I'm curious... Blax, Sirius, Masdefi, Sutnop, Giovanni, othe

**NickNack** · July 23rd, 2002, 08:03 PM

There are so many of you here where English is not the native language of your country yet you have a great command of the language.

I was curious as to how and why this came about. Here, at least when I was in school, taking a second language was only required in high school and then, only for two years. Most of you are far more advanced than a basic two-year course.

Was learning the language required or voluntary?
How long did you study?
Is it considered a 'second language' in your home?

I'm just intrigued as I remember so many New York kids studying language in school (I took French and Latin, most of my friends took Spanish) and then never using it once they were out the door. I had a ball with it. I was also a linguist during my Air Force stint and managed to pick up a little Japanese while I was overseas.

Like I said, I'm just being nosy.

_________________
When you're under the Love Spell, be sure to Catch The Rhythm

Nicky

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: NickNack on 2002-07-23 21:05 ]</font>

**BrunoRepublic** · July 23rd, 2002, 08:09 PM

On 2002-07-23 21:03, NickNack wrote:
I was also a linguist during my Air Force stint and managed to pick up a little Japanese while I was overseas.

What was he like? :lol: :lol: :lol:

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist!)

**markydefad** · July 23rd, 2002, 08:52 PM

On 2002-07-23 21:09, Graham Start wrote:

On 2002-07-23 21:03, NickNack wrote:
I was also a linguist during my Air Force stint and managed to pick up a little Japanese while I was overseas.

What was he like? :lol: :lol: :lol:

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist!)

I'm guessing he tasted like... chicken, or..er...if you were a cunni-linguist,...sushi???!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

I know...ruining the post with lame jokes.

Sorry. That's it.

**Masdefi** · July 24th, 2002, 01:01 AM

Thanks Nicky. I have studied english by myself looking at TV lessons when I was kid because at the school I was learning French. Then when I started high school I went to some "full-immersion" lessons in order to improve and actually my job requires the most fluent english as I can. My first foreign language remains still French, and I do know something spanish.
The main problem for me is not writing, rather to understand lyrics in a song, that's why I have problems when I ask someone to ID a song, I can't recognize easily the lyrics and I have to let hear the unknown song.
A second problem I have is that I don't know a lot of "slang" and sometimes It's hard for me to fully understand...as example:
- Hi, my dog... ?!?!

:???:
Bye
Masdefi

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Masdefi on 2002-07-24 02:04 ]</font>

**sutnop** · July 24th, 2002, 04:05 AM

Well I am a well travelled person
I have myself spent two years living in

the land of the Imperialists

I have been to many corners of the world
(Altough its tuff finding corners on a spherical object)

Then it is always used
and always comes in use

I can however admit
that my command in the english language has been a barrier when learning other languages

Since if I wouldn't know ENglish I would be forced to know better French
Better Italian
and so on

Personally I find Italian to be the most beautiful languages of all

And one of my goals is to master this languages as good as I know English

**Blaxman** · July 24th, 2002, 07:09 AM

Hi Nicky,

In fact I learnt (a little) english at the elementary school, that was not mandatory at that time, but help me to get a good job some years later. I think my english is very weak, sometimes I feel bad for write in a wrong way, I dont know nothing about grammatical rules!! Singular, plural and past tense are my most frequently doubts.

I can read and understand perfectly, even a few slang , but write is hard sometimes.

I can talk to somebody, if the other person speaks slow enough. Curiously, I can do this better with some British people. They speak more clearly than americans, to me.

Despite my insecure english I can understand some jokes from Marky.....and laugh so much!!

I appreciate you question Nicky. Thanx.

Peace to all.

**Nano** · July 24th, 2002, 08:26 PM

In secondary school (your highschool) we had one foreign language to study, the choice was English or French, but most of us choose English. It's the language of rock and roll! Also the "business" language around the world, or so we've been told.
Me particularly didn't take any other course, but got accostumed for work reasons to read papers and magazines from USA and the UK. (Take into account there's not so many translations after all.) I have to interview English-spoken people from time to time, and there... I'm not so fluent, I have to confess. Mostly I read and hear far better than I speak and write (better means faster).
Of course, English people that come to Buenos Aires (Robert Duvall, for example) like to try Spanish for fun... almost always they sound ridiculous, if understandable at all. So I think for us it would be just the same up there...
Did you get that I said English and French earlier, but no Portuguese? And that living besides Brazil! Sadly, there's still a language barrier among us, and I can tell Brazilians understand better our Spanish than us their Portuguese!
One of my goals for the future is study Portuguese and French. If I find enough time... also now all courses -even public ones- have to be paid... Merde!

