AmeliaBloomer
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,842
Location: USA
Jun 26, 2014 5:01:45 GMT
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Post by AmeliaBloomer on Aug 29, 2015 13:20:02 GMT
You crack me up!! xD I'm guessing it was 1. My "American" accent. Or 2. Too much Game of Thrones. And Girls. What a compliment to lump me in with the Norwegians. And you speak Spanish too?! Ha! "Girls" will definitely corrupt you...or at least make you really self-absorbed. And me speaking Spanish? Ojala que...pero no. I only know a smattering and understand even less. I am assuming those of you who live in predominantly hispanic towns/areas have a pretty decent grasp of Spanish, no? Even if it is in the US? Sadly, no - at least in my experience. My area has more than a million Latinos, but there's no way knowledge of Spanish has increased proportional to that number. Yes, there are Spanish signs on the subway and Spanish language TV networks, but the situation has socio-economic and political undertones. Just as most people in European cities with high concentrations of Turks probably don't "pick up" Turkish, we don't pick up Spanish. Neither society - Latinos (mostly Mexicans, Guatemalans, and Puerto Ricans) OR Turks has the cachet that would spark the kind of linguistic interest you (all) are describing with UK and American influences in Norway and Spain. That said, zillions of American high school kids take Spanish in high school, and the overwhelming choice for instruction at younger ages is Spanish - but like most foreign language instruction here, it usually doesn't lead to fluency. And yes, many of us who work with Latinos, or teach their children, pick up vocabulary specific to those interactions. Just as, back in my waitress days, I could easily ask a Spanish-speaking bus boy to bring more bread to Table #6, I can now ask the mother of a student for more batteries for her child's hearing aid. But those situation-specific skills aren't going to get me very far in life... or would result in a truly bizarre conversation! (Sidenote: I'm visiting Germany in a few months, so I've been dabbling with it on a couple instructional internet sites in preparation for taking a class at our Goethe Institut. Holy cow, those are some seriously-long words!! )
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Post by rainangel on Aug 29, 2015 16:12:55 GMT
(Sidenote: I'm visiting Germany in a few months, so I've been dabbling with it on a couple instructional internet sites in preparation for taking a class at our Goethe Institut. Holy cow, those are some seriously-long words!! ) Yes, German has some serious long words Norwegian does aswell. I think we compress our words together a lot more than English does. Where you would use three individual words, we often mash them together into one word. And we can have long sequences of consonants stringed together.... It can be confusing for people not used to it. And I think German is even better at this than us. But good luck! Goethe Institut sounds pretty cool! Ich sprechen nicht viel Deutsh, nur eine bisschen, und sehr mal
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AmeliaBloomer
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,842
Location: USA
Jun 26, 2014 5:01:45 GMT
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Post by AmeliaBloomer on Aug 29, 2015 19:55:49 GMT
Ich sprechen nicht viel Deutsh, nur eine bisschen, und sehr mal I understood that! 'Course, it was written, so time to think. If you spoke it to me, my brain would go on strike after "Ich"... --------------------------------------- Circling back to a conversation upthread: This is a very, very, very odd coincidence. I JUST went to a local theatre company to teach two actors the few lines of sign language required for a scene in a play they're rehearsing. One of the lines in the script is <drumroll> ... "I like lutefisk!" Cracked (!) me (!) up (!). (The actress will have to fingerspell "lutefisk," as there is not a sign for it in American Sign Language - but I'm guessing it has its very own sign in Norwegian Sign Language...)
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azredhead
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,755
Jun 25, 2014 22:49:18 GMT
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Post by azredhead on Aug 29, 2015 20:57:19 GMT
My Swedish family says lutefisk was invented on a dare just like my Scotish family says haggis was invented on a dare even though they both eat on special occasions and holidays and those who are blessed to enter the family are asked to at least 'try' it. My step dad was born in Holland. My FIL and and his family was all born in Sweden and some of his family is still there. My moms dad and his family was born in Scotland he came when he was 12. We do Burns Night in Jan. St. Lucia at Cmas. Mid Summers etc.. etcc. My aunt that lives here has want to look into dual citizenship as does my step dad. They all speak fairly good Swedish. Dh is gettting better at learning the Swedish.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Jun 18, 2024 12:44:30 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2015 0:10:03 GMT
I am in awe of many of the non-native English speakers on here. I have a degree in Spanish, and don't have much of a chance to practice day-to-day. I have lost so much of what I used to know.
PS...allipeas, good to see you. Hope everything is going well for you in Morocco!
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Post by brynn on Aug 31, 2015 4:17:05 GMT
English and American literature is sold in most book stores, even in the store in my tiny town you will find books in English. And there's a large section in the library, too. I think the fascination with the English language is partly because such a large number of Norwegians emigrated to the US. There are more Americans of Norwegian descent than there's Norwegians! So everyone has relatives there. I'm one of them I'm finding this thread fascinating! I'm one too. Three grandparents came from Norway, and my American grandmother's parents came from Sweden. I miss the beautiful "melody" of Norwegian because the people who spoke it are mostly gone now.
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Post by miominmio on Aug 31, 2015 9:32:10 GMT
I'm not interested in learning Russian, I've been teaching French for 20 years and that's what I'll do until I retire. I don't have a degree in French - but I do speak it fluently. The curiosity is about how it is taught in classrooms. I know that immersion/exposure is the key - but I also can't control what my students do outside of class. I see them for 55 minutes a day, 5 days a week for 36 weeks. It's not possible to become fluent in that time alone, even if they take the class for 4 years. But I do want them to have a certain amount of proficiency. I use TPRS frequently, lots of comprehensible input...with a little bit of grammar explanation and practice. I try to expose the kids to other uses of the language, in the hopes that if they see interesting options they will choose to use it more frequently than just during my class. We watch music videos and listen to current songs. We watched a Cyprien video yesterday. I've had kids tell me that they've downloaded our weekly songs and have been listening, or some who wanted to know how to spell Cyprien so they can watch more on their own time. I was curious as to what methods are used in English classrooms in Scandinavia, as the results are generally better than what we see in other places. So they are taught "the basics" in school - but what exactly are "the basics"? What is the focus? Translating from English? Practicing speaking? Giving them long lists of vocab to memorize? Or just exposing them to the language? Language teaching in the US is slowly changing from grammar/translation (which never leads to fluency without other factors, such as exposure and immersion) to a more functional approach. Less focus on verb conjugations and spelling, more focus on actually communicating and using the language for practical purposes. There is, of course, both grammar and translation (but a lot less than when I was a kid), but the focus is more on communicating. They do get a weekly list of new vocabulary to practice spelling and pronouncing correctly, but the main focus is using the language in everyday situations. A week it can be "back to school", the next "buying groceries", and the kids are expected to be able to hold a (basic) conversation. I think the approach now is more "natural", afterall, none of us learn our first language practising grammar. That's something that will come later in the process.
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