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Post by ForumUser2 on Feb 9, 2024 8:58:49 GMT 1
I spent 3 years with the Gurkhas, mostly dealing with the families, none of who spoke English. I became fluent enough to have be a medical "expert" on a Nepali radio show.
French? Yep, not quite fluent but never caught short in conversation.
In both the above I'd think and speak without needing to mentally translate.
But German. For some reason I could read and listen to German and understand without needing to translate. Speaking I would stutter and need to formulate thoughts before expressing them. A bit like Eric Morecombe didn't say - I'd say the right words but not necessarily in the right order. My written German was terrible although I had a German secretary who took care of the important stuff. Even after 11 years expressing myself in German was a strain.
At school I was bottom of the class in French, German and Latin. Just shows, book learning and real-life learning are very different.
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dylan
Non-gamer
Posts: 45
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Post by dylan on Feb 9, 2024 10:59:57 GMT 1
I did too but left at 17 to attend Technical College.
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Le-Dolly
Member
La Souterraine (23) depuis '05.
Posts: 575
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Post by Le-Dolly on Feb 9, 2024 17:24:36 GMT 1
I spent 3 years with the Gurkhas, mostly dealing with the families, none of who spoke English. I became fluent enough to have be a medical "expert" on a Nepali radio show. French? Yep, not quite fluent but never caught short in conversation. In both the above I'd think and speak without needing to mentally translate. But German. For some reason I could read and listen to German and understand without needing to translate. Speaking I would stutter and need to formulate thoughts before expressing them. A bit like Eric Morecombe didn't say - I'd say the right words but not necessarily in the right order. My written German was terrible although I had a German secretary who took care of the important stuff. Even after 11 years expressing myself in German was a strain. At school I was bottom of the class in French, German and Latin. Just shows, book learning and real-life learning are very different. I arrived in Ingerland at the age of four to attend school, at home Tamazight & Tarifit was spoken when with the rellies. French was widely spoken amongst the family, as was a small amount of Spanish. My mothers English and my fathers Polish were equally spoken at home. So when I entered school with English as virtually a second language, the fight began. Throughout junior school I only spoke English barring the holidays, but things got better after I won a scholarship to a proper school. I too was bottom of the class in French, even though I spoke it fluently, but the Moroccan slant caused my French teacher, who was English, to despair that I would never be able to communicate correctly. Spanish was also marked down, again because of the "incorrect" accent, as was Latin. In German, I was fine, much to the disgust of my parents, anything German was Haram. Having worked or partied worldwide I have also added Thaï and Moroccan Arabic to the list. In all cases, bar Arabic, I am more than able to speak, read and write, with the Arabic, only able to read and speak but I am sometimes seriously troubled with the writing. Currently, I am mauling Portuguese.
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Post by cernunnos on Feb 10, 2024 9:51:46 GMT 1
To be honest , the older generation were quite complimentary about us when we were young. Three out of four kids from a working class family that went to grammer school, quite a success for our proud mum.
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Post by omegal on Feb 10, 2024 10:28:31 GMT 1
To be honest , the older generation were quite complimentary about us when we were young. Three out of four kids from a working class family that went to grammer school, quite a success for our proud mum. Don't want to come across as pedantic but if you went to grammer school you should know it is grammar, I also went to a grammar school that's how I know
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Post by ajm on Feb 10, 2024 10:33:18 GMT 1
To be honest , the older generation were quite complimentary about us when we were young. Three out of four kids from a working class family that went to grammer school, quite a success for our proud mum. Don't want to come across as pedantic but if you went to grammer school you should know it is grammar, I also went to a grammar school that's how I know Me too.
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Post by jackie on Feb 10, 2024 11:17:32 GMT 1
I was lucky as had two older sisters who bore the brunt of the huge generational clash in the sixties with our parents. By the time I was a teenager I had it a lot easier……
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Post by cernunnos on Feb 10, 2024 13:00:22 GMT 1
I left home as soon as I could , which was a year after leaving school . Too difficult with 4 kids in a two up and down " cottage"
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Post by iolar on Mar 31, 2024 18:30:15 GMT 1
Le-Dolly, I had friends who traveled a lot around Europe and North Africa, they were into 'importing'. There little daughter could delightfully babble in Arabic,Spanish, Dutch and English. There is no substitute for learning languages when young.
My father had a really tough upbringing not unusual way back then. At 14 he had excellent exam results but as his father was dead and hi mother dying of cancer, he left Glasgow to work among the aliens in London and at 16 always having a headache from the terrible pollution of London, he did something very ambitious. He applied to work in a 5 star hotel in the Italian Alps in Strezza. In 6 months he was fluent in Italian then he applied for a job in Lausanne and there he also became fluent in French. Celtic people tend to find languages easy. I only ever met one English in the Netherlands who could speak Dutch well, most didn't bother.
I was always lazy with grammar but have no trouble making myself understood in Dutch and Spanish. Had a really awful French teacher at school. What annoys me about a lot of French people is that they have very lazy ears and if you don't say something exactly correct they simply don't understand as well as speaking as if they are on speed.
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Nifty
Member
Posts: 5,046
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Post by Nifty on Apr 1, 2024 2:33:09 GMT 1
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