I am fluent in proper English, understand the street slang enough to know when to exit , Read, write, speak a good amount of Spanish which I thank my high school Spanish teacher for. She always joked with me because I was trying so hard to roll my tongue on the 'double rr' sound. I love Spanish.
It's amazing how, way back in 1972, when I went to Europe, so many folks there spoke pretty good English. Or the words they used! As we were signing in to a Gasthof (like a small motel), the proprietor, standing behind the counter, implored a huge German Shepard which suddenly stood up on hind legs, gaping at us over the counter, by commanding, "Chahlee (mispronounced Charlie), hoer mal auf!" Languages? Fair English, a smattering of Czech, same for Polish, some Spanish. Not bad for a Barbarian, eh? Frank
I agree and my mother would have agreed also. English was not her first language and she came to the United States in her 30's. I live in California and I'd never put a Spanish speaking only person down. I've only been sad when I couldn't communicate with my Spanish speaking patients. If I was younger and had more time and energy, I'd love to learn a little more Spanish outside of "medication for pain" in Spanish. I'm sure one issue in my area is the ability to find so many others who speak Spanish and therefore the need to learn English is not as vital. Though it would be greatly beneficial. I find language fascinating and like most Americans, only speak one language. I've also heard English is not an easy language to learn.
I think English is a very easy language to learn, especially now with all this technology. I learned it pretty quickly when I was in college. Nowadays, I think it is common law for us to know at least 3 languages. I grew up during communism times in Romania so besides my native language we had to learn Russian in schools. In college I escaped the country and the regime, went to the NL and learned English, French and a little bit of Dutch. I can also understand German, Italian (because of my Romanian roots, they very close languages) and Spanish. After I got married I learned my husband's language which is Papiemento, from Curacao, a small island in the Caribbean. Romanian is a Latin language so I believe all the 6 romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan and Romanian) are easy to learn when you have the basis of one of them. It is the same with Germanic languages.
I find often that other Europeans learn more languages whether at school or by choice than we ever make the effort to do in English speaking countries. I have a friend who is Bulgarian.. he speaks 7 languages. English almost fluently... Romanian and Turkish fluently... Italian, Spanish , and Russian ... Incredibly he's self taught...he's not an educated man, he comes from a poor background in Bulgaria, yet once he stowed away on an Italian ship heading for who knows where, he knew he had to learn languages to make his way in the world wherever he landed, and he did just that. Incredible .. yet he feels no great achievement in that...just an astonishment that once he came to the west, that very few people in Europe could speak more than their mother tongue..
@Aniri Ciocan It's my understanding that people from the Eastern Block learned Russian because my mother's home city was in Eastern Germany. I'm your typical one language speaking American.
@Aniri Ciocan I've always suspected that the various languages of Europe, now please understand I am by no means any scholar of this and do not know if "Slavic" is inappropriate or how it relates to Germanic, that overlapping of the edges of the languages occurred of necessity, as peoples' displacement occurred for various reasons. I use Slavic in reference to my Parents' languages, Czech and Polish. My Parents were fluent in Czech (we called it Bohemian; the descendency was from Bohemia), yet when new neighbors moved in next door when I was about 8, they were Polish, by claim, their name being Kocanda. Mrs. Kocanda spoke extensively with my Mother over our back fence quite often. My Mother believed the lady understood Bohemian well enough to use it aside from Polish. My Mother spoke only Bohemian (as well as English, of course). Yet, when the Kocandas were outdoors of a summer evening, communicating among themselves, she could understand very little of their language. She believed the spoke a dialect of Russian. Several times while growing up, my Mother tried to begin a serious training of me in Bohemian, but such effort failed as my interests were so varied and involved, learning a language seemed trivial to me. My Grandparents preferred their native languages, at home, and thus I managed to pick up and retain the meanings of many nouns and verbs, but putting them together in sentences I never learned. Nasty words were learned first! Frank
That is incredible. But when we look at ourselves we always are our worst critic. However I admire him as he is humble in this achievement. In English speaking countries, I believe it is very easy for you because when you look at the history and at the number of English speaking countries, that amount is huge. So it is easier for you to not learn any languages besides your own. I do not agree with this because I find languages to be an eye-opener in every single aspect of our life.
It is true. We were oppressed and forced to learn and love a culture that is not our own. I was young and it is still imprinted in me to this day, I still remember when we had no food or water, we had to work for everything we had. I was smuggled out the country and saw a better life in the West.
You are most definitely right Frank. I am no scholar myself. I was however a history teacher and I understand how languages came to be. Every family language share the most basic roots and a few words here and there. With Slavic it is a little bit tricky because there are a lot more of them and the times have not done them justice. Besides that, one can say that the cultures are similar than the language and that is a mien we need to acknowledge, that helped build the speech as well. Hahahaha this is how I learned every language also. The swear words first. It feels empowering somehow
You are most definitely right Frank. I am no scholar myself. I was however a history teacher and I understand how languages came to be. Every family language share the most basic roots and a few words here and there. With Slavic it is a little bit tricky because there are a lot more of them and the times have not done them justice. Besides that, one can say that the cultures are similar than the language and that is a mien we need to acknowledge, that helped build the speech as well. Hahahaha this is how I learned every language also. The swear words first. It feels empowering somehow
I speak some, a very small "some", Spanish. Learned while working for companies in So California. Also learned a little German, by watching Hogan's Hero's on tv.........LOL, but true. However, some of my high school classmates had Spanish classes. Spanish was a required perquisite to go to college.
Yes well, I can speak and understand, Geordie, Scouse, Cockney, Brummy, Scottish and a few others plus, read in French which I learnt at school ( can't speak it tho' ) and, if by some misfortune I was transported to Somali land then I'd learn their flippin' language ... common sense !