**Blaxman** · July 25th, 2002, 06:55 AM

On 2002-07-24 21:26, Nano wrote:

Did you get that I said English and French earlier, but no Portuguese? And that living besides Brazil! Sadly, there's still a language barrier among us, and I can tell Brazilians understand better our Spanish than us their Portuguese!

Nano,

This is true. We had just a few schools teaching spanish here in Brazil at my highschool days.
But I must say, sometimes it's really hard to understand the argentinians. You speak too fast!!! One day when I was in Buenos Aires I had to talk in english to a man in order to get an information!!! Can you believe that!! :lol:

In fact spanish is not too similar to portuguese like other people think.

Peace

**NickNack** · July 25th, 2002, 02:12 PM

On 2002-07-23 21:09, Graham Start wrote:

On 2002-07-23 21:03, NickNack wrote:
I was also a linguist during my Air Force stint and managed to pick up a little Japanese while I was overseas.

What was he like? :lol: :lol: :lol:

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist!)

Ha, ha! Smart Ass.

But if you must know... Just kidding. Let me re-phrase: "I managed to learn a small (very small) amount of Japanese."

Is that better --- you DAWG? :grin:

**NickNack** · July 25th, 2002, 02:14 PM

On 2002-07-23 21:52, markydefad wrote:

On 2002-07-23 21:09, Graham Start wrote:

On 2002-07-23 21:03, NickNack wrote:
I was also a linguist during my Air Force stint and managed to pick up a little Japanese while I was overseas.

What was he like? :lol: :lol: :lol:

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist!)

I'm guessing he tasted like... chicken, or..er...if you were a cunni-linguist,...sushi???!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

I know...ruining the post with lame jokes.

Sorry. That's it.

Ruining the post --- not really, Little Bro. I wish we were all laughing a lot more instead of what has been taking place here.

**NickNack** · July 25th, 2002, 02:28 PM

On 2002-07-24 02:01, Masdefi wrote:
Thanks Nicky. I have studied english by myself looking at TV lessons when I was kid because at the school I was learning French. Then when I started high school I went to some "full-immersion" lessons in order to improve and actually my job requires the most fluent english as I can. My first foreign language remains still French, and I do know something spanish.

Hey, Masdefi, that's pretty good. Italian, English, French and Spanish. I should be so lucky.

The main problem for me is not writing, rather to understand lyrics in a song, that's why I have problems when I ask someone to ID a song, I can't recognize easily the lyrics and I have to let hear the unknown song.

Picking up lyrics is sometimes very hard, even when you know the language. Just ask how many of us are singing one thing while the song is really saying something else. An example (and I'm not being rude, just quoting):

In Cerrone's "Give Me Love", there is a section where the girls in the background repeat, "GIVE FUNK TO ME". Now, I've heard everything from 'GET FUNKY TO ME' to 'GET FUCKED TOO, BABY". Loud music over spoken words is just hard, especially if the singer is not clear.

A second problem I have is that I don't know a lot of "slang" and sometimes It's hard for me to fully understand...as example:
- Hi, my dog... ?!?!

:???:

Slang changes with the wind. Americans going from one state to another can be caught off guard. See a beautiful woman in New York City and say, "Oh, man, she is PHAT!" (pronounced 'FAT') and you might get a smile. Say it in the deep south and you'll probably get smacked. Slang is fun, but very hard for a foreigner.

Thanks for sharing with me.

**NickNack** · July 25th, 2002, 02:41 PM

On 2002-07-24 05:05, sutnop wrote:
Well I am a well travelled person
I have myself spent two years living in

the land of the Imperialists

I have been to many corners of the world
(Altough its tuff finding corners on a spherical object)

A dream of mine --- get rich and travel, travel, travel. Maybe one day...

Then it is always used
and always comes in use

I can however admit
that my command in the english language has been a barrier when learning other languages

I've heard this before. Usually learning one foreign language will help you in learning another. A lot of the grammatical rules would be similar. Not with English.

Since if I wouldn't know ENglish I would be forced to know better French
Better Italian
and so on

Wow, you and Masdefi --- multi-lingual.

Personally I find Italian to be the most beautiful languages of all

And one of my goals is to master this languages as good as I know English

I'd probably agree with you about Italian. I don't know it but on the rare occasions I hear it spoken, it's just beautiful. They seem to sing it. (French and Spanish ain't bad, either.

)

Thanks for filling me in and if you're studying for that goal, then good luck.

