Learning Languages for Leisure Travel

[Lsbcal]

Knowing a bit of the language can make the trip easier and get you out of tight spots if you really goof up.

I used this phrase in France when I did something that was very rude and insulting:

Je suis désolé. Je suis Canadien.

It worked quite well.

What could you possibly have done that was very rude and insulting? Did you know it from the look you received?

 

[Fedup]

I did learn some Italian words but now I've already forgot them.

 

[Gotadimple]

I like DuoLingo. I have used it for Spanish. Add Memrise (memrise.com) to the mix. This site drills you in many subjects. In languages it provides drills for vocabulary practice. Like DuoLingo you hear the words, and like DuoLingo each time you long in you are asked to review words to keep them in your memory.

I am currently spending time learning Hebrew (Israel later next week!). Memrise contains a course that has the entire vocabulary used in the DuoLingo course (see if something like this is available for Dutch). Then check to see if there is a DuoLingo group on Facebook (if you use it). Get the vocabulary from Memrise, the sentence structure/verb conjugation from DuoLingo, and the discussion on usage from Facebook.

One thing I discovered with DuoLingo is that the web page contains tips and notes for each section of lessons, but the Android app does not. And the app doesn't give a link to see the tips and notes. I was missing out on some understanding using the app.

- Rita

 

[Which Roger]

DW (French) and I (Spanish) have done our 5 minutes on Duolingo every day. She's been at it for almost 2 years without missing a day, and I'm approaching one year. I've supplemented my learning by reading a book on Spanish grammar, and using Spanish when I text my friend who is a native Spanish speaker. He recommends listening to dubbed movies where I already know a lot of the lines in English.

 

[Teacher Terry]

DH is good at picking up languages but me not so much. So before we go on a trip I make sure he learns to say all the things that I need)

 

[Beldar]

Spanish is our second language. We worked on our Spanish quite a bit when we first moved to the Mexican border, including hours of Spanish (Mexican) Language television which sharpened our listening comprehension a great deal.

Thats a great idea. We also live along the border and there are plenty of Mexicans who drive up to shop (and vacuum up all the garage sales on the weekend). That would be a good skill to have.

Personally, I'm trying to learn Republican-era Latin, but I think a continuing education course might be the best route for interaction in conversation.

And then there is Esperanto (weekly via Radio Habana Cuba).


_B

 

[audreyh1]

DW (French) and I (Spanish) have done our 5 minutes on Duolingo every day. She's been at it for almost 2 years without missing a day, and I'm approaching one year. I've supplemented my learning by reading a book on Spanish grammar, and using Spanish when I text my friend who is a native Spanish speaker. He recommends listening to dubbed movies where I already know a lot of the lines in English.

If you are past beginners level than a very effective thing to do is to watch Spanish language programming with the captions on in Spanish. This will really help train your ear, as well as grow your vocabulary. You might want to target the accent - whether Latin American or European Spanish, and even the regional accent if important. This helped me tremendously with my spoken Spanish comprehension.

 

[audreyh1]

Thats a great idea. We also live along the border and there are plenty of Mexicans who drive up to shop (and vacuum up all the garage sales on the weekend). That would be a good skill to have.

Personally, I'm trying to learn Republican-era Latin, but I think a continuing education course might be the best route for interaction in conversation.

And then there is Esperanto (weekly via Radio Habana Cuba).


_B

Well here there are lots of places where people speak mostly Spanish. The folk who grew up here speak both English and Spanish at the same time - that's how you know they grew up here. It's a bit disorienting at first, but you get used to it. They learn Spanish at home, go to school in English, but without formal education in Spanish, their vocabulary is not large enough, and they have to use English words mixed in. I always noticed how a sentence would start in one language, the switch to the other, then back, so I once asked someone if they just used whichever word came first to them in either language, and they said yes, pretty much. It drives some people nuts, the native (educated) Spanish speakers as much as the native English speakers, but I now see as just part of the fusion culture that is the Valley, and it's quite entertaining.

Restaurants, etc., we often order and converse with the waiter in Spanish just like the other patrons, so it's used. And we hear so much of it. I understand it all too - no problem. When DH developed enough proficiency that he could understand the young kids in the grocery store interacting with their parents, things became much more entertaining for him!

We both watched a lot of Telenovelas. Fortunately several were pretty good. Telenovelas are particularly good for comprehension because there are lots of everyday situations, lots of conversational interaction, lots of context which helps, continuity. Some were produced by Univision, which is a US based Spanish language channel (based in Miami I think), many were produced by Telemundo - a Mexican channel. We even watched a Colombian remake of Grey's Anatomy which was excellent, but required more work because the Colombian accent was unfamiliar. It was worth it. I think some of this programming is available on Hulu.

 

[Nemo2]

. The folk who grew up here speak both English and Spanish at the same time - that's how you know they grew up here. It's a bit disorienting at first, but you get used to it.

Experienced that when we lived in Ottawa....young people primarily, perhaps because they were calling back and forth to each other and we could hear them, would switch from English to French and back midsentence without missing a beat. Pretty neat, we thought.

 

[audreyh1]

Experienced that when we lived in Ottawa....young people primarily, perhaps because they were calling back and forth to each other and we could hear them, would switch from English to French and back midsentence without missing a beat. Pretty neat, we thought.

LOL - good to know this isn't the only place with simultaneous bilingualism!

 

[Chuckanut]

What could you possibly have done that was very rude and insulting? Did you know it from the look you received?

I went into a French wine store and asked for a bottle of English wine.

