Is anybody else obsessed with other languages? - Page 2 - Writers Forum

JoannaMac · 07-23-2008, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JosephB

My sister is obsessed with languages. She taught herself French and was speaking fluently by the time she was 15. She also speaks German, Italian, Spanish and Japanese. She's studying Arabic in her "free time."

She lives in Italy and is an English language professor at the University of Milan. She also contracts with Italian companies and tutors executives in English.

Wow Joe! The women in your life are pretty amazing

JosephB · 07-23-2008, 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoannaMac

Wow Joe! The women in your life are pretty amazing

She's the best! I actually get to see her quite a bit. She visits every August, when the country shuts down and stays for 3 weeks or so. That's a lot of quality time, more than some folks get with their siblings who live a state over or in another American city.

She's also a wonderful artist and paints beautifully. I studied painting and drawing and she can blow my doors off. It's really quite annoying.

By the way, I thought of her when you were talking about attitudes some southern European men have about women. Her husband is a jerk. Highly educated -- brilliant really, but stuck in the dark ages when it comes to women. He thinks my wife runs me because I do housework and change diapers. He never lifts a finger. I don't know how my sister stands it.

She gets lots of cat calls too. Not in Milan, but in southern cities when she is working there. But she says it's all show and the men are all bark and no bite.

JoannaMac · 07-23-2008, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JosephB

By the way, I thought of her when you were talking about attitudes some southern European men have about women. Her husband is a jerk. Highly educated -- brilliant really, but stuck in the dark ages when it comes to women. He thinks my wife runs me because I do housework and change diapers. He never lifts a finger. I don't know how my sister stands it.

I bet she didn't realize that's what she was getting into at the start of the relationship. You do things for someone because you're in love with them and before you know it, you've set up patterns that are really hard to break. And leaving someone because they won't do house work is hard for lots of women. I mean, Vlad's pretty good, but in the end I still do lots more than him. It pisses me off, but it's not a deal breaker. We'll see what it's like when the kids come along

Quote:

She gets lots of cat calls too. Not in Milan, but in southern cities when she is working there. But she says it's all show and the men are all bark and no bite.

I found that in Italy too. Much more friendly than the French, who could get nasty and aggressive, especially if they realized I was English speaking.

JosephB · 07-23-2008, 09:46 AM

Quote:

I found that in Italy too. Much more friendly than the French, who could get nasty and aggressive, especially if they realized I was English speaking.

My sister looks very feminine, but she is tall and pretty muscular. She could beat the crap out of just about any Italian man!

Industrial · 07-23-2008, 09:50 AM

My first language was Spanish and I eagerly wanted to learn English when I moved to the U.S.

It's surprising but its completely different to understand a language in its original than to listen to a translation. It's true that alot of beauty and meaning gets lost in translation.

From there I learned French and Italian pretty easily, I'm only 18 and really haven't had any formal education since I dropped out of school it's simply been a urge to learn a shitload.

haha you're not the only one.

Ilasir Maroa · 07-23-2008, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Litharukia

Cool.

Well I've also set out to learn Elvish... I love Tolkien.

You can't really learn Elvish (are we talking Sindarin or Quenya?). It's not developed enough to be used as a language, unless you learn that disgusting Neo-Elvish bullshit, in which case I'd be very disappointed in you. I still have the grammars and wordlists sitting around my house somewhere, but I stopped after a few months because I wanted to concentrate on learning a language I could actually use.

I'm learning Japanese on and off right now, and I have a long list of other languages I want to at least have structural knowledge of, though I probably can't acquire strong fluency in all of them. I'm also learning a conlang called Itlani, but I don't think that quite counts.

HarryG · 07-23-2008, 11:31 AM

I was fluent in three European languages by the time I reached adulthood, not through any academic endeavors on my part, but because those that assumed responsibility for my upbringing moved between three countries (and I'm not counting Scottish).

I later added a fourth one through personal choice. I'm encouraging my youngest daughter to persuade her four-and-a-half year old son to learn Chinese at the earliest opportunity (she agrees), because that will be the most important language of the future.