**Nano** · July 25th, 2002, 05:59 PM

On 2002-07-25 07:55, Blaxman wrote:

But I must say, sometimes it's really hard to understand the argentinians. You speak too fast!!! One day when I was in Buenos Aires I had to talk in english to a man in order to get an information!!! Can you believe that!! :lol:

In fact spanish is not too similar to portuguese like other people think.

Same thing with Italian. I know many people who travelled to Italy and thought they would understand easily, even with Italian grandfathers, for example. They couldn't understand ****. Many Italian inmigrants have passed so many years in Argentina that they already talk another language, nor Italian nor Spanish (which sometimes they didn't want to learn). We call that "cocoliche".
Anyway, in the country people talk much more slowly and calmly than in Buenos Aires. So don't fret about it...

**NickNack** · July 25th, 2002, 10:07 PM

On 2002-07-24 08:09, Blaxman wrote:
Hi Nicky,

In fact I learnt (a little) english at the elementary school, that was not mandatory at that time, but help me to get a good job some years later. I think my english is very weak, sometimes I feel bad for write in a wrong way, I dont know nothing about grammatical rules!! Singular, plural and past tense are my most frequently doubts.

I can read and understand perfectly, even a few slang , but write is hard sometimes.

For sure, you're making some mistakes but where I'm impressed is all of you are able to get on an English-speaking forum and hold these conversations. That is difficult for those without a good deal of training.

You must have a good ear and I say that because of a word I see in your first sentence: 'learnt'. This is typically bad English but it IS the way we talk sometimes. The actual word is 'learned', but I guess you picked up on our sloppy pronunciation. (Well, not 'ours' but someone you've actually heard.) My teachers wouldn't stand for that. You'd be late getting home until you cleaned that up!

I can talk to somebody, if the other person speaks slow enough. Curiously, I can do this better with some British people. They speak more clearly than americans, to me.

Ah, the British. I bet most of them will tell you that we Americans have actually destroyed the English language.

They're probably not too far wrong.

I had to learn Vietnamese while in the military. Now there's a hard language to listen to. It has six different tones so any word can be pronounced six different ways meaning six different things. If you say the word for 'mother' with the wrong accent you've called her a 'horse'. :grin:

Despite my insecure english I can understand some jokes from Marky.....and laugh so much!!

And laughing and having a good time should be all that is required here. Thanks for sharing your story with me.

**NickNack** · July 25th, 2002, 10:26 PM

On 2002-07-24 21:26, Nano wrote:
In secondary school (your highschool) we had one foreign language to study, the choice was English or French, but most of us choose English. It's the language of rock and roll! Also the "business" language around the world, or so we've been told. Me particularly didn't take any other course, but got accostumed for work reasons to read papers and magazines from USA and the UK.

OK. Another instance where English is tied into work. We were also told that, for international business, if you don't know English you better learn French. (I won't tell you how long ago that was.

)

I have to interview English-spoken people from time to time, and there... I'm not so fluent, I have to confess. Mostly I read and hear far better than I speak and write (better means faster).
Of course, English people that come to Buenos Aires (Robert Duvall, for example) like to try Spanish for fun... almost always they sound ridiculous, if understandable at all. So I think for us it would be just the same up there...

I'm curious. Are you interviewing people for jobs or what? I'm asking because the interview process is just nerve-wracking to begin with. I think it would be worse for everyone if there is a language barrier.

And don't you just love it when people start making up words trying to speak the language of the country they're in? And then get pissed off when you don't understand them? Just pull out the freaking dictionary, for crying out loud.

Did you get that I said English and French earlier, but no Portuguese? And that living besides Brazil! Sadly, there's still a language barrier among us, and I can tell Brazilians understand better our Spanish than us their Portuguese!

Portuguese is a language I've never heard or didn't recognize it if I did. Is it similar to Spanish or does it just sound like it might be?

One of my goals for the future is study Portuguese and French. If I find enough time... also now all courses -even public ones- have to be paid... Merde!

Good luck with the studies. Paying for it sucks but if I went back to college or tried to learn privately I'd be paying also. "Merde" is right!

Thanks!

**Blaxman** · July 26th, 2002, 08:22 AM

[quote]
On 2002-07-25 23:26, NickNack wrote:

....Portuguese is a language I've never heard or didn't recognize it if I did. Is it similar to Spanish or does it just sound like it might be?

[quote]

Nicky, I think portuguese sounds (something like) between french and spanish. It's a really hard language to learn, even to the natives!!

Some people believes that portuguese is an ancient "secret code". :lol:

Peace

P.S.
I'm still learning english...here in this forums. Thanx teachers!!

