HFQ Official Snippet #5

Ah, gotcha.

DrakBibliophile wrote:Agree that we started calling it Spanish but I'm wondering why he called it Español.

John Prigent wrote:Several months of intensive study for a 'limited' degree of proficiency? The mind boggles. Anyone of normal intelligence who understands their own language's grammar is capable of picking up basic conversational proficiency in a new language within days, and intensive study should give that person a complete grasp of grammar within a few weeks - definitely not months. After that it's just a matter of leaning new words as they come along. Mind you, I _did_ say 'who understands their own language's grammar' - maybe some people don't do that so can't learn a new language.

Cheers

John

Well, it seems my perception of how long it takes to learn a second language is off. Live and learn, I suppose.

Not trying to put you down, Bison, or anyone else. But I was speaking from experience of picking up Kiswahili over a couple of three-week business trips to East Africa. Fluent? No. Able to chat to people, understand their answers, get a taxi, order meals and drinks? Yes. One senior politician told his people not to discuss secrets in front of me because I knew too much of their language.
Cheers
John

InvisibleBison wrote:

John Prigent wrote:Several months of intensive study for a 'limited' degree of proficiency? The mind boggles. Anyone of normal intelligence who understands their own language's grammar is capable of picking up basic conversational proficiency in a new language within days, and intensive study should give that person a complete grasp of grammar within a few weeks - definitely not months. After that it's just a matter of leaning new words as they come along. Mind you, I _did_ say 'who understands their own language's grammar' - maybe some people don't do that so can't learn a new language.

Cheers

John

Well, it seems my perception of how long it takes to learn a second language is off. Live and learn, I suppose.

Braggart!
Many of us are not nearly so good at that.
Older folks in particular, such as migrants to the USA,
are notorious for speaking the local language with
heavy accents.
Me, I have been studying Hindi for five years now.
So far I have learned about forty (40) words,
and one complete sentence:
thodi vidya khatarnak cheese hai.

HTM, PHL (so maybe I am not studying *all* the time)

John Prigent wrote:Not trying to put you down, Bison, or anyone else. But I was speaking from experience of picking up Kiswahili over a couple of three-week business trips to East Africa. Fluent? No. Able to chat to people, understand their answers, get a taxi, order meals and drinks? Yes. One senior politician told his people not to discuss secrets in front of me because I knew too much of their language.
Cheers
John

John Prigent wrote:Several months of intensive study for a 'limited' degree of proficiency? The mind boggles. Anyone of normal intelligence who understands their own language's grammar is capable of picking up basic conversational proficiency in a new language within days, and intensive study should give that person a complete grasp of grammar within a few weeks - definitely not months. After that it's just a matter of leaning new words as they come along. Mind you, I _did_ say 'who understands their own language's grammar' - maybe some people don't do that so can't learn a new language.

Cheers

John

John Prigent wrote:Not trying to put you down, Bison, or anyone else. But I was speaking from experience of picking up Kiswahili over a couple of three-week business trips to East Africa. Fluent? No. Able to chat to people, understand their answers, get a taxi, order meals and drinks? Yes. One senior politician told his people not to discuss secrets in front of me because I knew too much of their language.
Cheers
John

Usually one is fluent in a language to use it in something like a diary but for Kohdy it could have been the only possibility to write his most inner thoughts without everyone understanding them. So it could be that he wasn't fluent at all.

He could have the dead language problem. I read and write latin, but speak it - no way, and I'm reasonably sure that my choice of words in suboptimal. There is also the problem of phrase inclusion - inserting a phrase from another language without realizing it.

You are probably fluent or near fluent in at least 3 other languages,or are a musician, and were exposed young. Past 6-8 years, your ear learn to not hear any phonemes that are not present in your native tongue or you dont hear regulary. That is why that no Frenchman will be ever able to pronounce correctly in English the "th" phoneme, as French as a whole dont use any dental-fricative.

Picking additionnal languages in that case is indeed pretty easy, especially if the structure is near one of those already known. Getting to the idiomatic level is another story, the stumbling block being often getting the prosody right.

But an adult speaking only his native language will have a very hard time learning a language not using the same set of phonemes he is used to. Some studies place the critical age around 17. That can take years even for a basic level.

Some tone languages, like Han chinese, are very hard to learn for someone whose native tongue is neither tone or strong stressed.

John Prigent wrote:Not trying to put you down, Bison, or anyone else. But I was speaking from experience of picking up Kiswahili over a couple of three-week business trips to East Africa. Fluent? No. Able to chat to people, understand their answers, get a taxi, order meals and drinks? Yes. One senior politician told his people not to discuss secrets in front of me because I knew too much of their language.
Cheers
John

InvisibleBison wrote:
Well, it seems my perception of how long it takes to learn a second language is off. Live and learn, I suppose.

Good points, alj_sf. I do seem to be unusual in having the ability to pronounce foreign words after hearing them (not just foreign ones, I pick up local accents if I spend much time in any area with its own English accent). But I only speak two non-English languages, with a smattering of others. Your point about pronunciation is bang on the mark, most people don't seem to say things as natives expect to hear them even after years 'in-country'. But then, I understand that a Texan speaks differently to a Bostonian though they're both in the same country!
Cheers
John

[quote="alj_sf"]You are probably fluent or near fluent in at least 3 other languages,or are a musician, and were exposed young. Past 6-8 years, your ear learn to not hear any phonemes that are not present in your native tongue or you dont hear regulary. That is why that no Frenchman will be ever able to pronounce correctly in English the "th" phoneme, as French as a whole dont use any dental-fricative.

Picking additionnal languages in that case is indeed pretty easy, especially if the structure is near one of those already known. Getting to the idiomatic level is another story, the stumbling block being often getting the prosody right.

But an adult speaking only his native language will have a very hard time learning a language not using the same set of phonemes he is used to. Some studies place the critical age around 17. That can take years even for a basic level.

Some tone languages, like Han chinese, are very hard to learn for someone whose native tongue is neither tone or strong stressed.

[quote="John Prigent"]Not trying to put you down, Bison, or anyone else. But I was speaking from experience of picking up Kiswahili over a couple of three-week business trips to East Africa. Fluent? No. Able to chat to people, understand their answers, get a taxi, order meals and drinks? Yes. One senior politician told his people not to discuss secrets in front of me because I knew too much of their language.
Cheers
John

DrakBibliophile wrote:Agree that we started calling it Spanish but I'm wondering why he called it Español.

Duckk wrote:???

Kohdy calls it Español in his journal. It's us who switched it to Spanish.

Because Espanol is the way the language is refered to in Spanish... just like Deutsch is the way German is refered to in German...

Don

True, but was Khody a Spanish speaking crew-member so he referred to it as "Español" or was he an Adam taught it by a Spanish speaking crew-member who told Khody that he was teaching Khody "Español"?

If Khody was an English speaking crew-member who learned Spanish as an adult, he'd refer to his "secret language" as Spanish not Español.

n7axw wrote:

DrakBibliophile wrote:Agree that we started calling it Spanish but I'm wondering why he called it Español.

Because Espanol is the way the language is refered to in Spanish... just like Deutsch is the way German is refered to in German...

Don