Oh no Lagatta, that was someone who I was peering over their shoulder at their CV on the tube. I would love to speak those languages but I am missing that gene.
Two of my brothers got my language gene added to their own, they pick languages up like nothing – one of them does speak 4 European languages very well and both Cantonese and Mandarin fluently (he teaches in a Chinese university). The annoying shit taught himself a little Finnish a couple of years ago for the hell of it (to show off actually).
I really do believe it has something to do with the hearing as the two brothers that speak many languages are also very musical, whereas my other brother and I who are useless as picking up languages are also tone deaf and sing like dying cats. Of course, the fact we are both very lazy adds to it.
As for those of us who only speak a couple of languages acceptably but pick up random vocabulary without much difficulty, there is considerable room for debate on whether it is better to concentrate on one new language or continue to add odd bits of bastard vocabulary from 10 languages without really knowing how to use the words.
I have seen a couple of documentaries about those ultra long distance truck drivers -- the ones who drive from Edinburgh to Ankara or from Moscow to Lisbon, and the thing that fascinates me the most is how all of the truck drivers communicate with each other at some of the borders where they are trapped for 24 hours, or at random truck stops that everybody uses. You see British truck drivers mixing French and Turkish to communicate with a Polish driver while a Bulgarian one uses German and English to talk to a Spanish driver. It both amazes and enthralls me.
Yes, I like that too. That's how I am (like the truck drivers) when I'm in places where I don't speak the language. I can communicate just fine with anyone.....
What is generally unfortunate in a class is that they teach you the swear phrases that are 30 years out of date. You have to be out on the street to learn the current stuff.
I don't think the phrase I learned is too dated, however it is pretty vulgar when literally translated, hence my need to understand when to use it in the right setting.
Btw, this class is not so academic and there are only 4 students, which I think helps it stay less formal. Our teacher doesn't hesitate to make changes to our text to reflect more realistic use of the language.
I know many words and phrases and can string together certain sentances in French, but I can't hold a conversation in French. I can read and write it much better than I can speak it, as my accent is terrible. Like someone else has said, a few drinks make me more fluent. I don't like how little French I know. I don't think the school systems here in Canada do as good of a job as they should. So I've been thinking about doing something about it. I'd really like to learn German and Arabic too. I'm familiar with a few Latin and Ancient Greek words, and perhaps a few German words, from studying philosphy, but I don't think I would hit 30 words even tallying these together!
I learned both French and English at more or less the same time. My parents sent me to English Catholic school - this was a compromise as Mum was English Protestant and Dad French Catholic.
I really regret that I wasn't sent to French school for at least the first few grades. All of my schooling was in English and now I speak French with an English accent. Forget about me writing in French. I can read a magazine article but a novel would be far too difficult.
My sister did do a few grades in French and hasn't got an English accent. She does have a few words which have, not an accent really, but a French-influenced pronunciation.
You could definitely improve your French if you give it a bit of work.
Radio-Canada has a station in Toronto. Listen to that. Nowadays you can easily access newspapers and such in French. Do it every day, you don't have to spend a long time. You could also take an extension course at a university or college - I believe University of Toronto has a campus in Mississauga, and there are certianly community colleges there (for people afar, Mississauga is a suburb of Toronto, but it can be quite an effort to get into the central city for an evening class, and worse still to get to York University north of the city).
With an early-learning background, your French can come back faster than you'd think.
By the way, I learned three languages more or less at once too, and probably sound a bit ... from somewhere or something ... in all of them.
I think this is almost becoming the norm in some milieux and areas.
Joanne, Lagatta is right about the language coming back easily if you start taking a class. I had French in school from the time I was 10 until I was 17. No real opportunities to speak French with anyone regularly though, so over time, I sort of lost it. Now, several decades later, I am taking a class (once a week, since last May)) through my local Alliance Francaise, and am frankly surprised at how much I actually do remember. My accent is very heavy on the American side though, and I wish it wasn't. But I think that is because the mouth needs to be trained quite young to make certain sounds.
In contrast, Spanish was a first language for me (as was English). However I never learned "proper" Spanish in school so my grammar is pretty juvenile. My (Castillian) Spanish parent died when I was young so I didn't have the ongoing spoken language at home, hence my Spanish is lacking now. But when I do say or read a word or phrase, there is no American accent at all.
So, I am more fluent in French, but I sound so much better in Spanish.
If you can pronounce your French in Spanish rather than (US) English or any kind of English, it will sound much better. I pronounce Spanish basically in Italian - it sounds more or les Argentinian (or Uruguayan). So I sound more "fluent" (ha, ha) than a friend who actually speaks far better Spanish than I do, but pronounces it in English.
The main sound you DON'T have in Spanish to speak french is the u. Make the Spanish OU with a kissy mouth. Even a rather ... errr ... constipated one. (Sorry). The standard French R is also different from Spanish or Italian, but there are southern accents with a not-too-different R.
The quasi guttural French R is something that came quite easily to me but that some Anglophones cannot seem to master no matter how much they practice. It may have helped that I took French classes beginning in 5th grade. The French vowels are I think generally harder as well for a native Anglophone than Italian or Spanish ones.
My father, despite having lived in Italy for quite a few years now, absolutely cannot trill his Rs.
well i voted but actually, i am wondering a bit what you mean by "thirty words of vocabulary". if i can count to 30 in a language, but nothing else, is that 30 words? are, in english "am, are, is" etc. different words, or do they all count as the word "to be"? are, wasi and wasiyoq different words, seeing as in english they mean "house" and "house owner", so two different things? anyway, since i was really insecure if i can count quechua - do those words count that i know from toponyms (like "chuqe = metal" and "pata = above" from choquepata, the name of a village i know) or as loan words (like "carpa = tent" or "quy = guinea pig", in spanish form they use "cuy" in peru) count, if i know they meaning? do interjections (like "alalaw = how cold!") count?
actually i am now constantly going through words in my head in different languages. in quechua as i said i reach thirty if i count some of these mentioned special cases. in turkish i only reached 20 words... used to know more but i keep forgetting... hm maybe i should try to learn 30 words of all kinds of strange languages, just because.
I said 4, but I am only fluent in English, sadly. I studied Spanish from7th grade through 11th grade, then didn't use it much until a trip almost 20 years later to Mexico. Amazing how much vocabulary still lurked in my brain. I can carry on a conversation with a 5 year old, but not so much with adults. Having the Spanish made it "easy" to pick up a workable amount of vocabulary in Italian and French when we visited those countries. (Instructional tapes in the car for a couple months before the trip really helped, though not so much with written French.) When we were in Portugal, I could understand enough to get by, though I couldn't speak a word, so didn't include it in my list. I learned a lot of Swahili words while in East Africa, mostly animal names, but couldn't really carry on a conversation beyond "Jambo" "Habari" "Nzuri, asante sana"
EC, what you need to do is just start speaking again and not give a damn about mistakes you're making.
You should see how some of the French guys here react to my French! But it's coming back. And my accent is much, much better than my friend's accent even though his French is grammatically perfect from living there and in the Congo for centuries (it seems). Even if you just heard him speaking without understanding you'd immediately know he's English...
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