 

[MichaelB]

What could you possibly have done that was very rude and insulting? Did you know it from the look you received?

I went into a French wine store and asked for a bottle of English wine.

Wow, that is way past rude. More like death threat or exile. Hope you used a disguise and false name...

 

[Nemo2]

I went into a French wine store and asked for a bottle of English wine.

Sacré bleu!!

 

[Chuckanut]

He recommends listening to dubbed movies where I already know a lot of the lines in English.

If you have a local station that is part of the MHz network you can get older TV shows in a variety of languages such as Detective Montalbano (Italian) , A French Village (French), Agatha Christie's Family Murder Party (French), Miss Sophia's Instinct (German), the Undertaker (Switzerland), and The Baantjer Mysteries (Dutch). All have English subtitles. Once I tuned into a news discussion show from Ireland, but was it completely done in Gaelic with no subtitles. They even have a Serbian series - The Scent of Rain in the Balkans.


MHz Networks: Programming for a Globally Minded Audience

FWIW, they also carry France 24 and Deutsche Welle - news from France and Germany in English.

 

[Lsbcal]

DW (French) and I (Spanish) have done our 5 minutes on Duolingo every day. She's been at it for almost 2 years without missing a day, and I'm approaching one year. I've supplemented my learning by reading a book on Spanish grammar, and using Spanish when I text my friend who is a native Spanish speaker. He recommends listening to dubbed movies where I already know a lot of the lines in English.

I haven't tried Duolingo. But when you said just 5 minutes a day, I figured I'd give the Duolingo German a try. We'll be in Germany-Austria for 15 days this summer coming from the Netherlands.

So far I'm on a zero day Duolingo streak!

 

[audreyh1]

Hey - learn the words for one, two, beer, please (bitter), and you're all set!

 

[DrRoy]

Je parle un peu de Francais, aussi. I had a couple years in high school. Prior to visiting France a few years ago, I studied up a little more and did enjoy using it to the degree that I could. I tried studying Norwegian prior to visiting there, but all I could really say was "I don't speak Norwegian.

 

[Nemo2]

but all I could really say was "I don't speak Norwegian.

And by the time you were a quarter of the way through saying it, the Norwegians had figured it out.

 

[braumeister]

Hey - learn the words for one, two, beer, please (bitter), and you're all set!

Ein Bier, bitte = a beer, please.
Noch ein Bier, bitte = another one
Although it can also be useful to eat:
Ein Bier und ein Wurst, bitte.

But I've always found it fascinating how most languages have such a large colloquial component. Before I went to Brazil, I went through a six month intensive language course (Defense Language Institute) in Portuguese. To show the depth of that school, they had six instructors, 2 from Portugal, 2 from the Azores, and 2 from Brazil (each is a different dialect). I was #1 in my class, and felt really confident when I finished it.

Then I went to Brazil. Got to my hotel and turned on the TV and understood no more than 10% of what I heard. It took probably close to a year before I really considered myself fluent (actually thinking in the language instead of translating on the fly).

By the time I left Brazil, three years later, I was routinely doing simultaneous interpretation for cabinet-level officials of both Brazil and the US, simply because there was nobody else available who could do that. I recognized that I had many hesitations and uncertainties, but they were all grateful and unaware of my weaknesses.

If I went back there today, I'm sure it would take me a couple of weeks to regain fluency, simply because my slang is so out of date.

 

[DrRoy]

And by the time you were a quarter of the way through saying it, the Norwegians had figured it out.

Well, yes, and as it turns out, virtually everyone in Norway speaks English.

 

[Nemo2]

But I've always found it fascinating how most languages have such a large colloquial component.

I recall, in the early 1970s, talking to a German guy in Toronto - he said that, when he first arrived in Canada, an immigration officer asked him if he spoke English. Having taken English throughout his school years, he answered "Yes".

Then, he told me, "I soon found out that I didn't".

Such practices that were common, such as truncating sentences less than halfway through, (because it was presumed that the listener knew what was coming next), initially perplexed him.......he was always waiting for them to finish.

And as for slang.....

 

[Nemo2]

Well, yes, and as it turns out, virtually everyone in Norway speaks English.

As is common just about everywhere nowadays.......recall complimenting a Saudi on an airplane regarding his English...he said "I have to".

English is the world's Lingua Franca.

 

[tfudtuckerpucker]

Duolingo is pretty interesting. I've been practicing German daily for about 4 years. I completed all 25 levels, and it now gives me a "59% fluent" rating, though I think it's been stuck at that number for several years. Dunno how accurate it is. I supplement with Youtube ("Easy German" is good) and movies (like "Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter") with subtitles, if possible, and German websites. Also been doing Spanish in Duolingo, and I'm at "54% fluent", but I think that's too generous.

 

[FUEGO]

FYI lots of movies and TV shows on netflix in a foreign language with English subtitles. I know I've seen tons of Spanish language content, along with some German, Scandinavian languages, and French. It's great because you can rewind them to listen parts multiple times if the phrasing is confusing or you want to hear how they pronounce something.

 

[Corporateburnout]

Experienced that when we lived in Ottawa....young people primarily, perhaps because they were calling back and forth to each other and we could hear them, would switch from English to French and back midsentence without missing a beat. Pretty neat, we thought.

When we visited Ottawa last year I was impressed with the majority of folks who spoke both languages fluently. I speak fluent French myself and usually have some difficulty with the Quebec and Montreal people accents but not in Ottawa where I was able to communicate in French effectively.