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Post by bjd on Jan 31, 2012 7:34:25 GMT
Naomi Klein shot him down in Shock Therapy.
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Post by cristina on Feb 1, 2012 7:53:54 GMT
While I could see the advantage of the stellar lecture delivered online, it would really depend on the level of personal assistance (due to the instructor's new free time) that would make the difference, I think. In any event, I would still be hard pressed to take Summer seriously. I have to say that I have worked in the now reviled banking sector for my entire career. I was laid off in 2009 from a US based global "big bank" and later hired by a larger European bank with a US presence. I had just started to think about banking as not so Anglo dominated when I was unfortunately, laid off again this past fall. I have just started a new job with an even larger Japanese bank (hence my move to California). I honestly don't think we can underestimate the need for foreign language proficiency in this economy. But as a parent, anyway, I have always thought of language learning as a brain exercise. It is, to me, one of those things that helps add to critical thinking. It helps to develop that side of the brain. This, I guess, has been a core parenting goal for me. Although I'm not sure that my children will engrave that on my headstone.
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Post by patricklondon on Feb 2, 2012 16:53:38 GMT
Me too, but I don't think it's always a matter of different accent or dialect, nor (he said defensively) that my hearing's going. It's also that the technical management of sound in movies and TV recordings is either not always as good as it used to be, or more charitably that it's optimised for high-end reproduction equipment. Add to that much more naturalistic acting, with actors (to my ears) not articulating that clearly, or turning their heads away, and much more ambient sound. The recent TV adaptation of Birdsong seemed particularly difficult in that respect using my TV sound, but when I watched one episode on the internet using my stereo headphones, it was perfect.
Incidentally, I was surprised at how good the French actors in it were in English. I really thought Clémence Poésy might be English, or brought up for extensive periods in England as a child.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2012 17:53:39 GMT
Her English is obviously what got her into the Harry Potter movies.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 2, 2012 17:54:07 GMT
By the time you're ready to shuffle off this mortal coil, Cristina, your kids will have matured sufficiently to be grateful that you instilled the joy of learning and thinking well. You make a great implicit point about personal presentation in the global market, too. Someone with the will and confidence to at least try to function in a foreign language makes a better impression than the person who expects to always get by with interpreters. There's a tv adaptation of Birdsong, Patrick?! I loved that book! Interesting about the sound reproduction, Patrick. My hearing seems to be fine, normally, but so often tv sounds blurred, for lack of a better description. So you wind up turning the sound on the tv up too high, which does no good at all. But running it through headphones does make it crisper. Back before televisions had stereo speakers in the front of the set, we'd run the sound through the stereo receiver & into regular room speakers. It really sounded much better than the norm of the sound coming out the back of the tv set & hitting the wall behind it. That out-the-back-of-the-set sound has probably done more to damage neighborly relations than barking dogs. This may be an elderly curmudgeon statement, but sometimes I feel "background" music is taking over the world. Besides the crashing waves of music that accompany shopping or dining out, solo singers now often have to compete with the music and at times tv & movies have soundtracks that drown out dialogue.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 3, 2012 0:27:43 GMT
Bixa, sometimes I make a point of not listening to anything, while working at home alone.
Patrick, long-distance sweetie does that too, in his own language, after a degree of industrial (and age-related) deafness. Not to mention in French and in English, though he speaks both fluently.
Cristina, there are no miracle preventions for dementia and more normal age-related brain-function decline, but statistically people who speak two ore more languages, and keep on learning, seem less affected (though of course Kerouac's mum spoke French and English currently, and I know many other sufferers who did or do).
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Post by ninchursanga on Feb 3, 2012 3:03:02 GMT
That actually made me laugh! It's a tad bit exaggerated, I have yet to meet the Swiss who routinely speak 3 or 4 languages. The sad reality is, that many French and German speaking Swiss resort to conversing in English.
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Post by ninchursanga on Feb 3, 2012 3:19:36 GMT
... Not only do children lack embarrassment about mistakes in language, I believe there is a physical reason for their learning accentless language. I just found this: As we are learning more and more about the brain, there is a hypothesis that when a child is going through puberty, that is the time that accents start. Before a child goes through puberty, the chemical processes in the brain are more geared towards language and social communication. Whereas after puberty, the ability for learning a language without an accent has been rerouted to function in another area of the brain—most likely in the frontal lobe area promoting cognitive functions, or in the neural system of hormone allocated for reproduction and sexual organ growth.... That's exactly what I learned during teacher training and also something I've observed around me and with students. It's most apparent when you know siblings who were of pre-/postpuberty when their parents moved countries. For instance I know an Italian guy who moved to Germany at age 14. He's got a real thick accent, whereas his younger sister was barely 12 when they moved and has no accent at all. Language erosion is one topic in linguistics that I find incredibly interesting. My best friend spoke only Spanish and English as a child. When the family moved to Switzerland, she gradually switched to German. She says she can't remember a word of Spanish, btw. she was about ten when they moved. Her 6 year older brother still speaks very good Spanish and didn't forget it. I'm totally fascinated that someone can totally forget a language! It's "use it or lose it".
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Post by onlymark on Feb 3, 2012 8:21:15 GMT
Nins, the first language of my children was also Spanish but only up until the age of five. Then for various reasons it had to become German and later English. Now, when having Spanish lessons, they say they can't remember any of it, but are progressing better with (re)learning it than the rest of the class.
