Today’s WordPress daily writing prompt caught my attention.
I envy those fluent in any language beyond their mother tongue. I probably have about thirty words of French because our daughter and two of our grandkids live in France, and as for Portuguese, it is very much a work in progress. It’s not that I haven’t tried to learn Portuguese; I have. I’ve spent thoussssands of euros on private lessons, and I’m currently attending the AI/A2 course down in our local town.
The class includes Nepalese, Dutch, German, and Romanian, and then there are us three English-speaking students who sit there and try to look intelligent while our fellow pupils gabble away in Portuguese.
I listen as the teacher reads some text. I try to catch an odd word for context but words float over my head in a jumble like code. Why? because several words flow into one and they could be casting spells as far as I am concerned. At least with written Portuguese, you get some idea… but spoken not a chance.
But if you don’t speak the local lingo, how can you fully integrate into the indigenous community? The simple truth is you can’t so we keep trying.
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Piglet in Portugal 
I first learned French in what is now year 5 in school, then in year 7 we started with English, but mainly grammar, I don’tthinkI couldhold a conversation. Then I moved from Mozambique to South Africa and was instantly immersed in English as I started year 10. When I got married we went to Germany for about 6 years and apart from a 3 month introductory course I mostly learned from having the TV or radio on the whole time. I can still understand a bit, and was proudly able to speak a little bit when I visited Germany last year! French was basically forgotten until my daughter married a Frenchman whose parents don’t speak much English. I decided to take French lessons recently, but found we were mostly learning grammar and after 2 years of weekly lessons I couldn’t hold a conversation, but could understand a lot when spoken to. It is more difficult as we age, but I find I learn better just listening to a podcast over and over. Good luck Carole 😀.
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Goodness, Sami. You are well-grounded in languages.
WE are learning so much grammar in the lessons by the end of an hour, my head is in a spin. Because the lessons are grammar-focused to pass the A1/A2 exams i am so busy trying to make a sentence grammatically correct that I have lost any confidence I had. That said I now have a good grounding on which to build.
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Languages are interesting. Swedish is my native tongue, and I also speak English. I took French for three years in High School, and Spanish for two years in upper secondary school, I would not say that I speak those languages since I do not practice. I understand Spanish pretty well, and I can order food at a restaurant etc. I have some knowledge in sign language. I’ve had many school children that speak Arabic through the years, and know a few useful words (definitely not speaking the language).
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Hi Maria, I think if you didn’t get the opportunity to practice the languages it made it more difficult for them to stick. But at least you have English as your second language. If you can order food at a restaurant, that is an excellent start as a traveller.
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I learned French when I was younger, in high school and university. I loved it, but there was always this fear of pronouncing something wrong, and so until I lived in French speaking Switzerland for a year, I was afraid to actually say anything. Then I learned Portuguese when I lived in Portugal for three years. It was just so fun! The people loved that I was trying and they never ever mentioned a word about incorrect pronunciations! Now, I am older and here and there I try to learn some German because my daughter has German speaking in-laws. Yikes! Every time I do a lesson, it is mostly forgotten the next time I pick it up. Scary! I teach ESL to adults in the US, and my older students always have a harder time. I think it requires of us older folks a commitment to practice every day, and maybe a lot of repetition. Researchers say it takes a lot of repetition to remember new words, even for young people. It would be useful to use it as much as possible. Perhaps you can find some kind of vocabulary game website online. I sometimes use Studystack.com and create lists (word/definition) for my students. There is also something called kahoots, but I haven’t used it much. Reading helps as well if you can find an easy book for foreigners. It helps because you see the word order of the new language over and over as you go along. Best wishes!
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Hi ephesians413 so lucky to learn French at school and continue at Uni… I think that is my problem we had French and Italian lessons at school but I never grasped either one.
Hey, and you even learned Portuguese. Did you find already having a good grasp of French helped?
Yes, I’ve also heard this and maybe I should set myself daily vocab study. I have a brainscape account where I can create study lists. Bom idea!
