Wanderlust support group 5

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Lur » 2021-07-16, 21:27

So there's Russian (out of nowhere)

And also out of nowhere, Irish for like a week, and I don't know what to do about it!
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Osias » 2021-07-24, 1:47

2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Linguaphile » 2021-07-24, 4:36


Interesting video! Navajo is cool (and I really want that breakfast burrito now. Haven't had náneeskaadi in ages.)
I started to write a rant about the title "Seemingly Clueless White Guy Shocks Native Americans by Speaking Perfect Navajo" and the statement "They say it's the third hardest in the world, right? Russian, Chinese and then Navajo". They're like mandatory statements in videos like these - the person always claims to speak "perfect" [insert language] after [insert short amount of time], and the language is always the second or third hardest after [something totally random that is not usually considered the world's hardest]. It's not that Navajo isn't difficult (it is); it's that I don't think it's easier for English speakers than Russian. But we'll just leave it at that. LOL

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Iván » 2021-07-24, 9:49

Chinese. I found this channel and got interested in the language. I will probably need another life to learn Chinese, though.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby linguoboy » 2021-07-24, 18:56

Iván wrote:Chinese. I found this channel and got interested in the language. I will probably need another life to learn Chinese, though.

"In my day if you studied German, you never graduated. You just spent your life knowing German. Nowadays I think that happens with Chinese."--Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Osias » 2021-07-24, 21:32

Linguaphile wrote:

Interesting video! Navajo is cool (and I really want that breakfast burrito now. Haven't had náneeskaadi in ages.)
I started to write a rant about ...

I think we are all Unilangers here, so we could all write the same rant. :D
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Yasna » 2021-07-24, 22:50

linguoboy wrote:
Iván wrote:Chinese. I found this channel and got interested in the language. I will probably need another life to learn Chinese, though.

"In my day if you studied German, you never graduated. You just spent your life knowing German. Nowadays I think that happens with Chinese."--Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

This passage struck me as odd, so I tracked down the original Italian.

"Ai miei tempi chi sapeva il tedesco non si laureava più. Passava la vita a sapere il tedesco. Credo che oggi succeda col cinese."

It looks like "sapere" is being translated first as "to study" and then as "to know". Is that a sensible translation decision? I don't know enough Italian to judge it further.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby linguoboy » 2021-07-25, 21:24

Yasna wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Iván wrote:Chinese. I found this channel and got interested in the language. I will probably need another life to learn Chinese, though.

"In my day if you studied German, you never graduated. You just spent your life knowing German. Nowadays I think that happens with Chinese."--Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

This passage struck me as odd, so I tracked down the original Italian.

"Ai miei tempi chi sapeva il tedesco non si laureava più. Passava la vita a sapere il tedesco. Credo che oggi succeda col cinese."

It looks like "sapere" is being translated first as "to study" and then as "to know". Is that a sensible translation decision? I don't know enough Italian to judge it further.

Have you considered the possibility that I simply got one word wrong when quoting from memory a book I read three decades ago?
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Yasna » 2021-07-26, 2:18

linguoboy wrote:Have you considered the possibility that I simply got one word wrong when quoting from memory a book I read three decades ago?

No, I didn't, because your quote had every appearance of having either been copy-pasted or copied directly from the book. Anyway, the actual passage in the translation is apparently "When I was in school, if you knew German, you never graduated. You just spent your life knowing German. Nowadays I think that happens with Chinese." This leaves me none the wiser. If the two instances of sapere were translated with the verb "to study", it would make perfect sense to me. But as is I don't know what the author is trying to convey.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Linguaphile » 2021-07-26, 2:55

linguoboy wrote:
Yasna wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Iván wrote:Chinese. I found this channel and got interested in the language. I will probably need another life to learn Chinese, though.

"In my day if you studied German, you never graduated. You just spent your life knowing German. Nowadays I think that happens with Chinese."--Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

This passage struck me as odd, so I tracked down the original Italian.

"Ai miei tempi chi sapeva il tedesco non si laureava più. Passava la vita a sapere il tedesco. Credo che oggi succeda col cinese."

It looks like "sapere" is being translated first as "to study" and then as "to know". Is that a sensible translation decision? I don't know enough Italian to judge it further.

Have you considered the possibility that I simply got one word wrong when quoting from memory a book I read three decades ago?

