h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know many of the good people of H2g2 speak more than one language,
what if you can remember was the experience of learning another language like
at the moment I am learning makaton and although not a traditional language I do believe it still qualifies
the odd thing is I find myself starting to think with signs so when learning spoken other languages... er... other spoken languages... does this happen too?

Over the years, I have visited loads of European countries and do try to learn a few words to get me through, but to be honest, I find languages very difficult. I'm sort of ok until someone talks back. Then I'm stuffed. And I suspect they are saying something along the lines of 'You seem to be trying to speak to me in my native tongue, but actually, you sound as though you have come from outer space. I have no idea how to take you to my leader'.

One of the problems is finding sufficient time to devote to learning a language that I am going to use for a long weekend only, when I know that as soon as the locals work out that I'm British, they will readily use English and put me to shame.

I did manage to buy bananas whilst in Ukraine from a woman who spoke no English last year though. (There was some pointing involved).

PP.

I think there are different strategies to learn a language and especially to remember vocabulary.
Some people translate everything, others think in pictures and associate the words in several languages to those pictures, sometimes the English word sounds or looks like the French word, so that can help too.

The Romance languages are fairly easy for me, especially if I can see the printed versions. This comes from studying French and Latin in school. I tried to learn some Spanish, but then I went to Italy and lost what little Spanish I knew, while botching up any chance to learn Italian .

I've travelled in Asia and eastern Europe, but I was on guided tours, so there were always tour guides who knew the local languages.

of all the languages I've tried to speak, Chinese and Welsh were by far the hardest. As for reading languages, I tried to get an idea of what the characters in Russian signified, but fairly completely.

If I see a Spanish-language newspaper, I can often get the gist of what is meant. if then try to talk to Spanish-speaking people, they speak so fast that I have no clue what they're saying. If I picked up another language, it would be Spanish, given how vast the Spanish-speaking areas are. India has more than one major language, one of which is English, so I'm not worried about travelling in India. If I went to China, I would try to stay close to Hong Kong or Beijing. When Beijing hosted the Olympics, the government required taxi drivers to become fluent in English, so at least I could get around .

Africa? I would have to be very choosy about which parts to go to. No Ebola outbreaks, no pirates, no civil wars, no jihadist governments. That eliminates much of the continent. I suppose I could go looking for Rick's Café in Casablanca.

Africa is much bigger than you think it is. My son and his wife visited Malawi in November and didn't encounter any of your terrors.
I can remember little bits of Amharic, Chewa and Sesotho and used school French in Cameroon. I tend to dream in the last language I used and certainly the few Chinese characters I managed to learn are still with me.
I find that the limited vocabulary makes me a totally different person in non-European languages. Much less assertive.

I also feel a bit handicapped in other languages, due to a lack of vocabulary. I'm attempting to learn spanish now, though I don't recall ever thinking in signs.

Learning shorthand helped a lot in *consciously* getting into the habit of associating different sounds with different symbols, and detaching the sounds that you usually associate with those symbols from them. (E.g. in German, an "s" before a "p" or a "t" is not pronounced "s" but "sh", in German and Italian, "z" is pronounced "ts", in most languages "th" is pronounced "t" etc)

Before learning shorthand, I had been learning French at school, and was learning Italian simultaneously during secretarial training, so all the other parts of language learning were going on at the same time, namely: the physical side of pronouncing things differently, conjugating and declining as you go along, coping with variations in syntax.

Once you've opened your mind to the fact that a concept can be expressed in many different ways (and then the symbol thing I mentioned above) - learning a third or fourth language is no further problem.

A good grounding in grammar is an enormous help, especially if you find that sort of thing fun. Our English teacher was very good when I was at school - we found it fun, but it was taken for granted that we could do it like our times tables.

"Africa is much bigger than you think it is. My son and his wife visited Malawi in November and didn't encounter any of your terrors.[Wand'ring Star]

Africa's vastness is the main reason why I can't come to grips with it. I'm reading a biography of Prince Harry, who visited Lesotho and became adept at comforting the many children orphaned by AIDS.

I do confess a curiosity about Lake Victoria and Mount Kilimanjaro and the Congo River. South Africa is no longer an international subject of opprobrium. I'm also curious about the pyramids, but Egypt had some demonstrations against the government last year. I would need to check to see if thins have quieted down there. Cairo is said to be so overcrowded that there are people living in the tombs. Also, the summertime temps are said to be brutal.

Dr Anthea,
isn´t the Shaeffer method more complete than the makaton one?
That´s what I recall from uni. I remember that there were many. Bliss, is another method that I´ve just recalled.

I´ve seen speech therapists using pictograms, different signs with words, etc., but I really don´t know what method was being used.


