LL-L "Language learning" 2002.11.22 (01) [D/E]

Fri Nov 22 15:47:14 UTC 2002

Sorry. This one was in a hurry to get away. This is the full version. RFH
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From: Stan Levinson stlev99 at yahoo.com
Subject: LL-L "Language learning" 2002.11.21 (02) [E]

Gabriele,
They're just French, so they did it to drive you crazy indeed!!! (J/K)

> From: Global Moose Translations
> <globalmoose at t-online.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Language learning" 2002.11.20 (06)
> [E]
>
> During my eight years in America, there were plenty
> of people trying out
> their "German" on me. I must say that, most of the
> time, I found it pretty
> annoying because all they could say was usually a
> phrase or two along the
> lines of "Auf Widdersayn, Fraulein" - and expected
> me to ooh and aah over
> it.
>
> Twenty-four years ago, I was driven crazy while
> vacationing in Alsace,
> France, where most people speak French and German
> equally well. Inevitably,
> when I addressed people in stores etc. in French,
> they would reply in
> German. But when I spoke German first, they'd reply
> in French. Maybe their
> German was a reward for being "good" and
> acknowledging that Alsace belongs
> to France, and their French was the punishment for
> being "rude" and acting
> like I was in Germany? Or did they just do it for
> the heck of it? Was it a
> game of confuse-a-boche? I never found out.
>
> Gabriele Kahn

----------

From: Brad Thiele <brad.thiele at mediacatalyst.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language learning"

I'm somewhat surprised at the reported problems that members of this
list have had as English speakers trying to speak (and keep the
conversations in!) a local language.

Over the past few years I've lived in both Amsterdam and Stockholm and
learnt to speak reasonable Dutch and Swedish respectively. In my
experience it was very rare for a native to switch to English, despite
my at times my obvious difficulties in expressing myself.  I experienced
generally a great deal of encouragement for my efforts and in most cases
it was ME who out of frustration who would switch the language to
English when I felt I couldn't cope any longer. (A true luxury in
countries in north-western Europe where you can be assured that you can
speak in English and be easily understood.)  Certainly I always sought
to maximise the novelty factor of the fact this Australian was
attempting to learn a language which wasn't widely spoken outside its
country of origin.  Can other members report similar experiences in such
countries (perhaps rather than say, Germany?)

On another note, but related to other discussion in this thread: When
living in Amsterdam, there were a number of occasions when out with
Dutch friends we were approached by people speaking to us in German,
e.g. asking for directions.  It was always I who was left to communicate
with these people, being abandoned by my Dutch friends, all of whom
spoke far better German than I!  Not sure if this is a similar example
of carrot and stick language policies or an indication of historical
animosity of the Dutch towards Germans.

Regards,

Brad.

----------

From: Brad Thiele <brad.thiele at mediacatalyst.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language learning"

I'm somewhat surprised at the reported problems that members of this
list have had as English speakers trying to speak (and keep the
conversations in!) a local language.

Over the past few years I've lived in both Amsterdam and Stockholm and
learnt to speak reasonable Dutch and Swedish respectively. In my
experience it was very rare for a native to switch to English, despite
my at times my obvious difficulties in expressing myself.  I experienced
generally a great deal of encouragement for my efforts and in most cases
it was ME who out of frustration who would switch the language to
English when I felt I couldn't cope any longer. (A true luxury in
countries in north-western Europe where you can be assured that you can
speak in English and be easily understood.)  Certainly I always sought
to maximise the novelty factor of the fact this Australian was
attempting to learn a language which wasn't widely spoken outside its
country of origin.  Can other members report similar experiences in such
countries (perhaps rather than say, Germany?)

On another note, but related to other discussion in this thread: When
living in Amsterdam, there were a number of occasions when out with
Dutch friends we were approached by people speaking to us in German,
e.g. asking for directions.  It was always I who was left to communicate
with these people, being abandoned by my Dutch friends, all of whom
spoke far better German than I!  Not sure if this is a similar example
of carrot and stick language policies or an indication of historical
animosity of the Dutch towards Germans.

Regards,

Brad.

----------

From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language learning" 2002.11.21 (10) [D]

Ron wrote:

> Kinderen en dikwijls ook volwassene leerlingen van een vreemde taal gaan
> ervan uit dat lexicale (inclusief lexicale keuzes) en grammatikale
systemen
> regelmatig zijn, en ze komen uitzonderingsgevallen door hun fouten te
weten
> en te onthouden.

When my oldest daughter was a year and a half and starting to speak German,
she was very obviously aware that there was such a thing as grammar rules -
and she applied them the way she understood them.

She must have taken the common words "gegessen" (eaten) and "gegangen"
(walked) as an example; from there she concluded that it must be:

memacht (gemacht - made)
scheschlafen (geschlafen - slept)
pepielt (gespielt -played)
sesucht (gesucht - sought)
fefallen (gefallen - fallen)
...and so forth.

>From there, she went a step further and replaced the starting consonant (or
combination of consonants) of compound nouns with the one that starts the
second noun in the word. Examples:

Schrühlschrank (Kühlschrank - refrigerator)
Plielplatz (Spielplatz - playground)
etc.

 I found that fascinating, since she consistently applied what she thought
was the structure behind the language. But the really weird thing was that
she started to speak Dutch at the same time (her father's language), and she
did not double those consonants there.

Regards,
Gabriele Kahn

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language learning

Brad:

> Certainly I always sought
> to maximise the novelty factor of the fact this Australian was
> attempting to learn a language which wasn't widely spoken outside its
> country of origin.  Can other members report similar experiences in such
> countries (perhaps rather than say, Germany?)

I had that kind of experience in Denmark, outside of Southern Jutland (where
there is a German minority that uses Danish as a second or first language).
I was very young then and traveling by myself, making an effort to speak
Danish all the time.  With one or two ugly (and to a very young person
traumatic) exceptions (in the 1960s), I was treated in a welcoming way, and
some people made quite a fuss about me for making the effort, and when I
asked them to stick with Danish they usually would, even where English or
German would have been more convenient.  However, I was not as much of a hit
as was a young French guy who had learned Danish.  He was featured on
television, while I "only" got a few minutes on the radio ...

In the meantime, the novelty has worn off.  There are now many resident
"foreigners" speaking Danish, and I am not sure that that makes them all
that much more welcome in certain Danes' eyes (going by what transpired
during the last election campaign).

My experiences were similar in Finland, even though I never learned more
Finnish than allowed me to get by on trips.  Finnish people thought it was
nothing short of miraculous, given the perceived complexity of their
language and being convinced that no one would voluntarily want to bother
with it.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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