Tarlybarn, Brark ubarma, Parkystarn...

I did some work for Daimler-Chrysler in 2006 working alongside a
French chap. At one point he had an argument with an Italian girl in
the office at full volume and the two of them were switching on a word
to word basis between French, Italian, German, Spanish and English.
Most of the open-plan office was entranced.

 

The `official way to read and pronounce' only counts if you accept the
authority of the authority.

 

when i'm speaking with someone who knows (a particular phrase in) another
language, and the phrase seems more apt in that language, i'll usually
just drop it in. this happens with h fairly often as she speaks fluent
french and german.

the randomly switching between multiple languages as a matter of course
is a different thing, i don't do that but i find it highly amusing. like
for instance salvatore's patter in the name of the rose, or in fact
several of umberto eco's characters.

 

She'd get on well in Alsace then, as even when they think they're
speaking French they'll often use a German word when it's a better
fit, without realising that they're doing so.

The last two weeks in Turkey we had a few Germans sailing along with
us (in a loose flotilla, such that we tended to eat together in the
evenings and compare notes). As one of the few German-speaking brits
there, I spent some time trying to make them feel included,
particularly last week when there was just one German couple whose
English was pretty poor. Anyway, being used to speaking German over
here the most difficult thing I found was to _not_ try and speak it to
the Turkish waiters. Quite a few times both myself and Jude found
ourselves doing so - worse, it wasn't even proper German, but heavily
Swiss-ised, like saying 'merci viel mal'.

Coming back here and speaking French to the neighbours, who prefer in
any case to speak Alsacienne, was fairly confusing for a while.

 

I'm sure he'll try to get a hold of it but he'll more than likely
choose the wrong language.

 

snip>

I went through a phase of swearing in several different languages in
the course of one disagreement but all that meant is that I was on the
run and had to resort to cheating.

 

The best 'false friend' between Italian and Spanish is the ability to
spead some donkey on your toast ...

P.

 

Ruston Bucyrus.

 

Hah! I actually *did* that in Spain - knowing no Spanish, but getting
by with Italian, at breakfast somewhere I asked for some 'burro'. I
got a strange look. Only later did I find that the correct word is
mantequila.

 

My all-time favourite was my mate who called his landlord to say he
could hear rendered beef fat [1] in his radiator.

Made oi larf.

Paul.

[1] Dripping

 

Mantequilla. Diminutive of manteca. So "little lard" then. Funny old
language.

 

All the people I've known that have claimed to speak another language
"fluently" have been liars. The ones that can speak another language
"fluidly", rarely claim to be fluent. The more you know the other
language, the more you realise that you're just scratching the surface.

This of course, only applies to people that didn't learn the other
language as a sprog, alongside their native tongue.

I fully expect someone to now tell me I'm talking out of my bum.

 

I think you have some particular definition of 'fluent' in mind. I
would say that I'm quite fluent in French, which means that I can hold
a conversation about most topics without pausing to think or
translating to and from English all the time. That's what I understand
by 'fluent'.

You seem to be interpreting it as 'perfectly' or 'like a native' which
is a very different thing.

 

My French is fluent, but bad.

 

Understanding is easy. What I call speaking fluently, is speaking
naturally and idiomatically. You don't have to sound like a native, but
to the native, you have to sound like an adult. I understand almost
everything I hear in Spanish, but when I reply, I probably sound like a 5
year old.

And as for Spanish "fluent" English speakers, well, there's more like
Manuel from Faulty Towers, than not. I translated someone's CV into
English (the guy hardly knows a word) and he got the job. His CV said
level of English "intermediate". Good enough for the employer.

 

Le Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:32:48 +0200, Ace a écrit :

You say that as if it is a good thing.
IME, some natives would benefit from pausing to think during a
conversation.

 

You're bang on the money. A friend of mine who works as a translator
from a number of languages and did the hiring for her company put it
well with respect to many applicants for translating jobs who claimed
to be fluent. She said that when you learn a language you go through a
phase of speaking it well enough and understanding it well enough to
function without any great trouble. After that you start to pick up
the subtleties of speaking like a native and much later you are
genuinely fluent. When you are out of touch with the language (in her
case Russian, in mine Italian) you still speak it better than the
people who claim to be `fluent' but you are conscious of having to
search for just the right word.

The people who claim to be `fluent' don't even know that they don't
know the words or the precise weight that words or phrases
carry. People who have become genuinely fluent can get back that
fluency with immersion and without immersion they can pick up the
subtleties but take a bit longer to do it.

 

Given where I live, I've been told a few times that I speak better than a
lot of the natives. I think I'm one of about 4 out of 2000 that regularly
read a newspaper.

 

True indeed. BTW you really might consider changing your posting name.
I'm sure I'm not the only one whose killfile filters you out because
of the D word therein. I only see this in Paul's reply, hence the
piggy-back reply.

 

Some might say that's your own fault for identifying the originator of a
post on the basis that the post contains a french preposition.

Get a proper newsreader? Actually, I'm aware that many consider Agent to be
a proper newsreader, but Xnews can handle this.