people do that, regardless of their nationality.What language do you think the average German speaks in Italy? English. The average Spaniard in Sweden? English.
Pretty much all people anywhere in the World who come into contact with other cultures speak two languages - their mother tongue and, to a greater or lesser extent, English. The English are no different in this, other than in the fact that English and our mother tongue happen to be the same thing.
I have occasionally had people overseas comment along the lines of "you English never bother to learn our language". A polite offer to change the conversation into French, Spanish or Italian generally has the desired effect!
However, one thing which is absolutely certain is that time spent in any country is far, far more enjoyable if you do speak their language.
Ohayo gozaimasu! I keep threatening to learn Japanese, seeing as my partner is Japanese, but it's difficult when you don't have a need to speak it. I've read a book which was pretty good, but unless you practice it as well it doesn't sink in. It's definitely easier to learn while in the country, and particularly where lots of people don't speak English (I found in Paris that many waiters etc would speak English anyway, leaving my broken French rather pointless).
Heading out to Japan for three weeks at the end of Sept, and we'll be visiting her parents out in the country so I'll probably have to brush up a bit...
Heading out to Japan for three weeks at the end of Sept, and we'll be visiting her parents out in the country so I'll probably have to brush up a bit...
catmartin said:
I think people in other countries also benefit from all the music,tv and films that are in English.
Very true.All the good movies and series on tv are in English with Dutch subtitles, all lot of the music is in English, and i always used to download the lyrics from the internet so i knew all the words and could sing along.
And when i was about 9 years old we had this Nintendo (the old 8 bit one) and my dad used to bring loads of games over from America if he had a converence there, so we had to try and read the english manual and play the games (mainly adventure type ones, like zelda and dragon warrior) which had no subtitles so if we wanted to play them we had to learn English.
Must admit that was quiet a good move from my parents as otherwise i probably wouldn't have mastered the language like i did and stopped me from actually moving to an english speaking country.
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