I'd looked it up, too, for the same reason, and figured that out. Yeah, both are "know" in English and "sapere" in Italian, but the line that follows makes the quote funnier (and perhaps the satire more obvious): "My German's poor, so I'll graduate." (Italian: Io non lo so abbastanza, così mi laureo.)
While looking I also came across another funny one here from Mark Twain: "Never knew before what eternity was made for. It is to give some of us a chance to learn German."
I don't remember hearing that particular quote from Mark Twain before but anyone who has studied German is probably familiar with his essay on The Awful German Language.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby dEhiN » 2021-08-01, 9:37

I have to say, I'm a little jealous of the Youtuber xiaomannyc. I've seen one or two of his videos before and despite clickbait video titles, he seems like a genuinely down-to-earth guy who likes to learn languages and has made a channel (at least partially) out of practicing the language with native speakers. I saw a video suggestion for one of his about language learning tips; that might be interesting to watch to see what he says. But, to me, he seems to clearly be a language enthusiast like all of us and has worked hard to make a brand channel out of his passion. I will say, watching him practice speaking gives me more confidence to not worry about my mistakes with native speakers in real-life situations. In the past, I've been ok practicing speaking in language exchange situations but those aren't at all similar to real life ones.

OT, I'm wanderlusting a little for Spanish. I do know some Spanish, though I consider it third best after French and Portuguese. But I've been listening to a lot of Spanish/Spanglish pop music lately. And today, I was calling the gift card support line of a Canadian national pharmacy chain, and they must have contracted out the customer service to somewhere in Latin America because I heard the ringing change tones as well as the agent had a Latin American accent. I initially conversed in English, but eventually worked up the courage to throw in some Spanish. I couldn't grasp all he replied back but I did catch "have a good day", to which I went to reply "you too", and froze. Well, I started with , almost said aussi and then remembered it was también. I also remembered that it should be usted, so I corrected myself.

Finally, one of my company's clients is a business in Mexico and while their primary contact with us is bilingual, and so frequently acts as the translator for any employees who aren't comfortable in English, he is going to be tied up. So, the owner of the company I work for asked me, "how's your Spanish?" Sadly, I had to tell him beginner, though I did tell him my written is better than my spoken. Hopefully, that'll mean any help desk tickets that come in that are in Spanish will be sent to me, like the French ones are. Although, at least with the French ones, if I have to call the person who sent in the ticket, usually they are from Quebec and partially bilingual. Between their English and my French, we get by. I don't know if the same would happen with the employees of this Mexican company! Maybe it's better I don't respond to tickets in Spanish, so I don't give the impression I speak Spanish! On the other hand, there's no better opportunity to practice my Spanish than in a real-life situation.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby OldBoring » 2021-08-02, 10:30

Xiaoma's Mandarin is just average, I mean better than most learners, but still not "shocking".

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby dEhiN » 2021-08-02, 16:36

OldBoring wrote:Xiaoma's Mandarin is just average, I mean better than most learners, but still not "shocking".

What level would say he's at? Also, what would the name Xiaoma be in English?
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby OldBoring » 2021-08-03, 8:31

He's probably intermediate, maybe like A2-B1? His speech is not that fluent, and has a strong European/American accent.
Many learners speak better Mandarin than he.
Xiaoma is a form of addressing that doesn't exist in English. Young people in China can be addressed colloquially as xiao+surname, where Xiao means little/young, and Ma is a Chinese surname (马).
It would be like calling someone Lil Watson.
Many Chinese learners give themselves a Chinese name, which is not related to their English name.
Like Vijay is 王建国 (Wang Jianguo), and Francesco doesn't have anything to do with Yangfan.

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby linguoboy » 2021-08-03, 14:07

OldBoring wrote:Many Chinese learners give themselves a Chinese name, which is not related to their English name.
Like Vijay is 王建国 (Wang Jianguo), and Francesco doesn't have anything to do with Yangfan.

The very first day of class at the Chinese Mutual Aid Association consisted of the teacher (a native speaker from Nantong) assigning each of us Chinese names, even though several of those students never attended class again. I think only two of us had already chosen names previously.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Linguaphile » 2021-08-03, 14:45

linguoboy wrote:The very first day of class at the Chinese Mutual Aid Association consisted of the teacher (a native speaker from Nantong) assigning each of us Chinese names, even though several of those students never attended class again. I think only two of us had already chosen names previously.

My first French and German teachers did that on the first day as well. (Not Chinese names, of course, but French and German names respectively.) :D

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby linguoboy » 2021-08-03, 16:41

Linguaphile wrote:
linguoboy wrote:The very first day of class at the Chinese Mutual Aid Association consisted of the teacher (a native speaker from Nantong) assigning each of us Chinese names, even though several of those students never attended class again. I think only two of us had already chosen names previously.