For those who quieren aprender español, I´d recommend the Spanish national radio and tv web page. Plenty and varied material:

http://www.rtve.es/

And this BBC one, where I´ve just read that the page is no longer updated. Qué pena, Spanish is a very important language.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/

I agree, Spanish *is* very important. I also like it that the letters and phrases consistently represent the same sounds. You have fewer variations in pronunciation for similar spellings. Doctor Seuss made fun of English spellings with the title "The Tough Coughs as he Ploughs the dough."

makaton as well as pictograms are what is commonly used in the learning disability school I am working in along with spoken instruction, I think it may be the more common of the sign languages used in this field though I couldnt say for sure I have not heard of the Shaeffer method but I would be interested to find out more

In response to the original question, it is common to begin to think and even dream in the new language as one is learning. I'd say it may even be key to doing so. When I was in high school, I took three years of Spanish. At some point, I did begin to occasionally think and dream in Spanish. Unfortunately, after the first year the focus became more about grammar and usage than conversation and my learning slowed greatly.

3 decades later, I'm giving it another try. I'm currently using Duolingo to learn Spanish. (I'm on a 160+ day streak). I typically do two practice lessons and one new lesson. This typically only takes between 20-30 minutes. I must say that my vocabulary is growing. The Duolingo program is good about refreshing you on words and phrases you haven't recently used. However, I can't say that I'm anywhere near fluent. I haven't thought or dreamed in Spanish. I think Duolingo is OK for learning to read a second language, but without a real conversational component, fluency just isn't realistic. I think it's a great tool to be used in conjunction with other opportunities for conversational usage. I think if I get more confident, I might look into something like a program I've heard advertised on local media called "Spanish Over Coffee" which brings adults learning Spanish into a social setting for conversation.

As it is, I think using Duolingo alone might get me to the point where I could read Spanish. Duolingo has an interesting method of monetizing their programs. Instead of selling advertising, they crowdsource translation of online text. After you get to a certain point in the program, when you finish a new lesson Duolingo informs you that you now know a greatly exaggerated percentage the language you're learning. )Apparently I "can now read 64.2% of all real Spanish text" with only a 797 word vocabulary limited to the present and past tenses. ) Then it offers you an opportunity to translate sentences from an online article in from the language you're learning into English (or your native language if other).

I'm hoping, even if I never become conversationally fluent in Spanish, I might be able to read a few of my favorite writers in their native Spanish, specifically Octavio Paz and Jorge Luis Borges.

I'm trying to learn two languages ATM, as well as brushing up my French. The languages are Italian and Mandarin Chinese, so they're sufficiently different not to cause any confusion. Italian is comparatively easy as I can relate words to French or Latin (the other language I studied at school). Chinese is incredibly hard. It's not like any other language I've encountered. I'm learning words in Pinyin form and the pronunciation often bears no relation to the spelling - shui (water) is pronounced shway, for example.

I find a word sticks in my mind if I can put it to use, even if only mentally. I could probably understand directions to somewhere in Italian or French. I've never dreamed in a foreign language, but I do occasionally think in one. When I can think in French as readily as in English will be when I consider myself confident in the language, even if I'm not fluent.

I dreamed in Portuguese one night,* even though I know zilch about the language . Probably it wasn't actually Portuguese I was dreaming in .



*my dreams are strange enough to deserve an entire volume of analysis

Cheerful Dragon or should I say Kāilǎng lóng or开朗龙 itsw a bit harder to with Mandarin Chinese, because of the tones I suppose, need to sing more than say, mind you Italian is a bit on the musical side, so are more simular than you first think

meant to read Cheerful Dragon or should I say Kailang long not Kāilǎng lóng, (seems second and third? tones are not compatable)

H2G2 doesn't play well with alt char sets.

ltp, I've been to Italy a few times, but never for more than a couple of days. One of the things that attracted me to the language is the way it sounds. There is a rhythm to it that I haven't experienced anywhere else. Even a woman on a water bus saying 'Si, si si' was almost musical. Somebody saying 'Yes, yes, yes' in similar circumstances (no sniggering!) doesn't have the same feel. As for the French 'Oui, oui, oui', that just sounds like a pig on it's way home. I can't imagine a German saying 'Ja, ja, ja'.

I'm learning Chinese out of interest in the country and its culture. French and Italian will be used on holidays, but I'm unlikely to ever need to speak Mandarin. I suppose it's a good way to get my mind out of a Eurocentric rut regarding languages.

you may find this site usefull.
http://www.fastchinese.org/speaking?g=si

My Nephew enrolled his daughter in a school that offered Chinese as one of the languages, but I don't know if she took advantage of that feature.

Last night I saw "Blackhat," a thriller about international computer hacking by bad guys. There was a scene Hong Kong where one of the characters thanked another by saying the Chinese for thank you, which was the only word I understood. The only other Chinese word I understand is wei wei, which you say when you pick up the phone-- Hello? Hello?