**Nano** · July 27th, 2002, 01:25 PM

[quote]
On 2002-07-25 23:26, NickNack wrote:

On 2002-07-24 21:26, Nano wrote:

I have to interview English-spoken people from time to time, and there... I'm not so fluent, I have to confess. Mostly I read and hear far better than I speak and write (better means faster).
Of course, English people that come to Buenos Aires (Robert Duvall, for example) like to try Spanish for fun... almost always they sound ridiculous, if understandable at all. So I think for us it would be just the same up there...

I'm curious. Are you interviewing people for jobs or what? I'm asking because the interview process is just nerve-wracking to begin with. I think it would be worse for everyone if there is a language barrier.

Well, I work here as a journalist so I'm doing press interviews a lot. A few of them were with USA artists, when they came here to play because of the "cheap dollar" in the 90's. It's easier by phone, because then you can draw your questions and translate them earlier, so you mostly read them aloud and later improvise if needed. Yes, you have to pay attention to many things: your speaking, what you're hearing, what questions might arise over that, and also how it's recording (sometimes I had to put the recorder next to my ear because the phone had no speaker!). But I can tell you that after a while speaking and hearing in another language, you start THINKING in it... and then it's kinda cool. Of course, later when you pass the tape 45 times to understand what the interwee said at a certain point, you can discover he was saying things different from what you thought!

But it's fun and I think I make the best of it.
In person is another matter. I try to stick to a translator if there's one, at least for making the questions which is what puts me more nervous. If not, you just use your imagination... and some hand movements too!

About Portuguese, if you ever heard a samba or bossa nova record ("Garota do Ipanema", for example) then you heard the language. Same with fado or Cesaria Evora. It sounds very warm and fun.

**NickNack** · July 27th, 2002, 03:41 PM

On 2002-07-27 14:25, Nano wrote:
Well, I work here as a journalist so I'm doing press interviews a lot. A few of them were with USA artists, when they came here to play because of the "cheap dollar" in the 90's. It's easier by phone, because then you can draw your questions and translate them earlier, so you mostly read them aloud and later improvise if needed. Yes, you have to pay attention to many things: your speaking, what you're hearing, what questions might arise over that, and also how it's recording (sometimes I had to put the recorder next to my ear because the phone had no speaker!). But I can tell you that after a while speaking and hearing in another language, you start THINKING in it... and then it's kinda cool. Of course, later when you pass the tape 45 times to understand what the interwee said at a certain point, you can discover he was saying things different from what you thought!

But it's fun and I think I make the best of it.
In person is another matter. I try to stick to a translator if there's one, at least for making the questions which is what puts me more nervous. If not, you just use your imagination... and some hand movements too!

Sounds like an interesting gig. It is funny how you begin to 'think' in that other language after a time. Helps a lot. I laughed when you said you had to replay the tape 45 times! Gawd, I know that feeling. I would have my headsets pressed so tight to my head my ears would sweat.

About Portuguese, if you ever heard a samba or bossa nova record ("Garota do Ipanema", for example) then you heard the language. Same with fado or Cesaria Evora. It sounds very warm and fun.

So, does that mean my favorite "Viramundo" by Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 is Portuguese? If it is, then, hell, I am truly dense. :lol:

Thanks, again.

**disco1999** · August 1st, 2002, 02:09 PM

I think portuguese sounds (something like) between french and spanish. It's a really hard language to learn, even to the natives!!

Portuguese can't be harder to learn than french. French is weird, all objects have a sex, the word "table" is female, la table, the word "wall" is male: le mur. Why ? don't ask!

I have been raised in french in Montreal where most people speak french as their 1st language, about 25% of them know some english. I have learned my english in late 60's by watching Tom & Jerry every sunday 9:00am on CBS and many other kid stuff on tv. Later learned grammar at school which far easier than french grammar.

**Blaxman** · August 2nd, 2002, 07:09 AM

On 2002-08-01 15:09, disco1999 wrote:

French is weird, all objects have a sex, the word "table" is female, la table, the word "wall" is male: le mur. Why ? don't ask!

Disco1999,

In portuguese the objects have a "sex" too!!! It can be funny, and is it, sometimes this confuses me when I have to use english.

Peace

**Nano** · August 2nd, 2002, 01:28 PM

On 2002-08-02 08:09, Blaxman wrote:

On 2002-08-01 15:09, disco1999 wrote:

French is weird, all objects have a sex, the word "table" is female, la table, the word "wall" is male: le mur. Why ? don't ask!

Disco1999,

In portuguese the objects have a "sex" too!!! It can be funny, and is it, sometimes this confuses me when I have to use english.

Peace

Same with Spanish, pal. And Italian and all other Latin-derived languages...