Tiamat10 · 07-23-2008, 11:32 AM

Well, I majored in linguistics at university (before I dropped out) because I like learning about language as a whole, but I wouldn't call myself obsessed, exactly. In fact, after moving to Scandinavia, I became even less interested because language learning became more of a 'must' as opposed to a hobby.

I learned French in high school and loved it, but was never fluent. Now, after spending nearly two years in Norway, I find that if I try to speak French, after a sentence to two, Norwegian begins to dribble into it. It's very annoying.

I would say the cool thing about living here is that I get so much exposure not only to Norwegian (obviously) but to Danish and Swedish as well, so I'm starting to pick those up.

Probably the most interesting thing (to me) is the vast array of dialects in a single language. It's not quite as drastic in English as I've seen in other languages. We have a vast array of accents and dialect words, but on the whole, everyone speaks the same language.

In Norway... God, no. I had a hell of a time picking up the language at first because there are just so many completely different dialects. I speak the Oslo-dialect (bokmål) but even now, after two years of living here, if I tried to have a chat with someone who spoke 'nynorsk', I'd only get about half of what they said.

Vincent Santa Cruz · 07-23-2008, 11:50 AM

I love languages, especially obscure ones. It's the patience and commitment to learn that I can't get on with.

Girl in Story · 07-23-2008, 11:51 AM

Only French for me. I studied it in high school, and I'm planning to do a year abroad my at my university, so I can try to polish my ability into fluency. I like listening to other languages, but French is the only one I've ever wanted to learn.

valeca · 07-23-2008, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryG

I'm encouraging my youngest daughter to persuade her four-and-a-half year old son to learn Chinese at the earliest opportunity (she agrees), because that will be the most important language of the future.

Mandarin or Cantonese? One is much more prominent in the business world than the other. My two oldest children are Cantonese but sadly we only use the occasional phrase and even those are fading as they get older.

Ilasir Maroa · 07-23-2008, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by valeca

Mandarin or Cantonese? One is much more prominent in the business world than the other. My two oldest children are Cantonese but sadly we only use the occasional phrase and even those are fading as they get older.

Actually, there are several "dialects" of Chinese, though those two are the most known; there's really no such thing as "Chinese".

To Harry- English is the language of the future. Chinese may well gain a much larger influence in the years to come, but it is fairly isolated in its home country. Don't get your hopes (too high) up.

tucanbundy · 07-23-2008, 01:18 PM

I'm obsessed with other cultures in general, but I've tried to learn German, Japanese, Russian (a full scene in my book is entirely in Russian), Klingon, that funky backwards talk the midget from Twin Peaks uses, Polish, French, Cornish, and Spanish.I've done pretty good with some of these, but I'm not fluent.I've used all of these languages in some way in my writing.Due to my ADD though I can't remain focused long enough to learn a new language.My methods suck anyway.I tried to teach myself Japanese once by doing nothing but watching subtitled anime shows.It didn't work out, though now I sometimes say 'Itadakimasu' before eating, but that's because I'm a douche, not because my method worked.

Most of my favorite bands are foreign, the best example being Rammstein.I love them so much I have a tattoo of their cross logo (see avatar) on my arm.They were even a key reason I decided not to kill myself once.They keep me sane.

I'm a huge fan of foreign movies and TV shows, too.

Tiamat10 · 07-23-2008, 02:19 PM

Actually tucan, you may be onto something there with your methods. I learned Norwegian by watching English movies with Norwegian subtitles (lots of 'em) until I finally knew enough to be able to watch Norwegian movies (with Norwegian subtitles to help me understand anything I might've missed).

Whatever language I decide to learn next, I'm doing it that way.

HarryG · 07-23-2008, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by valeca

Mandarin or Cantonese? One is much more prominent in the business world than the other. My two oldest children are Cantonese but sadly we only use the occasional phrase and even those are fading as they get older.

Mandarin, he's going to be a banker.