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Post by bjd on Feb 3, 2012 8:38:23 GMT
I'm surprised that a 14-year old would keep a thick accent, despite physiological reasons. I should think that at 14, a kid would try so much harder to integrate. But there are also people who manage to learn languages after puberty and do so with little discernable accent. It's all quite complicated and varies from individual to individual.
My daughter learned Spanish in her 20s, and now people ask her which S American country she is from, rather than whether she is French or English. But she grew up with English and French and started German at 11.
Mark, I'm not surprised your kids are doing better in Spanish than their classmates. The early-acquired knowledge must be in there somewhere and even if before the age of 5 it was all oral, they have a head start on their classmates.
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Post by auntieannie on Feb 3, 2012 12:29:48 GMT
That actually made me laugh! It's a tad bit exaggerated, I have yet to meet the Swiss who routinely speak 3 or 4 languages. The sad reality is, that many French and German speaking Swiss resort to conversing in English. Nin, shhhhhh! it's a marketing ploy! shhhhhhhh!
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Post by ninchursanga on Feb 4, 2012 18:54:26 GMT
lol, auntieannie. Let me see if I can delete that post, so I won't spoil the plot!
My best friend took Spanish classes as an adult, and although she couldn't remember anything she made good progress. She said, that hearing Spanish kind of gives her a warm, fuzzy, positive feeling and attitude towards the language you learn plays a big factor in how much and how well you learn.
And the accents, of course that varies from individual to individual. In linguistics I learned that there's a kind of time frame, somewhere between 12 and 14 years. Then of course, you have talented people who can just get rid of their accents. I met a guy here (American!) who taught himself German. He's an advanced speaker and has almost no accent. When he said he'd only been learning German for a few years, by himself, not being in German, I almost fell off my chair. Pretty amazing!
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Post by lagatta on Feb 4, 2012 23:52:26 GMT
I think having access to online sound and video files might be a great help for some in learning languages. I do wish I had more people to speak German with; it would help me overcome my shyness in making errors. I slipped into Spanish (Castillian) via the Rioplatense variety. I deliberately sought out an Argentine (could have been a Uruguayan) teacher since the accents and rhythms as so close to Italian.
ninchursanga, I also had a young student from Lausanne boarding at my place who was reading Herman Hesse in French...
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Post by cristina on Feb 5, 2012 3:06:30 GMT
I think having access to online sound and video files might be a great help for some in learning languages. I do wish I had more people to speak German with; it would help me overcome my shyness in making errors. I slipped into Spanish (Castillian) via the Rioplatense variety. I deliberately sought out an Argentine (could have been a Uruguayan) teacher since the accents and rhythms as so close to Italian. ninchursanga, I also had a young student from Lausanne boarding at my place who was reading Herman Hesse in French... Lagatta, the website Live Mocha has an interesting community-based premise where one can record and share conversations in a particular language and other members critique. Although I haven't used that feature yet, it is free so it might be a good way to practice your German. I have a huge crush on Pau Gasol, who is a basketball player for the LA Lakers. He is a native of Barcelona, who moved to the US (Tennessee, of all places) with his parents when he was drafted by the NBA. He grew up with 3 languages; most obvious: Catalan, Castillian and English. As an adult in his 30's, he has taught himself Italian and French and I believe he may be working on Chinese now. While some of those languages share enough characteristics to make learning easier, I do think some people are simply born with an ear for language. Much like those rare people who can sit down and play the piano by ear. It is an awesome gift.
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Post by patricklondon on Feb 6, 2012 10:37:53 GMT
Oh how I agree. The BBC messageboards get frequent complaints (some of them from me) particularly about a relatively recent trend to irrelevant and intrusive background music in documentaries, where there never used to be any. It's as though there's a generation of producers who just can't understand moving pictures ( or any pictures) without music, however meaningless, to add to the longstanding horror at the idea of having someone just standing still talking to the audience. Words, it seems, can never be trusted to work on their own. Take this is as a recent example of some of the thinking of people watching about the background music: www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2011/09/elegance-and-decadence-the-age.shtml
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Post by lagatta on Feb 8, 2012 1:10:32 GMT
Thanks, patrick. CBC/Radio-Canada here are guilty of the same.
I can't view flickr and youtube on my home computer (this will very soon change), but I'll go view your comments and work elsewhere.
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Post by Kimby on Feb 20, 2012 16:01:27 GMT
This may be an elderly curmudgeon statement, but sometimes I feel "background" music is taking over the world. The worst IMO is when you go to a concert and the theater management pipes in music through the sound system every second that the performers aren't onstage. It's especially annoying at the end of the concert when you'd like to savor the live music that's still reverberating in your head, but it gets pushed out by the canned music. (end of digression)
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Post by bjd on Feb 21, 2012 15:06:48 GMT
This young guy is English but listen to how well he speaks 11 languages -- and wants to learn more. From the few I know, his accent is very good, so I imagine it's good in those I don't know as well: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17107435
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 22, 2012 5:40:45 GMT
I'm sure he worked hard in order to get that grasp on all those languages. Still, I am jealous of his ability to enter them so feelingly. Fascinating.
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Post by hwinpp on Feb 22, 2012 7:57:35 GMT
Very good and many more than me. But I'd have heard from his German that it wasn't his native tongue.
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