My first French and German teachers did that on the first day as well. (Not Chinese names, of course, but French and German names respectively.) :D

I've heard of elementary school teachers doing this but none of my language teachers on the secondary or tertiary level had ever bothered before. (I arrived at my college Korean class with a Sinitic name already picked out; my teacher taught me the Sino-Korean pronunciation and then chose a surname for me, which I used for the rest of that class. The other non-Koreans in the class--there were only two--simply went by their Western names.)

I get the feeling that having multiple names is more normalised among Chinese-speakers. After all, I would guess all speakers of non-Mandarin varieties are used to being called by a different name in Mandarin than they are in the home. People who teach English in China have told me that their students often show up to class with English names already picked out or ask for help selecting one.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Dormouse559 » 2021-08-03, 17:17

linguoboy wrote:
Linguaphile wrote:
linguoboy wrote:The very first day of class at the Chinese Mutual Aid Association consisted of the teacher (a native speaker from Nantong) assigning each of us Chinese names, even though several of those students never attended class again. I think only two of us had already chosen names previously.

My first French and German teachers did that on the first day as well. (Not Chinese names, of course, but French and German names respectively.) :D

I've heard of elementary school teachers doing this but none of my language teachers on the secondary or tertiary level had ever bothered before. (I arrived at my college Korean class with a Sinitic name already picked out; my teacher taught me the Sino-Korean pronunciation and then chose a surname for me, which I used for the rest of that class. The other non-Koreans in the class--there were only two--simply went by their Western names.)

My high school French teacher helped us choose French names. I was Fernand :) There are some students from those classes who I only remember with their French names.
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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Linguaphile » 2021-08-03, 18:42

Dormouse559 wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Linguaphile wrote:
linguoboy wrote:The very first day of class at the Chinese Mutual Aid Association consisted of the teacher (a native speaker from Nantong) assigning each of us Chinese names, even though several of those students never attended class again. I think only two of us had already chosen names previously.

My first French and German teachers did that on the first day as well. (Not Chinese names, of course, but French and German names respectively.) :D

I've heard of elementary school teachers doing this but none of my language teachers on the secondary or tertiary level had ever bothered before. (I arrived at my college Korean class with a Sinitic name already picked out; my teacher taught me the Sino-Korean pronunciation and then chose a surname for me, which I used for the rest of that class. The other non-Koreans in the class--there were only two--simply went by their Western names.)

My high school French teacher helped us choose French names. I was Fernand :) There are some students from those classes who I only remember with their French names.

Yes, exactly; that issue with not knowing classmates' real names is one of the reasons I've never really like the practice of assigning "foreign language" names to students. Most of the high school language teachers at my school did this.
I also had some teachers (not language teachers) who assigned "English" names to students with "foreign" names they had trouble pronouncing. :evil: I especially don't approve of that.
Maybe the prevalence of Chinese-speakers using "Western" names actually influences that; at some point a teacher has had a Chinese student named Hong Mei who says "but you can call me Hannah" and then when that teacher sees the Hmong name Npaujnpaim* on the roll sheet they say "Yeah no, I'm just gonna call you Paula all year," thinking it's the same thing as calling Hong Mei "Hannah". But it's not the same thing at all (it's not part of Hmong culture the way the practice is part of Chinese culture, and it's being imposed by the teacher rather than initiated by the student, etc).
Because of this I've never been all that comfortable with using "English" or "Western" names for people whose given names are actually from other cultures/languages, even when the person in question is the one who initiates it. (I've had friends from Singapore and Ghana who were actually quite annoyed with me over that, as they really preferred that I use their Western names rather than their Chinese and Akan names and it took me a bit too long to realize it.)

* /ᵐbau˥˧ ᵐbai˩˧/ or as the student would probably recommend if asked, "Bao Bai" or simply "Bao".

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Re: Wanderlust support group 5

Postby Dormouse559 » 2021-08-03, 21:41

Linguaphile wrote:Yes, exactly; that issue with not knowing classmates' real names is one of the reasons I've never really like the practice of assigning "foreign language" names to students. Most of the high school language teachers at my school did this.
Well, at the time, I knew their real names, but many of us only interacted in French class, so their French names are what have stuck a decade later.

I do think names chosen by students, as was the case in my class, can have value in teaching an L2, since you don't have to worry at first about how to handle names that aren't native to that language. Plus, you get a bit of creative expression; I could have simply gone from Matthew to Matthieu, but I chose Fernand because I liked the sound. But there's obviously a lot less baggage involved in a bunch of native English speakers picking French names for themselves as a learning method than there is in an Anglophone teacher unilaterally ignoring a student's real name for nothing but the teacher's own comfort.
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