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I’m still struggling with Spanish too, Carole. I’ve taken some time off from lessons for the summer. Nobody around here speaks Spanish, so it’s rather useless to just take the lessons and have no one to try it out with. I’ll be back at it in South Texas. Thanks to a wonderful high school French teacher, I still understand some spoken French and can get by when the occasion demands it. I still have German on my language bucket list because both of my parents and all of my Grandparents spoke the language, but sadly never taught it to my generation. I’m hopeful that there will be some residual long term memory of hearing it so often in my childhood. That might make the lessons a bit smoother. I’ve read that learning another language is excellent for the brain, so likely even trying is good brain exercise.
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Like an aerobic workout for the brain!.
You are so lucky to have been exposed to German from an early age and I bet if you were studying GErman instead of Spanish you’d seoon be fluent. Sadly, when I was growing up I was never exposed to any other languages or cultures beyond English and Christianity. Apart from a 2week holiday in Spain when I was 18 that was it until our daughter went to France.
Good luck with the Spanish, Terry.
I am going to start listening to some Portuguese langauage podcasts while I am gardening to try and build my vocabulary.
Do you listen to any Spanish podcasts?
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I hadn’t even thought of that, so thank you for the idea, Carole. I do listen to some Spanish songs when I’m out for my walks.
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I remember way back how frustrated you were visiting your daughter and grandchildren in France – they spoke fluent English to you and French to their father a moment later and you could not understand. As I said then, you and I are at different ends of the pole :) ! Having been born in as small a country as Estonia, you promptly grew up knowing you had to be fluent in at least the ‘four local languages’ – Estonian, German, Russian and i presume Finnish, but my Father spoke French to a lot of his friends and I was forever trying to make out what they were talking about and I loved the sound of Italian. My parents had to do an awful lot of i’national entertaining, so on any night any number of languages were being spoken and little me was forever pulling people’s coat-tails asking ‘what is that’ in German or Estonian :) ! I am not that ‘good’ as most of my friends but manage 4-5, at least at the ‘street’ level . . . I just don’t know what to advise except – don’t think about it and make a big thing out of it . . . just relax, go with the flow, listen to how people talk and absorb . . . don’t go to all these lessons . . . go out with all your local friends and tell them NOT to speak to you in English > you’ll pick up more and faster!
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Hi Eha I’d love to go out and meet Portuguese friends but sadly, apart from working in the animal charity shop we don’t live in an area where social integration is easy when you are my age. While I hate the internal politics of working in the shop as a volunteer, it does allow me to practice. When we go to restaurants, most of the staff are Nepalese, Indian or Brazilian. At least the youngsters can get involved because they have children school age.
The lessons at least give me the basics and some local knowledge.
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First of all, BRAVO for the incredible World Cup win yesterday! As for languages, I learned French in junior high – the worst time to learn as I didn’t think I’d ever go there! I stumble through whatever language I encounter with humility and apologies and when we were in Portugal they appreciated the effort and helped me eat and drink and that’s all I needed to do!
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Thanks, John re win. They certainly pulled out all the stops. ” stumble through whatever language I encounter with humility and apologies ” me too… and I will add a sense of humour!
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Like you it sounds “greek” to me. Definitely a weak subject for me. My Canadian friend just learnt Italian from French….😳
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I think once you have mastered one of the latin languages the rest are similar. It is all gobbly geek to me
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I only speak English even though French was my mother’s first language, and she didn’t speak English until she went to school. There is a large Franco-American population in Maine and New England, and back in the day, there were enclaves, called little Canadas, where French was the main language. My great-grandmother, born in Maine, never learned to speak English. Good luck with Portuguese.
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Hi Laurie, what a wonderful cultural history your family have. Were you never tempted to learn French? I was terrified when our first grandchild was born in France that we would never be able to communicate but fortunately, she learned quickly, and she is so quick with her English conversation that she can argue the hind legs off a donkey.
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I was tempted, but like you I don’t have a knack for languages. Fun story about your granddaughter.
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It is a knack and some people just have it. One guy in our Portuguese class can speak 5 languages.
Yep, my granddaughter is a character. HEr uncle made the mistake of getting into a debate with her on, I think, womens rights, and he came off the sore loser of that one.
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Let’s hear it for feisty granddaughters!
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English and kiswahili and kinyarwanda and same time french
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Hi gasa, thanks for stopping by. You are so lucky to have more than one langauge.
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